Mass Vaccination Trial Run: Into a mire of mismanagement
There were just way more people than vaccine doses available.
Many vaccination centres across the country ran out of doses two or three hours after the so-called mass vaccination began.
People stood in mile-long queues on roads, crowds jammed themselves into vaccination centres and brawls broke out, turning into potential superspreading events. As the day progressed, thousands returned without jabs.
But the sheer number of angry crowds fighting to get the shot made it clear that vaccine hesitancy is not an issue.
A private service holder Syed Bin Amir narrated how he was turned away from two centres -- the former for not having an SMS, and the latter because the facility ran out of shots while he was waiting in queue.
"I went to the ward office of Dhanmondi number 15, where I was asked to provide a photocopy of my NID by a volunteer. I went off to get a photocopy, and by the time I came back, they said they had only 300 doses and that I would not get the jab," he described. This was at 10:40am, just an hour and a half after vaccination started.
Similarly, Kohinur Khyum Tithila went to Khilgaon Tilpapara Nagar Matrisadan and came back home without a sore arm. "A fight broke out at the centre, and it was so crowded I could not manage to get in. I don't understand why the vaccination programme of a contagious disease would be like this," she said.
In Rangpur, officials ran out of vaccine doses at every single booth at all the 83 unions in eight upazilas, said Civil Surgeon Hirambo Kumar Roy.
Only 250 doses of Sinopharm had been allocated for each booth, which was not enough for the people who gathered to get jabs. There were three booths in each ward and union.
There was shortage of doses in many vaccination centres in Chattogram.
Each of the 123 centres in the city had 300 doses in stock, but over a thousand people stood in queues for the vaccine in many of the centres.
Citizens demonstrated at Chattogram City Corporation Hospital around noon demanding inoculation. Police had to charge at the crowds with truncheons.
Shatabdi Shome, said she did not receive the vaccine despite standing in the queue at 7:00am. "We did not know that only 300 people would get the shot," she said.
Sujan Dev also stood in a queue at 7:00am at a booth in Chandgaon, but had to leave without his jab as the officials ran out of stock within one and a half hour.
Similarly, in Mirzaganj, Patuakhali, people were seen clearing out by noon from the centre at Rampur Government Primary School.
Fifty-year-old Shakila Begum expressed her disappointment at having stood from morning until noon and failing to get a vaccine.
Civil Surgeon Jahangir Alam said a total of 600 doses were given to each of the 76 unions in Patuakhali. "It is true that some people had to leave without getting vaccinated because there were not enough to go around in some centres."
In Narayanganj's ward number 13, Monir Miah told The Daily Star, "I went in around noon and waited an hour. At 1:00pm, I was told that the vaccines were finished."
Narayanganj Civil Surgeon Muhammad Imtiaz said in many centres, vaccines were finished by 2:00pm, while at certain booths, vaccinators had to wait until 5:00pm to administer all 200 shots.
Premananda Mandal, the civil surgeon of Sylhet, told our correspondent that they had to turn people away.
"We planned to administer 200 shots at each booth. But almost twice the number of people showed up," he said.
In Khulna city, almost all booths were done vaccinating within 2 hours, said the city corporation's health officer Dr Swapan Kumar Haldar. "This resulted in a lot of commotion at the centres," he said.
In Brahmanbaria, at Nabinagar upazila's Krishnanagar Abdul Jabbar School and College, people without masks crowded around the booths crying for vaccines after 12:00pm.
But there was none to go around, said Assistant Health Inspector Monirul Islam Bhuiyan.
At Bijoynagar upazila's Paharpur union parishad complex, Monju Akhter lamented how she stood in a line for 4 hours but was left without the jab. "People are standing chest-to-back without masks. This is going to further spread infection," she said.
At the vaccination points in Dinajpur's Birail upazila's Forkabad and Dhamoil union, vaccines ran out within two hours of starting.
Abu Sahadat Ripon, the secretary of Farkabad Union Parishad, said that around 800 people registered to get the vaccines on Saturday morning, but only 266 could be vaccinated.
Our Gazipur correspondent reported a similar situation where many booths had to close shop in two hours.
At Sreepur's Pilot Girl's High School centre, people were told that the centre was out of vaccines at noon.
In Munshiganj's Louhajang, Upazila Health Officer Nur-e-Alam Khan told our correspondent that 5 unions out of 10 saw a shortage of doses. Meanwhile at Sirajdikhan, two out of nine unions saw a similar shortage.
CONFUSION AND PHOTO-OP
Even though he is not trained for it, lawmaker Enamul Haque administers a shot to a person at Baghmara of Rajshahi yesterday.
The photo of him giving the jab made the rounds in social media.
This paper could not reach the MP for Rajshahi-4 constituency for comments.
Dhamrai city mayor seemingly took the opportunity to administer a vaccine dose on a citizen himself according to a photo that went viral on social media, and caused an outcry.
Mayor Golam Kabir Mollah, who is also the chairperson of the poura Awami League, is not medically certified to push vaccines.
Contacted, said he was just posing. "I was simply pretending," he said.
In several places, certain individuals were mistakenly given two shots back to back.
In Brahmanbaria's Sarail upazila a 38-year-old woman named Rozina Begum got two jabs in 30 minutes. Her husband told journalists that she had taken the jab and was waiting for her vaccine card, when a health worker approached her and gave her another shot.
A similar incident happened in Rajbari where a woman got two doses. This happened in Baliakandi upazila's Narua Union.
Thirty-one-year-old Ismat Ara had taken the jab and was waiting for the designated half-an-hour to observe side-effects when a health worker came by and administered a second dose.
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