Covid-19 crisis: Sharp uptick in vaccinations needed for Centre’s year-end goal

To meet the Centre’s ambitious plan of vaccinating its entire adult population by the end of 2021, India will need to speed up its Covid-19 vaccination drive manifold. With the current adult population standing at roughly 94 crore, India will need to produce 188 crore doses overall to reach its target, with only 21.5 crore doses having been administered so far.

Last week, Union minister Prakash Javadekar vowed the government would inoculate its entire population by the end of this year in response to criticism from Rahul Gandhi against the Centre, claiming only 3 per cent of India’s population had been vaccinated. This leaves about 167 crore jabs to be produced in the remainder of the year, which means the government has to ensure 23.9 crore doses are produced every month on average to meet its goal.

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So far, about 16 lakh doses per day administered since the vaccination drive began in January, according to data on the Co-WIN website. At the current rate, the country will need close to 1,175 days to be completely vaccinated, which translates to more than three years. If the government is set on meeting its target, this would mean that it would have to increase the average daily vaccination rate by almost 16 times.

In May, only 6.1 crore doses were administered even as the country faced the worst of the second wave. The health ministry on Sunday said nearly 12 crore doses of the vaccine would be available in June, but even this falls short of the required figure and represents only 11% of the government’s own estimate of 108 crore doses by the end of the year.

Worryingly, registrations for vaccine shots have been sliding in recent weeks as states face an acute vaccine crunch and manufacturers struggle to keep up with demand. Last week, there were only 1.91 crore registrations on the CoWin site, down from a peak of 3.45 crore in the week ended April 30.

However, the government has said India would have enough vaccine doses to inoculate up to one crore people per day by mid-July or early August — which would help reach the year-end goal — but it remains to be seen how the Centre will ramp up production so drastically.