India’s vaccination numbers fell to 54.22 lakh on Tuesday, 22 June, after the country nearly trebled its daily vaccination rate with a record 90.86 lakh vaccination doses administered on International Yoga Day on 21 June.
India’s new vaccination policy, allowing states to administer free vaccines that were earlier reserved for those above 45 years of age, came into force on Monday for those between 18 to 44 years.
Congratulating those who took the vaccine and the “front-line warriors”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted on Monday, “Today’s record-breaking vaccination numbers are gladdening. The vaccine remains our strongest weapon to fight COVID-19…Well done India!”
However, as celebrations over India’s vaccination numbers subsided, many states that had a record turnout on Monday saw their vaccination rate plummeting on Tuesday. This included states such as Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Bihar, among others.
Moreover, allegations that some states, including Madhya Pradesh, had hoarded vaccine doses for days to achieve the record vaccination rate on Monday have also come to the fore. A similar trend is visible in other Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states.
Rajya Sabha member P Chidambaram said in a tweet, “Hoard on Sunday, vaccinate on Monday, and go back to limping on Tuesday. That is the secret behind the world ‘record’ of vaccinations on a ‘single day’. I am sure the ‘feat’ will find a place in the Guinness book of records!”
He added in another tweet, “I am appalled that eminent doctors attribute Monday’s record to “planning”. The plan was to “doctor” the numbers on Monday.”
BJP National President JP Nadda offered a response to these remarks on Wednesday, saying that "India is not limping, but sprinting ahead powered by the strength of our citizens. After the record Monday, India has crossed 50 lakh vaccinations on Tuesday and Wednesday, much to the dislike of the Congress Party."
Censuring the Opposition party and the veteran leader further, he said, "It is the Congress’ culture to attack Indians whenever India accomplishes a record. Also, it is ironical to hear about sanctity of numbers from a ‘Recounting Minister’ whose only claim to fame is dressing up numbers in the budget."
Madhya Pradesh
It has come to light that BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, which administered a whopping 14 lakh vaccine doses on Monday, had been administering around an average of 13,000 doses since three days before the record-breaking first day of the new vaccination regime.
More importantly, once the clamour over the achievement of a record high subsided, Madhya Pradesh’s daily vaccination number fell back to 4,842 total doses on 22 June, a day after Yoga Day.
A slowdown in Madhya Pradesh can be seen from 17 June itself. While 3,38,847 vaccine doses were delivered on 16 June, the next four days showed a steeply declining trend with 1,24,226 doses on 17 June, 14,862 doses on 18 June, 22,006 doses on 19 June, and just 692 vaccine doses on 20 June.
By not maintaining the same level of vaccination as seen on 16 June, the state was able to roughly “save up” 12 lakh doses that contributed to the vaccination spike.
On being asked about hoarding vaccination doses, state Medical Education Minister Vishwas Sarang said, "There is no such issue of hoarding vaccines. There may have been some data entry issues that are reflecting lower numbers earlier. All our vaccinations on Monday were done before your eyes. There is nothing to hide. I am shocked by the kind of questions you are asking," NDTV reported.
Haryana
Meanwhile, Haryana, which administered 5.45 lakh vaccine doses on Monday, went back to just 76,628 doses on Tuesday, according to the data from Co-WIN.
Karnataka
Karnataka for the first time in the last 30 days spiked past the 4 lakh mark and recorded nearly 12 lakh total doses on Monday. However, on Day 2 of vaccination under the new policy, the state’s numbers came back under the 4 lakh mark to total 3,95,468 doses.
Gujarat
Gujarat had administered 2,99,030 vaccine doses on 19 June and had been administering more than two lakh doses since 3 June. However, a day before the new policy came into force, Gujarat’s vaccination number dipped to 1,89,953 vaccines on Sunday, the lowest level in 17 days.
Following this, its vaccination rate increased to 5,10,434 vaccine doses on Monday, but fluctuated back to 4,27,763 on Tuesday.
Assam
In BJP-ruled Assam, the daily vaccination graph had been rising for four days until it dipped from 1,10,910 to 33,654 doses on 20 June, before seeing a massive spike on 21 June with 3,74,555 vaccine doses administered. However, on day two, the record high descended to 2,49,825.
Meanwhile, a few non-BJP states also saw a drop in vaccination levels on 20 June. However, the drop has been attributed to the usual drop seen on Sundays as the vaccination level on 21 June was not vastly higher than previous days.
Maharashtra
Maharashtra administered 3,83,495 vaccine doses on 21 June, not much higher than 3,81,765 doses administered on 19 June. While the state saw a drop on 20 June, delivering 1,13,109 doses, this was higher than the 87,273 doses administered the previous Sunday.
Moreover, the state’s vaccination rate has only increased on Day 2 of the new regime, with 5,59,345 vaccine doses administered.
Rajasthan
A similar trend could be seen in Rajasthan, which delivered 4.46 lakh vaccine doses on Monday, the same as it did on 11 June. On Tuesday, the vaccination dropped down to 3.8 lakh doses, a little higher than numbers seen on Sunday.
The vaccination dip across India raises the question whether the country can sustain such record numbers or whether Monday’s spike was only a one day wonder. It also raises questions about whether the BJP-ruled states were “saving up” vaccine doses for Monday’s vaccination burst.
Not a World Record
Meanwhile, celebrating India’s record high vaccination numbers, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan went to the extent of saying that India’s single-day vaccination record was the “highest ever single-day coverage across the world.” However, this is a false claim, debunked by The Quint’s WebQoof team here.
Looking at numbers on ‘Our World In Data’ – an online publication for databases – it can be clearly seen China has consistently been vaccinating around 10 million people per day, since 12 May 2021.
The daily vaccination number has now gone up to 20 million doses and a little beyond that on multiple days. For instance, on 26 May, it went up to 20.1 million (about two crore total doses administered).
Meanwhile, to maintain even the rate of over 80 lakh vaccine doses a day, India would need close to 25 crore vaccine doses in July. However, by the government’s own admission, only 13.5 crore doses will be supplied, effectively scaling down the daily average to half, ie about 44 lakh doses per day.
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