by The Modi government has claimed the record number of Covid-19 vaccinations on Monday is a result of the Centre taking back charge of vaccine procurement from the states.
Data, however, shows that the record of 86 lakh vaccinations was enabled by slowing down vaccinations in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states in the run-up to Monday.
Madhya Pradesh saw the highest number of vaccinations across all states with 16.9 lakh doses administered on Monday. The previous day, however, it had delivered just 692 doses of the vaccine, data from the Centres vaccination platform CoWin shows.
Health Minister Hash Vardhan tweeted to say that 86 lakh vaccinations was the highest ever single day coverage across the world. However, on June 9, Nature reported that China had vaccinated two crore people a day for more than a week.
Congratulations !!
86.16 lakh #COVID19Vaccine doses administered on Jun 21!Highest ever single day coverage across the!
Under the remarkable leadership of Hon’ble PM Sh @narendramodi Ji, the ‘Whole of Govt’ & ‘Whole of Society’ is collectively working to defeat #COVID19https://t.co/ak1SH9UywY
— Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) June 22, 2021
India administered 86.16 lakh vaccine doses in a single day; Highest ever single day vaccination achieved in the world so far
28.87 Cr. Vaccine Doses administered so far under Nationwide Vaccination Drive #vaccinated
— Ashwini Kr. Choubey (@AshwiniKChoubey) June 22, 2021
The slowdown in Madhya Pradesh had started from June 17 itself. While 338,847 vaccine doses were delivered on June 16, the next four days showed a steeply declining trend: 124,226 doses on June 17, 14,862 doses on June 18, 22,006 doses on June 19, and just 692 doses of the vaccine on June 20.
While the average number of doses delivered per day between June 13-June 16 was 228,784, this dropped by over 400% to 42,850 doses between June 17-June 20.
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Had the state maintained the same level of vaccinations as seen on June 16, it would have delivered about 13.5 lakh doses in four days, or 9.15 lakh doses based on the average between June 13-June 16, as opposed to the 1.6 lakh doses it actually gave out. The 12 lakh doses saved over four days contributed to the 16.9 lakh doses administered in a burst on Monday.
Madhya Pradesh vaccination trends.
Madhya Pradesh now faces the challenge of maintaining daily vaccinations at the nearly 17 lakh level. Failure to do so would strengthen criticism that the June 21 record was artificially manufactured by holding back vaccines over the previous four days.
Similar trends are visible for other BJP-ruled states, which saw a drop in vaccinations on June 20.
Karnataka, the state with the second-highest number of vaccinations on Monday, delivered 11.21 lakh doses in a day. The previous day, June 20, Sunday, it had administered only 68,172 doses. While Sunday usually sees a drop in vaccinations, Karnataka did better on previous Sundays, giving 126,389 doses on June 6, and 96,956 doses on June 13.
Karnataka vaccination trends.
Uttar Pradesh delivered 7,25,898 vaccine doses on Monday, after a low of 8,800 doses on Sunday which was 35% lower than the average number of doses administered on the previous two Sundays.
Uttar Pradesh vaccination trends.
The fluctuation in vaccinations was less dramatic in Gujarat, which administered 5,10,434 vaccine doses on Monday, after 1,89,953 vaccines on Sunday, the lowest level in 17 days.
Gujarat vaccination trends.
After four days of a rising graph of vaccinations, Assam registered a sharp drop on June 20 (33,654), before seeing a record high on Monday (360,707).
Assam vaccination trends.
Non-BJP states also saw a drop in vaccination levels on June 20, but this was keeping in line with the usual drop seen on Sundays. Nor was the vaccination level on June 21 vastly higher than previous days.
For instance, Maharashtra delivered 383,495 vaccine doses on June 21, not much higher than 381,765 doses given out on June 19. While the state saw a drop on June 20, delivering just 113,109 doses, this was higher than the 87,273 doses administered the previous Sunday.
Maharashtra vaccination trends.
The same was the case with Rajasthan, which delivered 4.46 lakh vaccine doses on June 21, the same as it did on June 11.
Rajasthan trends.
Indias vaccination programme has been plagued with political wrangling between the Centre and states. Initially, the Centre procured vaccines from the manufacturers directly and supplied them to states. However, with states reporting acute shortages of vaccines during the brutal second wave of Covid-19, the Centre changed the procurement policy in April and allowed states to directly purchase vaccines for people aged 18-44 years, even though barring West Bengal, no other state had explicitly asked for such rights.
The change in policy was widely criticised for creating an untenable situation of several states competing to buy vaccines from a small set of approved vaccine makers at a time of global scarcity. Experts argued the Centre was better placed to negotiate vaccine purchase. Even the Supreme Court said the policy was prima facie, arbitrary and irrational.
On June 7, the Centre partially reversed its policy, taking back the responsibility for procuring vaccines for states, announcing that vaccines would now be free for all. However, it continued to allow private entities to buy vaccines directly from manufacturing companies with only the service charge, and not the price of vaccines, capped at Rs 150 for a dose.
