UP First State to Administer 4 Crore Vax Doses, But Has to Catch Up with Overall Covid Vaccination Coverage

India’s Covid vaccination drive achieved two milestones on Saturday, with the country’s overall figure crossing the 40 crore-mark, and then, most populous Uttar Pradesh becoming the first state to administer more than four crore vaccine doses. Since June 21, when the Centre took over the vaccination drive, UP administered 1.48 crore doses, that is, an average of over 5.47 lakh daily vaccination, also making it the only state to achieve the feat in a short span.

Not just that, on July 8, the Yogi Adityanath-ruled state overtook Maharashtra in the number of overall inoculation. Till June 20, while Maharashtra, the state worst affected by Covid-19, had administered 2.77 crore doses, Uttar Pradesh with 2.56 crore inoculations was at the second spot.

By Saturday evening, UP had a comfortable lead of over 9.70 lakh doses over Maharashtra whose overall vaccination figure stood at 3.94 crore doses.

Overall, till Saturday evening, nine districts in UP have pumped over 10 lakh doses, including state capital Lucknow (17.18 lakh), GB Nagar (14.22 lakh), Ghaziabad (12.51 lakh), Meerut (11.55 lakh), Gorakhpur (11.02 lakh), Kanpur Nagar (10.74 lakh), Varanasi (10.58 lakh), Prayagraj (10.36 lakh) and Agra (10.21 lakh), according to CoWIN portal.

The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition-ruled state has been vaccinating at an average pace of around 4.33 lakh doses a day since June 21. The western state has administered a total of 1.17 crore doses since then. Overall, capital Mumbai tops the vaccination list with 66.65 lakh doses given to date.

In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat, overall 2.94 crore doses have been given. In the last 27 days, the state has administered over 72.71 lakh doses at an average pace of over 2.69 lakh daily doses.

Karnataka, Rajasthan and West Bengal have an average daily vaccination figures of 3.23 lakh, 2.63 lakh, and 2.59 lakh, since the Centre took over the inoculation drive.

Overall, India has administered 12.49 crore doses since June 21 at an average daily pace of over 46 lakh doses, during the said period (June 21-July 17, 2021).

However, despite the speed, UP still has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to universal vaccination coverage. The state with an estimated 23.79 crore population has jabbed just over 14% of its population with a single dose of the vaccine. Maharashtra, on the other hand, has administered a quarter (24.64%) of its population with at least one dose of the vaccine.

Smaller states have done much better on this count. Over 67% of Sikkim’s population has received the first dose, while the figure for Goa stands at around 62%. Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Kerala have jabbed 47%, 38% and 34% of their respective population with the first vaccine dose.

Overall, till Friday, India has fully inoculated 5.9% of its population while 23.1% of Indians have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the data compiled by the University of Oxford. Compared to India, the UAE, Bahrain, the UK and US have completely vaccinated 68%, 60.5%, 52.4% and 48% of their respective population.

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