JOIN USBJP-ruled states fuelled vaccination push on Modi's birthday
For a week before the Friday's high of 2.5 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccinations, Karnataka gave about two lakh shots on an average each day, but enhanced the campaign by 15 times to vaccinate nearly 31 lakh to celebrate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 71st birthday.
Karnataka was not alone in creating the huge vaccination spike on the Prime Minister’s birthday. Other BJP-ruled states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Assam too upped their performance to set the world record. Bihar, helmed by BJP’s long term ally and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar also jumped on the bandwagon.
A back of the envelope calculation showed Karnataka had administered nearly two lakh shots on an average between September 10-16, but gave 31 lakh jabs on the Modi birthday – a jump of 15 times.
Similarly, Gujarat’s vaccination campaign rose by 8 times as compared to the previous seven day average; Madhya Pradesh’s by 6.5 times, Bihar’s by 5 times, Assam’s by 4 times and Uttar Pradesh’s by 3.5 times.
“Bihar, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat - these five states did more than 55% of Friday's vaccinations when compared with their last 7-day averages. The Friday figures are more than 5 times larger than their previous seven-day avg. All for the sake of a birthday,” tweeted health economist Rijo John, a guest faculty at the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode.
“From 25.1 million yesterday the vaccination is down to a humble 8.2 million on Saturday. It is now back to the 7-day average prevailed at the end of August. Modi ji needs to celebrate birthdays more often to ensure speedy vaccination for Indians,” he added.
The Union Health Ministry planned to vaccinate the entire adult population of 94.47 crore individuals by December, 2021.
In the last seven days, most of the non-BJP states barring Tamil Nadu distributed the Covid-19 vaccines more evenly. In Rajasthan (3.5 times), Maharashtra (2.2), Delhi (1.2) and Kerala (1.3), the Friday rise was marginally higher whereas in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, the seven-day average was more than what they achieved on Friday.
The only parallel for the saffron party is Tamil Nadu, which made a huge surge in Covid-19 vaccination on September 12 preceded and followed by much lower level of inoculation. The DMK government conducted a special vaccination drive on Sept 12 and inoculated more than 24 lakh individuals (as per Co-WIN). A similar camp is planned on Sunday.
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