India’s COVID Vaccine Supply: Why Modi Government’s Claims are Dubious

Till 11 am on 26 July just 9.2 crore people had received both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. There are 94 crore Indians aged 18 years or above. this suggests that only around 9.8% of the adult population has been fully vaccinated. as long as the vaccination drive has been happening for over six months now, and therefore the incontrovertible fact that over 90% of Indians are yet to be fully vaccinated, this could be a reason for worry.

Around 84.8 crore adults still haven’t been fully vaccinated. The key problem behind the slow vaccination pace has been the erratic supply of vaccine doses. this is often primarily because the Central government took its time to order the doses. Between January and July 16, a complete of 41.5 crore doses of vaccines were supplied. Of this, 36 crore doses were supplied by the Serum Institute of India (SII), which manufactures Covishield, and 5.5 crore doses were supplied by Covaxin-maker Bharat Biotech. Further, 33 lakh doses of Sputnik V are imported, taking the entire supply to almost 42 crore doses.

Tall Claims on COVID-19 Vaccination

Given that this data is 11 days old, the entire supply so far must are quite 42 crore doses. the entire number of doses given by 26 July stood at around 43 crore. Of this, 33.8 crore were first doses, and as mentioned earlier, 9.2 crore people had received both doses.