Fall in daily jabs after a week of high Covid-19 vaccination numbers

After a week-long high, India's Covid-19 vaccination slumped once again in the last three days with 41 lakh vaccinations being carried out on Thursday (till 8 pm) preceded by 27.54 lakhs and 36.46 lakhs in the past two days.

In comparison, the last week of June witnessed on an average more than 64 lakh vaccinations daily after the government introduced a new regime in which the Centre procured 75% of the Covid-19 vaccine and distributed it to the states.

On June 21, when the new regime kicked in for the first time, nearly 91 lakh doses were administered which was followed by more than 60 lakh doses for four days and 50 lakh plus doses on two days. The Sunday that came in between witnessed 17.15 lakh doses administered.

Because of such a high level of vaccination in the last week, the monthly average for June turned out to be 40.35 lakh jabs every day, which is a much-improved performance compared to April (29.96 lakh) and May (19.69 lakh).

“But the decreasing pace is not a good sign as only 4.3% of the population has got a single dose so far and it requires at least 90 lakh jabs per day to fully vaccinate all adults by the end of the year,” health economist Rijo John, a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode told DH.

“Given the possibility of future waves of the pandemic it is important to increase the pace of vaccination as much as possible.”

For July, the Centre has earmarked 12 crore doses – 10 crore doses of Covishield and 2 crore of Covaxin – for the states.

While in an affidavit in the Supreme Court, the Union Health Ministry said the 12 crore doses would include the supply of three crore doses to the private sector, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday tweeted that the private sector supply would be “over and above” the 12 crore doses that would be made available in July.

Without naming anyone, Vardhan asked the opposition leaders criticising the Narendra Modi government on Covid-19 vaccination to better plan their vaccination drives as intra-state planning and logistics were the responsibility of the states. "Such leaders should desist from their shameless urge to play politics even in the midst of a pandemic,” he said.

The allocation of 12 crore doses, however, would mean a daily vaccination of about 40 lakh, which is significantly lower than the government's target of carrying one one crore vaccination every day to cover the target population of 94.47 crore Indians with two doses.

The ministry said the vaccination drive so far covered 45% of the 45 plus population with the first dose whereas half of the senior citizens also received a single dose of the Covid-19. While 87% of healthcare workers and 91% front line staff received the first dose, their second dose coverage remained poor even after six months.

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