Team India — Responding To Adversity With Achievement

India completed vaccination of 100 crore doses on21st October 2021, in just about 9 months since starting vaccination.

By Narendra Modi

This has been a tremendous journey in dealing with Covid-19, especially when we recall how things stood in early 2020. Humanity was dealing with such a pandemic after 100 years and noone knew much about the virus. We remember how unpredictable the situation appeared then, as we were faced by an unknown and invisible enemy mutating rapidly.

The journey from anxiety to assurance has happened and our nation has emerged stronger, thanks to the world’s largest vaccination drive.

It has been a truly bhagirath effort involving multiple sections of society. To get a sense of the scale, assume that each vaccination took just 2 minutes for a healthcare worker. At this rate, it took around 41 lakh man days or approximately 11 thousand man years of effort to reach this landmark. For any effort to attain and sustain speed and scale, trust of all stakeholders is crucial. One of the reasons for the success of the campaign was the trust that people developed in the vaccine and the process followed, despite various efforts to create mistrust and panic.

There are some among us who only trust foreign brands, even for simply everyday necessities. However, when it came to something as crucial as the Covid-19 vaccine, the people of India unanimously trusted ‘Made in India’ vaccines. This is a significant paradigm shift.