Many households are shutting doors on civic health workers, making it difficult for them to identify the people who are yet to be vaccinated against Covid or have not taken the second dose.
Civic officials said they were going door-to-door to find out whether any individual or family has remained unvaccinated.
Health workers of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) are handing slips, with confirmed appointment for the jab, to such individuals. Those with such slips do not need to stand in a queue for long at vaccination centres.
“We have noticed that many unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people are turning up at civic vaccination centres after our health workers called on them,” said an official of the KMC.
“But what worries us is the reluctance of many households to let our health workers in or share information about vaccination with them. It is impossible to identify unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people if health workers are not allowed to talk to them.”
KMC officials said there were about 33 lakh vaccinable people in Kolkata. But the number of doses administered is much more than that because people from neighbouring districts have taken their jabs in the city.
“Despite figures showing that we have vaccinated more than the vaccinable population of Kolkata, we are still coming across unvaccinated people during house visits. This is an indication that there are still a sizeable number of unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people,” said a KMC official.
The Telegraph had on December 1 reported that pregnant women and lactating mothers were among those who were unvaccinated because they feared vaccines could harm them or their children.
Health workers explained to these women and their family members that the government’s guidelines mentioned that these women should get vaccinated and there was no fear of any adverse effects.
“We have noticed that many pregnant women and lactating mothers turned up at our vaccination centers after a nudge from our health workers,” said an official.
The daily vaccination number in the city has dropped significantly compared to what it was about two months back.
According to the CoWin website, the daily Covid vaccine doses administered in the city between Wednesday and Friday was around 17,000.
“The daily vaccination numbers had touched over 50,000 several days earlier. Even a couple of months ago, the numbers steadily remained in the range between 35,000 and 40,000,” said a KMC official.