Senior citizens make a beeline for vax jab, civic body surprised

The sudden rise in the footfall of senior citizens and people above 45 years with comorbidities who arrived at the COVID-19 vaccination centres on Tuesday took the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) by surprise and led to chaos. According to the vaccination data provided by the civic body, 6,263 senior citizens were given a dose of the vaccine on Tuesday compared to the 1,722 shots administered just a day before. Similarly, 590 citizens above 45 were vaccinated.

Civic officials said, at the beginning of the day, the third stage of the inoculation process was delayed by at least two hours. There were also technical glitches in the Co-Win 2.0 application. They, however, said that the response of senior citizens was encouraging. Many of them had formed queues outside the designated inoculation centres from 9am. Many senior citizens returned without vaccine shots due to the glitches in the application.