City clocks over 50K jabs for the third consecutive day

Kolkata: Kolkata has set a new record in daily vaccination by surpassing the 50,000-mark on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) which is the mega player in inoculation in the city is hopeful of taking this figure to 1 lakh per day, if there is adequate supply of vaccine from the centre. The figure was hovering around 27,000 till Wednesday. On Saturday over 57,000 were inoculated in Kolkata.

"For the past one week, the total vaccination figure per day was steadily increasing and on Tuesday it was 27,000. The supply of vaccine has slightly improved over the past few days and so we have almost doubled our vaccination in the last two days. However, we have the capacity of inoculating nearly 1 lakh people per day with the robust infrastructure that we have developed, if we get a steady supply from the centre," a senior official of KMC's Health department said.

KMC has 200 centres in the city for providing the jab, the highest in the state. Out of this figure of 50,000, more than 43,000 people have received the jab from the KMC facilities and the rest from the private hospitals in the city.

Subrata Roy Chowdhury, Chief Municipal Health Officer KMC said that the civic body is leaving no stone unturned to increase the vaccination figure with each passing day as health experts have said that inoculation is of prime importance to fight the third wave of COVID.

"We need to have a steady supply of vaccine so that our vaccination centres can run in full steam," he added. The KMC has not been able to start vaccination for the age group of 18-44 (except for those in the super spreader category) as it is not sure of sustainability in supply of vaccine from the centre.

Presently, the civic body is inoculating persons above 45 from 141 health centres spanned across the 16 boroughs. 101 centres are providing Covishield while 40 centres are administering Covaxin. Vaccination through whats app chat bot is being done in 5 mega centres — Bidhan Sishu Udyan in Ultadanga, Roxy Cinema, South City International School, St.Xaviers College and Quest Mall, where drive-in vaccination is taking place.

People can book their slots through whats app number 8335999000 and avail vaccine in these mega centres.

The super spreader category that includes transport workers, hawkers, shopkeepers, market vendors etc who are of 18 years and above are being inoculated from 49 mega

centres.