Mumbai prepares to vaccinate 50,000 daily and put an end to lockdowns

 The city’s Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal and his deputy Suresh Kakani, who’s in charge of the vaccination drive, spoke in separate interviews this week

India’s business and financial hub Mumbai, once the country’s coronavirus hotspot, is building facilities to store 10 million doses of the vaccine as it aims to open fully from a strict lockdown. The city’s Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal and his deputy Suresh Kakani, who’s in charge of the vaccination drive, spoke in separate interviews this week before the start of a nationwide rollout on Saturday. Their responses are edited for clarity.

Q. What’s the plan?

Chahal: Mumbai’s population that comes under the Municipal Corporation is about 15 million. We plan to create vaccine storage capacity of a little more than 10 million, which will be adequate as the vaccination will be done in phases. We have formed 500 teams, each having two vaccinators, two support staff and one security guard. They will initially run the vaccination program at eight centers, which can inject 12,000 people a day.

Kakani: Capacity will rise to 50,000 people daily within a week, subject to availability of vaccines and people’s response. New centers will eventually be opened in each ward, so people won’t have to travel very far.

Q. Whom will you vaccinate?

Kakani: The vaccination will be done in phases. Phase 1 focuses on health care providers and the second will be for other frontline workers such as hospital cleaning staff, ambulance drivers, security guards. Chahal: We have registered 130,000 health workers and around 200,000 frontline workers through the CoWin app and the federal government is allocating vaccine vials based on these numbers. Mumbai has received 139,500 vaccine doses compared with the 130,000 requested for the first phase, which can be completed in 10 days. There is no clarity yet from the federal government regarding when the third phase will start…Read More