India crosses 75 crore Covid-19 vaccination milestone, but unlikely to vaccinate all adults by Dec 31

India on Monday crossed the milestone of administering 75 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses, but the target of inoculating the entire adult population with two doses by December 31 appears increasingly difficult.

With 75 lakh plus vaccination till 10 pm, more than 57 crore Indians received the first dose while 18 crore adults got both. This translates to 60 per cent of Indians getting the first shot, while 19 per cent are fully vaccinated.

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“The world's largest vaccination campaign is continuously setting new landmarks. In the 75th year of independence, the country has crossed the figure of 75 crore Covid-19 vaccinations,” tweeted Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

While experts had observed that India needed to vaccinate more than one crore individuals every day till December 31 in order to reach the ambitious target, such a high rate of vaccination was achieved only on three days so far. In between, there were also days where just 25 lakh vaccine doses were administered.

Even assuming 75 lakh vaccinations for each of the remaining 109 days of 2021, at least another 81 crore doses can be administered by December 31. There will still be a shortfall of 33 crore doses and it’s impossible to find out how many of those 81 crore doses would go into the second shot.

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There are studies to show a single dose of the Covid-19 barely offers any protection against the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 and two doses offer a higher level of protection. However, the Indian Council of Medical Research last week claimed that a single dose offered nearly the same level of protection as two doses – a claim that baffled medical researchers.

Meanwhile, the WHO's southeast Asia office lauded India for accelerating Covid-19 vaccination drive and achieving the 75-crore mark.

"WHO congratulates India for scaling up Covid-19 vaccination at an unprecedented pace. While it took 85 days to administer the first 100 million doses, India reached 750 million doses from 650 million in just 13 days," Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia, said.

So far, all adult people in six states and union territories -- Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Ladakh and Lakshadweep -- have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Cumulatively, over 30 crore people in the age group 18-44 years across all states and UTs have received their first dose and more than 4.5 core their second dose since the start of phase-3 of the vaccination drive on May 1.

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