Mumbai: Drive-in Covid-19 vaccination point a hit, may get more doses

A senior citizen gets her shot in a car at the drive-in facility at Kohinoor parking lot on Wednesday. Pic/Suresh Karkera

The success of the city's first drive-in vaccination centre, albeit only 24 hours old, has prompted BMC to consider increasing the number of doses administered here on a daily basis. The multi-storeyed Kohinoor parking lot near Shivaji Park in Dadar has now been converted into an immunisation point with seven vaccination booths, of which, two are dedicated to drive-ins where the specially abled and senior citizens can queue up in the comfort of their cars and get the shot. The centre can administer up to 5,000 jabs per day for those above 45 years of age and looking to receive their second shot of Covishield.

Assistant municipal commissioner Kiran Dighavkar told mid-day: "We had kept aside a minimum of 500 vaccine doses for cars coming through the drive-in facility but since the response has been so good…we may increase this limit at the drive-in facility if the number of cars keeps on increasing. We can always divert it [the doses] from the original 5,000 doses."

Dighavkar said 417 people were vaccinated in 330 cars on Tuesday at the drive-in facility. He said the vaccination process at this facility was longer than usual. "It takes more time to get vaccinated in your car; the vehicle needs to stop, people need to register, then move forward, get vaccinated, and then stay under observation in their cars for a 30-minute period. If a normal vaccination centre can administer 1,000 doses per day, we can only do 500 [50%]," he said.

Explaining the rationale behind the drive-in facility, the official said, "A lot of people were continuously calling us and saying that their family members were bedridden and could not walk or stand for long; some had dialysis issues." A drive-in inoculation point is a makeshift arrangement in the absence of home vaccination, said Dighavkar. As more people warmed up to the move of getting the shots in their cars, the Sena Bhavan junction on Wednesday saw massive traffic jams, with a huge queue of vehicles on both sides, most of them either heading towards or back from the vaccination centre.