Vaccination boost marks PM’s b’day
NEW DELHI: With over 23.1 million shots of the Covid-19 vaccine administered on Friday, according to data available at 11pm on the Co-WIN dashboard, India’s inoculation drive nearly doubled its previous single-day record for doses delivered, in a major push to the drive by several states to mark Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday.
Till 11pm on Friday, 23,141,139 jabs were administered, according to the government data. The previous record for single-day dose administration was set on August 31, with 12.87 million doses administered across India.
Friday was the fourth day that India has crossed the 10 million
mark of daily doses in the past month. The over 23 million shots was a historic figure – one that has so far been exceeded only by numbers from China, where the government has a strict control over data opacity and directions to its citizens.
“Every Indian would be proud of today’s record vaccination numbers. I acknowledge our doctors, innovators, administrators, nurses, health care and all front-line workers who have toiled to make the vaccination drive a success. Let us keep boosting vaccination to defeat Covid-19,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted.
“A gift to the Prime Minister on behalf of health workers and people of the country. On the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi today, India has crossed the historic figure of administering 2 crore vaccine doses in a day, setting a new record. Well done India!” Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya tweeted in Hindi. A day earlier, Mandaviya called for a major push to the vaccination drive to mark Modi’s 71st birthday, saying it would be the perfect gift.
The total number of doses administered in the country has now crossed 792 million, with 197 million people being fully vaccinated and 398 having received a single dose of the vaccine, according to government data. When seen alongside the country’s projected adult population of 940 million (according to the Census of India’s National Commission on Population), this means that 63.3% of people above the age of 18 years have received vaccine shots – 42.3% have been partially vaccinated and 21% having received both doses.
Buoyed by Friday’s massive push, India’s pace of vaccination, which has been extremely patchy in the past, has now entered its best phase. The seven-day average of daily dose administration, which denotes the average daily pace of the vaccine drive, has now soared to 9.3 million doses a day – the highest ever recorded since India’s mass vaccination drive commenced on January 16.
States across the country – led largely by the ones ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – were preparing for a record vaccination day as part of threeweek celebrations to mark the Prime Minister’s 71st birthday. The Bihar government had announced it will administer 3 million shots on Friday; Gujarat targeted 3.5 million for the day; Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka said they were preparing for a massive vaccination drive, and Uttar Pradesh launched a 20-day ‘Seva Aur Samarpan Abhiyaan’.
According to Co-WIN data analysed by HT, at least eight states – Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttarakhand – had set new single-day records of dose administration on Friday.
This push, however, came at a time when the daily dose administration was slowly declining.
In the week leading to Friday, the seven-day average of daily doses had dropped to 6.9 million from a peak of 8.5 million (in the week ended September 1). Numbers had dropped particularly over Wednesday and Thursday when 6.7 million and 6.8 million doses were administered across the country. This appeared to be caused by a drop in daily dose administration in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Assam and Karnataka, which had seen daily numbers fall between 40%-70% on Wednesday and Thursday from the preceding week’s average.
While the pace of the drive has improved, particularly from the low rates seen in previous months, there is still room for progress if India wants to achieve its stated target of vaccinating its entire adult population of 940 million by the end of 2021, a commitment the government has made in a submission to the Supreme Court.
For this, the country needs to administer 10.4 million doses every day till the end of the year, data shows. While India has matched (and exceeded) this required rate on a few days (including Friday, where it more than doubled this required rate) the main challenge will be to do so on a daily basis.