MUMBAI: Ten months after the mass Covid-19 vaccination programme started on January 16, Mumbai managed "100% coverage" of the first shot on Saturday.
"The target of giving the first dose to 92,39,902 people in Mumbai was achieved by noon on Saturday," said the BMC vaccine update.
Mumbai is now among the handful of cities and towns - Bhubhaneswar, which was the first in the country, Indore, Ladakh and Kinnaur, among others - to have statistically completed 100% first-dose coverage. Unlike the single-dose Covid vaccines available in the West, the Covid vaccines available in India require two shots for completion.
Around 1.5 crore vaccine doses have been given out so far in Mumbai, and the BMC is now focusing on completing the second shot coverage. Till Saturday, 60,33,148 (65% of the city's adult population) were fully vaccinated.
"We will not stop giving the first shot as 92.3 lakh was just a projection based on the census data and the number of eligible citizens. The total adult population of the city could be higher as new people keep coming into the city," said BMC additional commissioner Suresh Kakani.
"We want to continue vaccinating till everybody living in Mumbai or working here is safe," added Kakani.
There is another reason for the BMC to continue offering the first vaccine shot: many beneficiaries could have come from neighbouring satellite cities especially in the earlier months when vaccines were in a short supply. "Mumbai is geographically integrated with nearby satellite cities, so there is a possibility that 10% of the total beneficiaries so far came from outside the city," said Kakani.
On Saturday, the Centre's Cowin portal showed that 89,529 people had taken the vaccine in Mumbai. The BMC update said a reconciliation exercise had been carried out, leading to 31,730 shots given in private hospitals between May and October being added to take Saturday's tally to 1,18,237.
The Thane Municipal Corporation said it had delivered over 50,000 vaccine doses since it started the door-to-door drive in Thane four days ago.
