In a heartwarming story of grit, determination and plain desperation, a Maharashtra based man ended up travelling almost 10,000 kilometres across the whole of southern India in a quest to find a medical facility and vaccinate himself.
Mukund Deshpande, a 29-year-old IT executive currently working from home in the Latur district of Maharashtra, was overjoyed when the central government announced that all Indian citizens above the age of 18 can now get their vaccinations done at government and private hospitals. He was waiting anxiously for the day when the CoWIN app would open up and allow registrations for the jabs.
Once the registrations opened up, Mukund was one of the first to register on the platform on April 28th. This is when the wait began. Even after 2 weeks of waiting there was no indication that the slots for the 18+ category would open up anytime soon. Checking the COWIN website every 15 minutes started to take a toll on both his mental health and work.
“I initially thought that our efficient state and central governments would be able to complete all formalities and start the vaccination drive earlier than promised. Unfortunately, the proposed date of May 1st passed by and every passing day was making me more and more anxious.”
“By the 15th of May, I had already pissed off my boss, my girlfriend and my parents. The stress of not being vaccinated made me lash out at my parents who had managed to get their 1st dose a week earlier. I even asked them why they needed the vaccine as they have lived long enough. That is when I realised that I cannot sit and wait for the government to help me.”
After hearing that Mumbai was rolling out the vaccines for the age group, Mukund was tempted to drive over to Mumbai where he was based before the work from home concept was introduced. However, the high number of cases being registered made him uncomfortable making the trip.
Reading about how the southern states were performing much better in vaccinating their population, he decided to drive down to Belgaum where a friend told him that the hospital his sister worked for will be rolling out the vaccines in 2 days. Mukund promptly did a quick service of his trusted Tata Tigor and set out on the 450km journey. His biggest asset was the CoWIN app which told him about all the vaccine centres on his route.
“I figured that it will be a 10-hour drive which I can accomplish easily. I also got information that Solapur was going to be vaccinating in my age group so that was going to be my first stop on the way to Belgaum. However, I reached there too late as they had stopped the drive for the 18+ age group and was now just doing it for 45+. I finally reached Belgaum where I was told that walk-ins are not allowed and that I should have scheduled an appointment. This was a huge setback as I figured that just the registration was fine. The appointments had all been completed and it was also the last day so I had to make a quick decision.”
Read the full article at: http://thedailyvanilla.com/2021/06/12/man-covers-almost-10000-kms-in-search-for-vaccine-on-co-win-app/