How Long Will It Take To Complete The COVID-19 Vaccination In India?

On January 16 2021, the COVID-19 vaccination started in India. The Indian government announced the India vaccination drive for all citizens above the age of 45 in its first phase. Starting from May 1 2021, the government announced the second phase of the vaccination drive, where any citizen above the age of 18 could register online and get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Indian government hoped to vaccinate over 300 million citizens by August 2021, but India is expected to complete 100% vaccination over a period of three years at the present rate of vaccination. This clearly shows that the government of India vaccination schedule is way behind its preliminary goals.

India Vaccination Update

• Over 224 million vaccine doses have been administered so far as of June 5 2021.
• Only 44 million out of the 224 million have been fully vaccinated, which means they received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. This accounts for only 3.3% of the country’s population that has been vaccinated in the last six months of the India vaccination schedule.
• The Indian government had goals to vaccinate 300 million Indian citizens by August 2021. The reality of the India vaccination status has really put to question if this goal can be achieved or not.
• From the current rate of vaccine delivery, it is expected that it might take until February 2022 to vaccinate 300 million Indian citizens, and that is only about 20% of the population.
• The slow India vaccination rate has been caused due to the lack of supply of the COVID-19 vaccines. The supply of vaccines has dropped from 3.5 million per day in March of 2021 to only 1.6 million doses being made available daily in May of 2021.

The first phase of the Indian COVID-19 vaccination drive got off to a good start. But as time progressed, the mismanagement, lack of planning and vaccine shortage started to raise their ugly heads. The long queues at the vaccination centres and unavailability of vaccine led to the closure of many vaccination centres around the country.

The growing disappointment in the citizens over shortage of vaccine and standing in long queues over a long period were some of the primary reasons for the steady decline in the rate of vaccination in India. The cherry on top was when the crashing of the official CoWin website for several days caused youngsters not be able to register for the COVID-19 vaccine.

To add fuel to the fire, the centre and state government having different policies for the vaccination process caused more disarray for the general public. The situation is not showing any sign of improvement as the Indian vaccination drive is about to cross six months. The shortage of vaccine and the lack of second dose vaccinations are still plaguing our vaccination drive. Only time will tell about the success of the Indian vaccination drive in fulfilling its preliminary and eventual goals.