Covid: Record 85 lakh doses on Day 1 of new vaccination policy

NEW DELHI: The first day of the revised Covid-19 vaccination policy, in which the Centre is procuring 75% of domestically available vaccines for free jabs to the 18-plus population, saw a record 85 lakh doses administered till midnight, almost doubling the previous high of 43 lakh doses on April 5.
Monday’s big bang start saw officials express hope the Centre’s target of 1 crore jabs a day could be met soon. “Today’s record-breaking vaccination numbers are gladdening. The vaccine remains our strongest weapon to fight Covid-19,” PM Modi said.
"Congratulations to those who got vaccinated and kudos to all the front-line warriors working hard to ensure so many citizens got the vaccine," Modi tweeted.

Over 68,000 vaccination sessions were conducted on Monday. However, private sector participation remained very limited as it organised around 2,000 sessions where recipients pay for their jabs. Private hospitals are allowed to access 25% of vaccines under an aggregation scheme to be finalised by respective states and UTs.

The politicisation of the vaccine discourse was apparent on Monday, with central officials highlighting that BJP-ruled states strongly outperformed opposition states. "NDA-ruled states accounted for around 70% of all vaccinations done today. MP vaccinated around 15 lakh, Karnataka more than 10 lakh," said an official.
Central officials said Punjab, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Delhi were not able to cross even 1 lakh vaccinations.
“The three have been indicated availability of around 8 lakh vaccines each till the end of this month, Chhattisgarh around 3.5 lakh and Maharashtra 33 lakh,” said the source.
While preparations to scale up vaccination were on since the announcement of the revised norms by the PM on June 7, the Centre worked with state governments and district administrations in particular to ensure capacity utilisation to the extent possible to achieve a milestone to mark the first day of the new vaccine regime, officials said.

“This demonstrates our capability of managing a huge turnout on a daily basis. This is the outcome of restructuring of the guidelines for procurement and supplies. The rollout of new norms has infused a new energy in the states,”said Niti Aayog member V K Paul said.
Officials are hopeful that these numbers will further improve in next few weeks. The vaccination drive has been ramped up through more vaccines, advance visibility of availability to states and UTs for enabling better planning, and streamlining the vaccine supply chain, health ministry said. During May, more than 7.9 crore vaccines were available nationwide.