Saturday, 18 September 2021 | PNS | New Delhi
India’s total Covid shots over 78.72 cr
India crossed two crore Covid-19 vaccination in a day for the first time since the launch of the national inoculation programme almost eight months ago as the Government raced to set the landmark on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday on Friday.
The one crore-mark was crossed by the afternoon itself, after which Ministers and BJP leaders put out tweets urging more to get their shots. Social media was also abuzz with congratulations wishes from a large number of supporters even as the Opposition mocked the event as “PR stunt” and fudging of data. Adding Friday’s tally, daily vaccinations crossed the one-croremark for the fourth time in less than a month, with total crossing 78.72 crore.
Among States, laggard Bihar registered the highest single-day vaccination at 16.28 lakh, followed by Karnataka at 15.47 lakh, Madhya Pradesh at 13.09 lakh, Uttar Pradesh at 12.12 lakh and Gujarat at 11.35 lakh.
Incidentally, Uttar Pradesh has registered the highest number of vaccinations in total so far at 9.18 crore, followed by Maharashtra with 71.3 crore, Madhya Pradesh 5.49 crore, Gujarat 5.47 crore and Rajasthan 5.23 crore.
“On PM @Narendra Modi Ji’s birthday, till 1:30 pm, the country has crossed the mark of 1 crore vaccines, the fastest so far, and we are continuously moving forward. I believe that today we will all make a new record of vaccination and give it as a gift to the Prime Minister,” Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya tweeted with the hashtags “VaccineSeva” and “HappyBdayModiji”.
The Government’s tracker showed around 42,000 vaccinations in a minute, said a senior health officer.
“Celebrating the relentless efforts of India’s vaccination against Covid-19, we have added a ticker to show vaccinations happening in near real-time. We are currently clocking over 42,000 vaccinations a minute or 700/second,” tweeted National Health Authority chief RS Sharma.
“In the beginning, we were administering 40 lakh doses in a day. We then brought it up to 1 crore daily doses and today we had already touched 1.35 crore doses by 3 pm,” Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted.
Similarly, BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis tweeted at around 7 pm, “historic 17th September ! India’s wonderful gift to Hon PM @narendramodi ji on his birthday & new record of single day vaccination ! Crossed Europe vaccination too! 1 Day; 9 hours; 2 Crore+ Vaccine doses administered and counting.”
The Health Ministry said that on Friday as part of the “Vaccine Seva” campaign, the Health Minister visited Safdarjung Hospital to take stock of the ongoing vaccination and congratulated the healthcare workers for helping the country cross the two crore benchmark.
The cumulative doses administered in the country reached 2,03,68,343 at 5.27 pm, according to data on the Co-WIN portal.
Mandaviya said this is the fastest pace at which one crore doses have been administered.
With this, the total number of doses administered in the country has crossed 78.72 crore. The Ministry has also maintained that India will get about 20 crore doses of Covishield and 3.5 crore doses of Covaxin which will be supplied to stakeholders in this month.
Meanwhile, sources in the Health Ministry on Friday said that for India “vaccinating its citizens is a priority and export of vaccines will be discussed only after the country’s requirement is over.”
