Pune: The city considered as epicentre of the novel coronavirus is witnessing a decline in a number of new COVID-19 cases. As the number of active COVID-19 cases in Pune city are decreasing, people in Pune await vaccination.
PUNEITIES AWAIT COVID-19 VACCINE DOSE
For past few weeks, several Puneities are expressing angst over the alleged vaccine shortage in the city. Also, many second dose beneficiaries were unable to get the slot for vaccination as the city faced a shortage of vaccine. Several people were unable to find vaccine slots on CoWIN while many have already complained about online appointments available. With cases started decreasing, people in Pune now aim for getting vaccinated against the novel virus.
“In a huge sigh of relief, the cases in the city are decreasing. With people staying indoors and lockdown restrictions in place, this has helped the city to witness low cases. I was fearing to get vaccinated as I thought there will be a huge crowd at the centre but with now cases depleting, I am planning to get vaccinated in the next two days,” Yashwant Jadhav, a 55-year-old resident in Pune expressed.
On another side, a 62-year-old beneficiary who took the first dose of Covishield on March 19, said that he is due for this next dose but the acute shortage is delaying his jab. “It’s already late as I took my vaccine on March 19 but since the last one week, there has been an acute shortage. I have been repeatedly visiting vaccination centres but returning home with empty-hand. While the doses were reported as limited last week, I hope the situation is back to normal this week.”
Meanwhile, after gap of four days, people above age of 45 can receive their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) area starting Tuesday. The civic body has also increased the number of vaccination centres for 18-44 years group.
Check out the vaccination centres for age group 18-44:
Pune Mayor Murlidhar Mohol on his official Twitter handle wrote, “Vaccination is planned according to the available vaccine dose and we are currently giving preference to the second dose for citizens above 45 years of age. For this, 97 centers for covshield and 18 centers for covacin have been made available.”
On Monday, 2,507 beneficiaries between the age of 18 and 44 years received the COVID-19 vaccines of the total beneficiaries 1,262 were vaccination in Pune rural, followed by 665 in PMC and 580 in PCMC.
MORE RECOVERIES IN CITY
In the continous surge in COVID-19 cases supported by rising concern and suffering, there is a piece of good news: For the last few days, the case count in Pune city has gone down consistently. the last few days, the number of recovered COVID-19 patients has been higher than the new infections in the Pune district.
From May 1, over 16,719 people in the city have fully recovered against the new 13,571 COVID-19 cases.
Of the total 97,309 active cases in the district, 40,701 are in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) followed by 21,619 in Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC). While there are 6,296 active cases in municipal councils while 1,579 are reported in cantonment areas.
LOCKDOWN IN BARAMATI
The Baramati tehsil administration will impose a strict lockdown in the city and 94 gram panchayats under it from May 5. The lockdown will remain in place till May 11 to curtail the spread of Covid-19. Incident commander Dadasaheb Kamble declared three separate orders for the town, industries and rural areas. According to the officials, COVID-19 cases were on surge at an alarming rate in the tehsil and a complete shutdown was the only option to control the situation. According to officials, almost the Baramati town is marked as a containment zones as most of its areas fall in the 19 wards that have active cases of the infection.
