COVID-19 vaccination picks up in poll-bound UP and Punjab after Centre and EC's push

The push-on vaccination by the Centre and the Election Commission of India (ECI) in poll-bound states seems to be working in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab with over 1.4 crore jabs administered in UP and 13 lakh-plus in Punjab just in the last 10 days.

The total fully-vaccinated figure neared 8 crore in UP on Monday, taking the coverage to nearly 55 percent while it crossed the figure of 1 crore in Punjab on the same day, taking the fully-vaccinated coverage here to 45 percent.

The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccinations carried out in UP in the last 10 days, at nearly 1.43 crore, was the highest since November, while it was the highest in Punjab since October. The EC team had visited both states last month and asked them to increase vaccination coverage. The national fully-vaccinated coverage is around 67 percent.

A senior government official told News18.com that the results were “encouraging” in both states this month and vaccination coverage would “increase drastically” by the time both states poll over a month later.

The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday said Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has set the target of “100 percent vaccination” 10 days before any district goes to the polls. UP will poll in seven phases starting February 10 till March 7. Special coronavirus vaccination camps and vaccinators will be dispatched to areas that are polling first — with the polling phases starting from the western part of UP.

Government officials said vaccination pace in both states is being closely monitored and they could be given additional stocks if needed though these states have enough unutilised vaccine doses in balance.

“Uttar Pradesh has a bigger challenge as it has the biggest population and nearly 14.74 crore eligible adults, out of which nearly 13.6 crore people have been given the first dose and nearly 8 crore have got both doses now. UP is working in mission mode on vaccination,” a senior government official said.

In Punjab, around 78 percent of adults have got their first dose and 45 percent of them got the second dose.

Vaccination has still not picked pace in Manipur where only 43 percent of eligible adults are fully-vaccinated so far. Around 40,000 doses were administered in Manipur in the last 10 days, in a slight uptick since earlier weeks when the vaccination pace had been dropping since early December. The other two states going to polls, Uttarakhand and Goa, have high full-vaccination coverage at 83% and 97%, respectively.