Video Producer: Mayank Chawla
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On 21 June 2021, India administered a record 88 lakh vaccine doses. It was also the day, starting which the Centre had announced to provide free vaccines to states to inoculate those between the age group 18-44 years. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ministers lauded, praised, and thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the 'record'.
However, the vaccination data available on the central government's Co-WIN website has a telling tale to offer. A day before a record number of vaccines were administered in India, on 20 June, the country had inoculated 29 lakh people. A threefold increase to 88 lakh was noticeable the next day, which plummeted to 54.22 lakh doses on 22 June.
Seven BJP-ruled states including Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana were among the top10 states with highest number of vaccines administered on 21 June.
MADHYA PRADESH
It has come to light that BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, which administered a whopping 14 lakh vaccine doses on 21 June, 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 numbers fell back to 4,842 total doses on 22 June, a day after International Yoga Day, which falls on 21 June.
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.
HARYANA
Meanwhile, Haryana, which administered 4.96 lakh vaccine doses on 21 June, went back to just over 75,000 doses on the 22nd, 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 11 lakh total doses on 21 June. However, on Day 2 of vaccination under the new policy, the state’s numbers came back under the 4 lakh mark.
NOT A WORLD RECORD
Celebrating India’s record high vaccination numbers, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan tweeted that this was India’s single-day vaccination record and is the “highest ever single-day coverage across the world.” However, this is a false claim.
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.
According to The New York Times, India ranks 93 on the percentage of population vaccinated in the country. The Centre’s target of inoculating the entire country by December 2021 will roughly require 1 crore doses to be administered for the next six months.
However, the government seems to be managing headlines and data instead.
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