Over 85 Lakh Jabs — Day One of the New Vaccine Policy in India a Smashing Success

The first day of the Centre’s new vaccine policy turned out to be a blockbuster vaccination day for India as the country administered 85,96,807 jabs on Monday — almost double the earlier highest mark of 43 lakh recorded in early April.

Government officials said this is the highest single day vaccination number in the world and India has nearly vaccinated the population of Israel or twice the population of New Zealand in a single day.

The centralised free vaccination drive began today with Centre giving free vaccines to the states for all the age groups.

“The record numbers today show what is achievable when vaccine administration is done in an efficient manner from the Centre. These numbers have been driven by the efficient model of centralised model of vaccination along with ground level efforts by state governments. There is adequate supply going ahead and the onus is now on the state governments to mobilise their resources and do the vaccination exercise at a fast speed. Some states have not been able to step up their game yet,” a top central government official told News18.

Officials pointed out that NDA-ruled states performed outstandingly in ramping up vaccination numbers and accounted for around 70% of all vaccinations done today. These numbers give hope to the country’s aim of vaccinating every adult by December this year, officials further said.

Over 55 lakh jabs today were administered to the 18-44 age category, indicating that the young queued up for vaccinations in big numbers as the supplies for them have improved.

Five BJP-ruled states — Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana — contributed to over 50 per cent of the total jabs administered today, after announcing special drives.

Madhya Pradesh has, in fact, clocked close to 15 lakh jabs, surpassing the initial target it had fixed to give 10 lakh jabs today.

All these states had set up more vaccination centers today and made preparations in their districts to bump by the vaccination figures.

More vaccine centres in states

Nearly 68,000 vaccination centres were operational across the country today, including over 8,000 in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka apiece and nearly 8,500 in Uttar Pradesh.

Haryana, which had fixed a target of 2.5 lakh jabs, clocked over 4.7 lakh jabs, while Gujarat recorded nearly 5 lakh jabs.

Karnataka was able to vaccinate over 10 lakh people today, while Uttar Pradesh clocked 6.6 lakh jabs — up from its initial target of 6 lakh jabs.

Government officials said a stark contrast was visible with the rather lackluster performance of opposition-ruled states like Punjab, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Delhi, which were not able to cross even 1 lakh vaccinations.

Maharashtra vaccinated around 3.6 lakh people, which central officials said was below par given its population and despite the availability of more than 33 lakh vaccines till the end of this month with the state.

“Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Delhi each have been given indicated availability of around 8 lakh vaccines till the end of this month. Chhattisgarh has been (given) indicated availability of around 3.5 lakh vaccines till the end of this month,” a central government official said.

Nearly 80 lakh vaccinations in a day is a big increase from the levels in May when daily jabs had plunged to as low as 15 lakh on some days.

The Centre, upon insistence of the Congress and some chief ministers of opposition-ruled states, had opened up vaccinations for the 18-44 age group from May 1 and asked states to procure vaccines for them at their own cost, while the Centre continued to provide states free vaccines for the 45+ age group. This led to the supplies drying up.

The Centre, citing how the vaccine exercise was better administered under its control earlier, reversed the policy earlier this month with Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing that the Centre will now also foot the cost of the 18-44 age group vaccination and provide free vaccines for all to the states.

News18 had earlier reported that the Centre has been aiming for daily vaccinations in the country to touch 10 million from August 1 and a consistent level of 50 lakh-plus vaccinations is expected in end-June till early-July. Thereafter, daily vaccinations are also likely to gradually increase.

Meanwhile, PM Modi took to Twitter to laud the country for its “record-breaking vaccination numbers”.

“Today’s record-breaking vaccination numbers are gladdening. The vaccine remains our strongest weapon to fight Covid-19. Congratulations to those who got vaccinated and kudos to all the front-line warriors working hard to ensure so many citizens got the vaccine. Well done India!” he wrote.

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