Star Report

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.