2nd dose coverage, doorstep drive take daily vax rate up

NEW DELHI: Average daily vaccination improved significantly in December to 78.66 lakh doses per day — up from 59.32 lakh doses in November and 55.77 lakh doses per day in October.

The rise is mainly driven by expanded coverage of second dose and rollout of the government’s door-to-door vaccination campaign.

More than 7 crore doses have been administered during the first 10 days of December so far, whereas a total of 17.79 crore doses were given during November.

After a major ramp-up in first dose coverage in September, vaccinations dropped significantly during October and November in the wake of festivities and drop in Covid cases. Many people were overdue for their second dose. This prompted the government to roll out ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ campaign in November. Next, the average daily vaccination in December bounced back to the September level when as average of 78.69 lakh doses were given per day. A total of 23.60 crore doses were given in September across the country. A total of 131.98 crore doses of anti-Covid jabs were administered in the country till 9.30pm on Friday. With this over 86% of the adult population has received at least the first dose of the vaccines, whereas 53.5% are fully vaccinated with both doses.

“We are back to a very high trajectory. Acceptance of vaccination is very high...,” NITI Aayog Member (Health) Dr VK Paul said.