PUNE: Daily Covid-19 vaccination is up statewide, but vaccine centres in Pune district continue to record low turnouts.
The lack of improvement is worrying. The district on Thursday recorded 217 cases — a 16% increase over Wednesday’s already high 187. Active cases in the state surpassed the 10,000-mark.
Officials said they are trying their best to boost vaccinations, but admitted hesitancy remains a big hurdle.
According to
CoWIN, 16,000-17,000 people in Pune district were getting vaccinated every day in the second week of May. Towards May-end, daily count dropped to 6,000-7,000. As of Wednesday, it rose slightly to 11,000, but the ideal number is in the high five figures, considering there are nearly 6.34 lakh people, in PMC limits alone, who haven’t yet taken the second dose of the vaccine.
Civic officials — across Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad and rural limits — have been going door-to-door as part of the 'Har ghar dastak' campaign (restarted on June 1) to widen coverage. But they said since
Covid
vaccination is not mandatory, they can only make requests.
Dr
Suryakant Devkar, the PMC's chief immunization officer, said, “As of Wednesday, we have visited 49,876 houses. In these houses, we had identified over 4,129 beneficiaries who had missed the due date for their second dose. During counselling, the majority simply refused to say why they didn’t want the shot.”
He added that others cited sickness, fear of side-effects and low caseloads as reasons.
The reluctance has started to show up in Pune city’s coverage data.
Since June 1, out of the more than 4,000 beneficiaries identified, civic officials going door-to-door have been able to convince only 38 people to get their Covid jabs. PCMC Commissioner, Rajesh Patil said, “There is now absolutely no fear of the virus among citizens, which is why the daily vaccination rate has dipped. We cannot force people to take the jabs.”
For Pune rural,
Zilla Parishad
CEO Ayush Prasad urged people to take the vaccine. Volunteers, since June 1, have reached nearly 4,117 villages, of which 3,992 villages were found to have 100% first-dose coverage. But only 984 villages showed full second-dose coverage.
Also, fewer than 40,000 healthcare and frontline workers in rural areas have taken their booster shots.