BMC readies nine jumbo centres to inoculate teens, active cases cross 22k-mark

Mumbai To inoculate the most number of teenagers between the age of 15-18 years, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to set up dedicated vaccination centres in nine of its jumbo centres in Mumbai.

The BMC said that it has set up dedicated vaccination centres in nine jumbo Covid centres of Mumbai, including the Richardson and Crudas at Byculla, the NESCO jumbo centre, the NSCI at Worli, the BKC jumbo centre and the Jumbo centres at Kanjurmarg, Malad, Mulund and Dahisar.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner and in charge of public health in the BMC, said that each of these centres will have at least three booths that will exclusively inoculate teenage beneficiaries.

“For the first one week, we have set up a target of inoculating 2,500 teenage beneficiaries in Mumbai per day. These jumbo centres have been activated exclusively for the specified age gap,” said Kakani. He mentioned that besides advance online registration, walk-in facilities will also be available for the teenagers at the jumbo centres.

“Besides this, all the local ward offices will connect with the administration of the municipal schools present in their ward so that the eligible students could be taken to the nearest jumbo centre for inoculation,” Kakani said.

“In the first one week, we are only going ahead with these nine jumbo centres for children. After seeing the response, we will start more facilities. We are also talking with colleges and universities so that facilities could be started at their campuses thereafter,” he said.

Dr Mangla Gomare, executive health officer in the BMC, said that at present, only dosages of Covaxin will be administered.

Meanwhile, Mumbai reported 6,180 cases taking the tally to 790,639. As the cases continue to rise, the active cases also crossed the 22,000-mark in the city on Saturday. The hospitalisation rate currently in the city is around nine per cent as the cases continuously go up. Further, one death took the death toll to 16,377.

The city’s recovery rate is 94% with 7,49,361 recoveries and the mortality rate is 2.07%. The active cases are 22,334 in the city. The city’s daily positivity rate on Saturday was 13.22% with 47,978 tests.

Dharavi, the city’s former hotspot, reported 24 cases, taking the total to 7,207. Further, no new Omicron variant cases were reported in the city for the second consecutive day. Till now, 327 cases of Omicron variant have been detected.

Those under home quarantine have also gone up from around 30,000 citizens last week to around 90,000 this week.

Further, according to be BMC data, out of the total cases reported, 5,712 were asymptomatic. Out of the rest, 389 were hospitalised.

According to BMC officials, the cases are increasing at an alarming pace for the past week, and are soon to reach peak second wave levels. Currently, no additional restrictions are being imposed in the city, but the state government is likely to take a call in the coming days.

Meanwhile, amid the rising cases in the city, experts asked citizens not to panic. Dr Rahul Pandit, a member of Maharashtra’s Covid-19 task force, posted on Twitter, “Do not panic, double masking, good air ventilation in closed spaces, vaccination, self discipline and self restrain is the mantra for new year.”