As India continues to battle a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, weekly vaccination numbers across the country have improved in the last one week to nearly 1.47 crore jabs this week, the highest in all weeks of a lackluster May. The country recorded over 30 lakh jabs for the first time on Friday after over a month, with the revival being driven mostly by two states — Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
While Uttar Pradesh was leading in the daily vaccination numbers for nearly two weeks this month, overtaking Maharashtra on that matrix, and scored over three lakh jabs on Friday for the first time, Andhra Pradesh recorded the maximum 4.3 lakh jabs on the same day after 5.7 lakh jabs on Thursday. This was a quantum leap for the state which was vaccinating only about 3,000 people on May 23 due to a big shortage of vaccines.
Andhra Pradesh this week received stocks from the Centre and started a special drive to vaccinate people above 45 years of age. In the last two days, the state has vaccinated over 9 lakh people in this age group. Andhra Pradesh wants to first vaccinate all in 45+ age category.
“With better vaccine supplies expected in June, the daily vaccination numbers should be in the range of 25-30 lakh or even more in the days to come,” a senior central government official told News18.
The overall weekly numbers between May 22-28 show that vaccinations for the 18-44 age group have crossed 50% of all vaccinations and the demand for the second dose among 45+ is accounting for less than 10% of the total jabs.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh has announced that it would be significantly increasing its vaccination drive from June 1 by opening jabs for the 18-44 age group across all districts of the state.
Maharashtra still leads in the total vaccination numbers but its daily jab count has fallen behind Andhra Pradesh and UP.
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