An indicator of slow movement is the widening of the middle Pune and MumbaiCoverage of – Both the cities have been vaccinating the maximum number of people since the start of the COVID vaccination program on January 16 (the state capital is still leading).
In the past few months, Mumbai – which contains a large population – has had at least 10. had an edge lakh Cumulative vaccination in Pune. But in the last few days of August, this difference has increased to 13 to 14 lakh doses.
Overall, till July 21, Mumbai had given around 67.98 lakh doses, while Pune had around 57.04 lakh. As of August 14 (as per CoWIN), Mumbai’s total was 82.36 lakh, but Pune’s was 68.67 lakh, which means Mumbai is now ahead of Pune by about 14 lakh doses.
Another indicator of slowdown is the number of people vaccinated per season in Pune, which declined to 108 in early August, from at least 123 in early July. As far as the vaccine shortage is concerned, earlier this month over 300 civilian-sites were unable to start the season due to limited supplies. The district had received only about 90,000 doses during the first 10 days of August.
Sanjay Deshmukh, Assistant Director (Medical), Pune Circle, said, “The number of private hospitals carrying out COVID vaccination is much higher in Mumbai than in Pune. Recently, several small hospitals in the state capital have also joined the vaccination drive. Again, their numbers are higher than in Pune, where the pace of vaccination slowed down during the first 10 days of August.”
Deshmukh said barring two days, on August 14 and August 12 – when the district received 1.2 lakh and 2.26 lakh doses respectively – most of the months so far have seen limited supplies.
He said there was a difference of only a few thousand cumulative doses between Pune and Mumbai till the end of May. The gap widened in June and July and further widened in August due to the large participation of private hospitals in Mumbai. He said Pune was also allotted a lower dose.
Deshmukh said, “There were more corporate drives in Mumbai, which has more companies. The private sector helped to gain a bigger lead over Pune. But if one compares vaccination by government centers in Pune and Mumbai, both The cities are almost equal.” Said.
On Friday, around 50,000 people received their COVID shots from private hospital sites in Mumbai. In Pune, private sites were able to cover only 13,000.
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