Can Inoculate Its India's 900 Million Adult Population By December 31?

Battered by the second wave of covid-19, the government recalibrates its vaccination strategy in the hope of inoculating india’s 900 million adult population by december 31. How realistic is this target?

- Raj Chengappa & P. B. Jayakumar

WHEN WORD CAME THAT Prime Minister Narendra Modi would address the nation at 5 pm on June 7, the pandemic afflicted nation was at a critical crossroads. On a positive note, the Second Wave was clearly on the wane, with new cases of Covid-19 infection dropping from the daily peak of 400,000 to under 100,000 by June 1. Yet, they were still higher than at the height of the first wave, which meant that the red signal remained on, and the unlockdown process had to be gradual. On the negative side, the carefully-calibrated Covid vaccination programme was threatening to descend into a self-inflicted anarchy.

The liberalised vaccine regime that the central government had announced on April 21 allowing states their own purchase and pricing for vaccinating the 18-44 year age group was failing. Even the Supreme Court termed it “irrational and arbitrary” and asked the Centre to roll it back. As the blame game between the Centre and states intensified, the month of May saw a substantial drop in vaccinations compared to April due to a shortage of doses. While the Centre boasted that India was among the top three nations in terms of total number of vaccinations—behind only China and the US—the fact remained that even after 136 days of vaccinations, as of June 1 only 41 million people, or 3 per cent of the country’s population had received both their doses.