Covid-19 vaccination drive a marathon, not a sprint: Centre

India’s vaccination drive is a marathon and not a 100-metre sprint, the government said on Friday, rejecting criticism over the pace of administering Covid-19 vaccines.

The government also said its projections about the availability of 213 crore doses of vaccines between June and December 2021 was an “optimistic and aspirational estimate” based on the inputs from vaccine manufacturers. The Centre had revised the figure to 135 crore in a submission to the Supreme Court last week.

“We are in a marathon and not a 100-metre sprint,” V K Paul, Member, Niti Aayog, said when asked about the decline in the rate of vaccination from over 85 lakhs on June 21 to 42 lakhs on July 1.

Addressing a press conference here, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary in the Union Health Ministry said the average daily vaccination rate has increased steadily from 2.35 lakh in January to almost 40 lakh in June.

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He said since the vaccination drive began on January 16 this year, India has administered over 34 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines, which was almost equivalent to the population of the US.

Agarwal welcomed demands from states for greater allocation of vaccines as a positive sign about the eagerness to get inoculated.

Read: Second wave of Covid-19 not over yet, cannot lower guard, says Centre

“However, we can give vaccines only when they are available,” he said, adding that states have to schedule vaccination based on the daily availability of doses shared with them regularly.

Opposition leaders have been criticising the government for triggering an artificial bump in the vaccination numbers on June 21 when over 85 lakh doses were administered in a single day.

The Opposition claimed that the BJP-ruled states had slowed down the vaccination in the run-up to June 21, when the new phase of the immunisation drive was launched.