With over 12.8 million shots of the vaccine administered across India on Tuesday, according to data available at 11pm on the Co-WIN dashboard, India’s Covid-19 vaccination drive set yet another single-day record for doses delivered, wrapping up August as, by far, the best month (yet) of India’s mass inoculation programme.
The total number of people across India who have now received at least one shot of the vaccine has surpassed 500 million, data shows.
Tuesday’s record single-day jabs means that in August, the country administered a total of 183.5 million doses, translating to a daily average of 5.9 million doses throughout the month. This average administration is a jump of 1.6 million doses a day over the previous monthly best recorded in July (average of 4.3 million jabs a day). At its lowest since the drive was thrown open to all adults, this pace had dropped to under 2 million doses a day through May, data shows. With more vaccine doses (at least 250 million) available in September, the number could increase even more.
Tuesday marked the third time in the past 15 days that the country has set a new record for single-day dose administration. A total of 12,869,300 doses had been administered till 11pm on Tuesday, according to data from the Union health ministry’s Co-WIN dashboard, bettering the previous high of 10,064,376 doses set on Friday. On August 16, 8.82 million jabs were administered across the country.
Buoyed by these daily records, the country’s pace of vaccination, which was patchy for months, appears to have finally settled into high gear. In the past week, an average of 8.3 million daily doses has been administered across India – the highest pace ever recorded in the country, as per to HT’s dashboard.
The recent jump in pace comes less than a week after India touched the milestone of covering half the country’s adult population with at least one shot. Till Tuesday night, a total of 651.2 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered across the country to 500 million people with 350 million people partially vaccinated and 150 million people having received both doses of the vaccine. 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 53.3% of people above 18 years of age have received vaccine – 37.3% have been partially vaccinated and 16% have received both doses.
While the pace of the drive has seen progress, data shows there is still a long way to go if India wants to achieve its stated target of vaccinating its entire adult population by 2021 end.
