The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Monday told the Bombay high court that it does not perceive the coming of the much-feared third wave of the Coronavirus pandemic striking the Mumbai city.
The civic body has said that the vaccination drive is going smoothly and stated that more than 42 lakh people have been fully vaccinated and over 82 lakh people have got their first dose.
“The work is on. It is going on smoothly. Now, there is no shortage of vaccines too. Mumbai is safe. We do not see a third wave (of the Covid-19) coming,” Mr Anil Sakhare, BMC counsel, told the high court.
He further added that 2,586 bed-ridden people so far have been administered both the doses of COVID-19 vaccine while 3,942 such people have got the first jab.
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A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni was hearing a PIL filed by advocates Dhruti Kapadia and Kunal Tiwari earlier this year.
The petitioners have sought direction from the Union and Maharashtra governments to begin door-to-door vaccination for senior citizens who are aged 75 and above, for those specially-abled people and those who are bed-ridden.
The plea talks about people who cannot visit designated centres to get vaccinated.
The centre took a u-turn on its stance of not being able to offer a door-to-door vaccination service by approving the same last month.
As a pilot project, the government of Maharashtra will start a door-to-door vaccination drive for bed-ridden people.
According to Dhruti Kapadia’s statement in court, the purpose of filing the PIL has now been achieved as the centre has now come up with a policy to offer door-to-door vaccination.
Disposing of the plea, the court noted that, "We are happy now that even these persons are not deprived of the COVID-19 vaccine."
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On Sunday, Maharashtra recorded 2,692 fresh Covid cases that took the state’s overall count to 6,559,349. The tally of active cases was further decreased to 35,888 as 2,716 patients recovered from the diseases in the 24 hours.
The coronavirus situation in Maharashtra has been under control for the past few months. In September the daily average number of new cases declined to 3,368 cases against 4,944 in August, 7,737 in July and 10,542 in June.
However, the officials are worried about the impact that may result from the coming festive season that will span from October to November.