MUMBAI: Maharashtra administered 6,14,667 Covid-19 vaccine doses till late Wednesday night, topping its previous day’s record of 5.55 lakh shots.
Mumbai, too, vaccinated over 1 lakh people for the third day in a row.
The state has so far administered 2.9 crore doses—2.4 crore have got one dose and 56.8 lakh both.
According to state data, over 45% of the 45-plus population has been covered with at least one dose.
Mumbai sees more free jabs than paid second day in rowHoping to keep the vaccination momentum alive, Dr Pradeep Vyas, additional chief secretary, said the state expected more doses to arrive from the Centre in the next two days.
After Mumbai that administered 1,11,110 lakh doses on Wednesday, Pune also inched closer to the 1 lakh mark by administering 91,368 doses.
State officials said they have already started to plan how to speed up the drive further.
“We can achieve up to 10 lakh vaccinations a day.
As we get more vaccines, we still speed up more,” said N Ramaswami, commissioner, National Health Mission.
According to state data, at least seven districts, including Hingoli, Nanded, Palghar, Aurangabad, Solapur, Jalgaon and Parbhani, have covered less than 30% of the population above 45 years, considered more at risk of hospitalisation and death.
Ramaswami said districts that are lagging behind in terms of coverage are being allocated more doses so that they can catch up with the rest.
Kolhapur and Sindhudurg continue to top the chart having covered nearly 70% with at least a single dose.
In Mumbai, civic officials are hopeful of keeping the momentum alive, although they were uncertain of receiving vaccine doses on Thursday.
The city on Wednesday administered 1.1 lakh doses, of which 75,347 were in the public centres and 35,763 at the private centres; for the second day, more free vaccines were administered than paid ones.
Overall, 38.7 lakh people have taken the first dose and 9.3 lakh the second in Mumbai.
Dr Sheela Jagtap, head of immunisation for BMC, said they had 1.15 lakh doses of Covishield and 33,000 doses of Covaxin at the beginning of the drive on Wednesday.
“If we don’t get the doses, we may slow down a bit.
But, overall, the rush is back since people above 18 years have been allowed at the public centres,” she said.
While the younger population is mainly queuing up at the vaccination centres now, there is a worry that a chunky proportion of people above 45 years and senior citizens may not have taken the vaccine at all.
Civic officials said they plan to start an awareness campaign once the supply of doses is more streamlined.
The head of a private hospital said most people who were willing to take the vaccine have taken it.
“Now the majority who are left are either from the non-affluent class who are not so aware or the ones who are hesitant.
It is time to start an awareness campaign,” he said.
Private hospitals, meanwhile, awaited clarity on procuring vaccines.
A civic official said while bigger chains had earlier managed to get doses, standalone ones were without vaccines.