The lack of proper enumeration of the total number of elderly in the state has skewed vaccination coverage figures as districts are reporting coverage as high as 120% and 107% in a couple of instances as of August 8. This is worrisome as estimates affect allocation of vaccines, and the amount of resources a district is allocated.
Experts suggest a more effective way to undertake the vaccination drive is to start off using these estimates but later do micro-planning by way of house-to-house surveys or by using voters' lists available with every district collector to check the actual number of beneficiaries in a priority group.
The state health department put out an estimate of population aged above 60 years in March this year (when the drive for the elderly began) as 54,87,399, as per 2011 census projection. As per the CoWIN portal, 78,54,941 first and second doses have been administered to the elderly as of August 11 at 9 am.
But it did not reveal by what percentage this exceeds the population projection they went by as they did not provide a first and second dose breakup for the elderly.
District administrations say one cannot say what percentage of the elderly (who are most susceptible to severe Covid and see relatively higher mortalities compared to other age groups) are unvaccinated five months after the process to jab them began because the targets are based on projections for 2021 made from 2011 census.
Kodagu district, for example, was told by the State that 8.9% of their total population (5.51 lakh) comprises the elderly. This translates to 50,198 people but the district has already vaccinated 60,615 (120.75%) with the first dose as of August 8 and the numbers are still rising.
Dr Devin Karkada, from the Kodagu district war room, told DH, "People who were 50 years then and who are senior citizens now after 10 years, do not figure in the targets. Also, it doesn't account for migrants to the state." Similarly, Ramanagara district has an achievement of 107.06% with 1,20,546 vaccinated as on August 8over a target of 1,12,593.
Dr P C Kumaraswamy, District Immunisation Officer, Chitradurga, did not rely on projections made by the state and took the effort of getting a door-to-door survey done. "We were told 7% of the population (1,47,000) are senior citizens. But we made a line list by asking our ASHAs to go house-to-house and found 1,50,464 elderly," he said. The district has vaccinated 94.13% (1,41,633) of its elderly as of August 8.
A source said, "All microplans of how many vaccination officers should be deployed, how many intramuscular injections need to be given, and how many vaccine doses are to be allocated are based on these estimates. Voters' lists can be easily used to crosscheck. A more effective way is to start with these projections initially and later do house-to-house surveys."
Vaccination (60+ years) as on August 8:
District Target Vaccinated (first dose)
Koppal 1,03,180 97,088 (94.09%)
Gadag 89,975 82,843 (92.07%)
Ballari 2,44,224 1,73,524 (71.05%)
Dharwad 2,00,426 1,31,479 (65.59%)
Belagavi 5,49,929 3,34,590 (60.84%)