Around 49% of people over the age of 45 in the district have taken the first dose of the vaccine with 5.78 lakh of the total 11.76 lakh people in the age group availing themselves of the facility. Over 1.06 lakh have taken the second.
Over 4 lakh people were scheduled to take the second dose soon, said Dr. M.G. Sivadas, nodal officer for vaccination. Additional stock would have to be made available to start administering the first dose to people who haven’t taken the shots, he said.
Although people had to wait at vaccination centres for hours to be allotted tokens for the second dose, the online slot booking system could not be reintroduced, Dr. Sivadas said. Since changes could not be made locally to the CoWIN portal, slot bookings only for the second dose cannot be allowed on the portal. The district was prioritising people for the second dose. If slot bookings were opened up, it would be available to everybody, leading to confusion, he said.
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The district was also awaiting additional stock to set up separate centres for people who took their first shot at private hospitals and were awaiting their second shot.
On Tuesday morning, the district had 28,230 doses of the two vaccines remaining (15,660 doses of Covishield and 12,570 doses of Covaxin). A total of 13,189 doses were administered on Tuesday at 89 vaccination sites.
On Wednesday, only 16 vaccination centres would be operational, since sufficient stock is available only for these, Dr. Sivadas said.
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So far, a total of 9.17 lakh doses of the two COVID vaccines have been administered in Ernakulam.
While a total of 7.08 lakh people have taken the first dose, 2.09 lakh people have taken the second dose as well.