Kolkata: With less than 36 hours to go for a new vaccination schedule to take off, the Ministry of Health in Kolkata Municipal Corporation is faced with a dilemma – if they continue to manage Jab at the current speed or if they use brakes just a little to build a buffer? While the first will mean fewer males, the latter will ensure that the inoculation drive does not face uncertainty and continues without interruption regardless of constraints in supply and allocations.
According to a new schedule, the second dose will be given on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the first dose on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Kuningan Civic has not made a call, especially in terms of the Covishield vaccine because of its irregular supply and a second-dose fat increase.
At present, KMC is given around 25,000-30,000 Jab Covishield every day for the first and second dose recipient.
In the future, the Civic Ministry of Health can continue to manage 25,000 doses to the first dose or the second dose receipt every day, depending on the day of the week.
Or KMC can provide around 15,000 jabs a day to the first and second dose recipient.
“Until now, we have been inoculating around 1.5 lakh people a week, or 25,000 in a day.
Of this amount, around 15,000 are the second dose and 10,000 first dose recipients.
We can continue to give 15,000 shots to the second dose recipient or 45,000-50,000 shots A week on three days allocated to the second dose recipient and the same number of doses as the first dose recipient on three days.
This will allow us to build a 50,000 dose buffer in a week.
But it will also mean an increase in the second dose pendency rate.
Or, we can Continuing with current speed and managing 25,000 doses every day.
If we do this, there will be no supporting supplies and uncertainty about vaccination the next day will remain, “a health official explained.
Other health officials explain that KMC is directed at vaccinating as many people as possible if they receive inventory.
In June, there were days when the Civic body has been inoculating 60,000 people.
This might be because at that time, most vaccines reached the country being allocated to KMC.
However, the situation changed with most vaccines which are now allocated to districts to increase the inoculation of drives there.
In Kolkata, 51.4 doses of lakh have been given, where 37.8 lakh is a dose of one and 13.6 lakh is the second dose.