Covid vaccination resumed at some private hospitals in the city. In places where the vaccination was on anyway, the number of recipients increased sharply on Saturday.

One hospital had to borrow doses from another to meet the increased demand. Many who have not taken their third or precautionary dose continued to make panic calls.

According to the state health department, 3,088 people received Covid vaccine doses across Bengal on Saturday. The number has gone up more than three times since December 22 when only 1,204 people had taken the dose.

Officials of several hospitals said they were getting panic calls from people, mostly seeking to take precautionary doses. Ruby General Hospital resumed its Covid vaccination after two months.

“We had stopped Covid vaccination for two months because there was no demand at all. Since Thursday evening, we have received nearly 100 calls from people wanting to take the precaution dose,” said Subhasish Datta, chief general manager, operations, Ruby hospital. He said 30 doses were administered on Saturday and the number was expected to go up to 50 daily in the next few days.

“Not only the elderly, many between 18 and 59 years also took the precaution dose on Saturday,” Datta said. The hospital has around 700 doses of Covishield. “Peerless Hospital requested for 200 doses of vaccine from us. We gave it to them,” said Datta.

Officials of Peerless said there was a sudden spurt in demand. “We had three to four recipients every day. But on Saturday, the number went up to 72,” said Sudipta Mitra, chief executive of Peerless Hospital. “We will place fresh orders for Covishield in a few days.” The hospital still has 4,000 doses of Covaxin.

RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences received around 75 calls for vaccination since Thursday evening.

“Our vaccination centre is closed for the last two months because there was absolutely no demand. We have exhausted our doses and did not procure fresh stock,” said R. Venkatesh, COO, east and south of Narayana Health that runs RN Tagore hospital.

“We are now discussing whether to procure fresh doses. We are in a dilemma because if this present panic goes away and people again do not take vaccines, then the stocks will pile up like last time,” he said.

In Bengal, till December 24, as many as 73,040,853 people have taken the first dose, according to the state health department. However, only 15,360,908 have taken precautionary dose.

Public health experts said although the Covid situation was under control currently and there was no need for panic, it was advisable to take all the three doses of the vaccine.