As the pace of vaccination started to gain momentum over the past few weeks, a group of four States has emerged with a landmark achievement of having over one crore second doses administered till date – this means there are over one crore fully vaccinated people in the respective States.
The four States include Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, which are the early ones to have achieved the one crore landmark for the second dose, government data till August 24 showed.
At 1.07 crore second doses, Gujarat tops the list in this ‘one crore club’, having covered maximum eligible population – 22 per cent getting both the shots. The State has 4.93 crore population above 18 years, of which, 1.07 crore are fully vaccinated as on August 24.
Vaccine supply
The Gujarat government informed that the State has achieved an important landmark of administering one crore of total doses in August. This is an important landmark for the State, indicating daily vaccinations are on the rise as vaccine supplies have improved over the past few weeks.
Maharashtra, on the other hand, tops with the most number of second doses administered at 1.44 crore, but it has only 16 per cent of the State’s eligible 9.14 crore population covered with both doses so far.
India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has administered 1.03 crore second doses, covering 7.5 per cent of its 13.8 crore eligible population. West Bengal, on the other hand, has 14 per cent of its 7.3 crore eligible population covered with both the doses of vaccines, as the second dose reached 1.03 crore till August 24.
Total vaccination
India’s total vaccination doses reached 59.38 crore, including 13.33 crore as second dose as of August 24.
The pace of vaccination has increased across the country with increased vaccine supplies in August. The daily average vaccine doses administered has almost doubled to about 60 lakh doses on most of the days in August, compared to about 30-35 lakh doses in the previous month.
As per the Union Health Ministry data, between August 1 and August 24, a total of 7.66 crore doses were supplied to the States, the highest so far during a comparable period in any previous month.