Several private hospitals in Kolkata saw a high number of cancellations of Covid vaccine bookings on Monday and Tuesday because of rain, officials of the hospitals said.
Hundreds of people, many of whom are awaiting their second shot, called up the hospitals saying they would not turn up for the jab because of bad weather.
At Belle Vue Clinic, 250 people had booked slots on Tuesday, but only 115 arrived, said an official of the hospital.
On Monday, there were 300 bookings but only 163 turned up. The hospital did not administer doses on the Puja days. Before the Puja, around 200 people were taking the shot every day.
“The callers wanted to defer the appointments because of rain,” said the Belle Vue official.
At the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, too, there were cancellations.
“On Monday and Tuesday, 120 to 130 people took the shot. We hope the numbers will rise once the weather improves,” said R. Venkatesh, regional director, east, Narayana Health, which runs the RN Tagore hospital.
Barely 50 people were taking the vaccine daily on the festive days at the hospital. The count varied between 200 and 300 in the run-up to the festivity.
At Peerless Hospital, only 92 people took their shot on Tuesday and more than 100 had cancelled their bookings, said Sudipta Mitra, chief executive of the hospital.
The daily count had dropped below 20 during the puja but before that around 150 were being vaccinated every day.
The demand for vaccination at private hospitals has gone down over the past few weeks because many people have taken their first dose of Covishield. Their second dose will be due 84 days after the first. “The demand for Covaxin has gone down, too,” said officials.
