Vaccine slots fill up within 1 hour
GHAZIABAD AND NOIDA HAVE RECEIVED 35,000 AND 42,000 VACCINE DOSES, RESPECTIVELY
GHAZIABAD: Slots for Covid-19 vaccination for the 18-44 years category, which opened up on Sunday for the coming week, were almost fully booked within an hour in Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar, officials said.
According to the Ghaziabad health department, they had received 35,000 doses on Saturday and correspondingly, increased the number of vaccination centres from 16 the previous week to 28, for the drive from May 17 to 22.
“We created the sessions Sunday morning and the slots got booked within minutes. Twelve more centres were added for the upcoming week, with an average of 200-300 doses per centre. More centres could be created as we had received stock of 35,000 doses for the 18-44 age group, apart from 25,000 for the 45+ category on Sunday from the store at Meerut,” said Dr Vishram Singh, district immunisation officer of Ghaziabad.
The slots opened up at around 11am and within an hour, a majority were booked, the Cowin portal showed. Vaccinations for the 18-44 years’ age group started in the two districts on May 10.
Beneficiaries who have registered online said they were eagerly waiting for slots to open up.
“It was like fastest finger first as slots were getting booked within minutes. It was almost as if tatkal tickets for railway trains are being sold. I had filled in all the details and opted for the centre nearest to my house. Luckily, I got a slot for Monday. I tried last week but I missed the opportunity as there were no slots,” said Prateek Kaushik, 32, a resident of Delhi Gate in Ghaziabad.
Residents in GB Nagar booked slots at a faster pace on Sunday. However, some still missed the registrations. “We kept trying to book a slot in Noida but to no avail. Eventually we gave up. Every time we logged on, it showed booked for all centres near us and ‘not available’ for later dates. Finally, my wife and I booked a slot in Delhi for later this week,” said Lalit Garg, a resident of Sector 56, Noida.
By Sunday afternoon, the Cowin portal showed very few slots available in GB Nagar. Majority of the bookings were in rural centres at community health centres at Jewar, Nagar Panchayat Jahangirpur, Rabupura, sub-centre and Ghijore.
“We created about 32 centres for vaccinations of those from 18-44 years. The slots got booked very fast on Sunday. We received about 42,000 doses from the vaccine depot at Meerut for this week. We are trying to provide 7,000 doses daily to beneficiaries in this category,” said Dr Deepak Ohri, chief medical officer of GB Nagar district.
Meanwhile, GB Nagar on Sunday recorded four deaths due to Covid-19, pushing the district’s death toll to 385, according to the state’s daily health bulletin. Also, the district reported 377 new cases, taking the tally of active cases to 6,412. On the other hand, Ghaziabad reported 273 fresh cases, taking the total active cases to 3,792, while seven patients died of the virus.