Day After Halt on Vaccination Drive in Maharashtra, Health Minister Says Exercise to Resume Tomorrow

After Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope’s statement earlier on the cancellation of Covid-19 vaccination drive till Monday, he has now said that the second session would be conducted on Tuesday, the Times of India reported. The MVA government has issued a clarification saying the exercise was not planned for Sunday and Monday, and “thus there was no question of a cancellation”.

He added it was likely that all four sessions allowed in a week would be wrapped up in four straight days.

Tope had cited technical glitches in Co-WIN application for the cancellation. The mobile application has been created by the Centre for managing registration for the inoculation. The nationwide vaccine drive against coronavirus began on January 16 for three crore people on priority.

“No Covid vaccination sessions were planned on Sunday the 17th or Monday the 18th of January. So question of cancellation does not arise. Covid Vaccination sessions will be organized in the next week as per GOI (government of India) guidelines,” the Maharashtra government had said.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had in its earlier statement said that while implementing the Covid-19 vaccination drive, technical problems were noticed in the Co-WIN app.

“Efforts are being made by the central government to address the problem. A digital registration is mandatory when vaccinating the jabs. The government had allowed offline registration today due to a technical problem. However, the government has directed that all further entries be made through the app. In view of this, Covid-19 vaccination has been postponed for two days in Mumbai on Sunday (January 17) and Monday (January 18). Vaccination will resume as soon as the Co-WIN app resumes,” the civic body had said.

Tope had told PTI that “not just in Maharashtra, everywhere in the country this app created problems in the execution of vaccination drive”.

“We have decided to suspend the vaccination for the next two days. On January 8, when dry run was conducted, and again today I specifically pointed out problems with the Co-Win app and Union Minister Harsh Vardhan said he will look into it,” the minister reportedly said.

On the first day of the drive, of 4,000 healthcare workers scheduled for vaccination at nine centres in the city, only 1,926 were administered the jab, BMC data showed. The highest 289 healthcare workers were given vaccines at Rajawadi hospital, followed by 266 at Bhabha hospital, and 262 at Cooper hospital which was also part of the nationwide live launch of the drive by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here