The national capital of India, Delhi, crossed the milestone of 20 million doses of vaccine against coronavirus (Covid-19) on 23 October, 2021. The 20-million figure of Covid-19 jabs is a significant achievement for Delhi in its fight to overcome the pandemic.
Delhi hit the 20-million milestone just two days after the country crossed the much-awaited 1 billion mark in Covid-19 vaccinations. It is just over nine months after the country began a massive inoculation programme to protect all its adults against Covid-19.
Of the 20 million doses so far, over 12 million have taken the first jab. Whereas 7.1 million population have been fully vaccinated. Moreover, as per the data, more than 11 million beneficiaries were male and over 8 million were females.
As per Centre’s CoWIN dashboard, the maximum dosages have been recorded in the northwest district with 2,396,252 shots. Secondly, the southwest district has received 2,314,641 jabs. Also, the least doses were administered in the northeast district at 1,255,828.
Has Vaccine Drive Slowed Down in the country?
The pace of vaccination in the national capital has slowed down this month. Only 75,500 vaccines were being administered in a day on an average over the last seven days. Conversely, last month Delhi had seen over 200,000 doses being administered in a single day on a few occasions.
It should be noted that Delhi is not an outlying region to have witnessed such a drop. It is visible at the national level as well. The seven-day average of daily vaccinations in India, which touched a peak of 9.7 million for the week ending September 23, has dropped nearly 60% in the past week.
Since September-end, Delhi has seen more second jabs being administered as compared to the first dose. According to the data from the government’s Cowin portal, out of the eligible population, 47% of people have completed their immunisation with both doses.
Words by Delhi Government on receiving the milestone
In a statement on 22nd October, 2021, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s office said, “As a responsible and sensitive, the Kejriwal government is rapidly working on its vaccination drives. It has the responsibility to vaccinate the entire population of Delhi. We will leave no one behind in this drive. The Delhi government is about to touch the two-crore [20 million] mark. I thank our highly motivated front line workers. Also, our rigorous infrastructure helped to accelerate our efforts even when we had low vaccine stocks.”
Last week, the centre had urged states and union territories to focus on increasing the coverage of the second dose of the vaccine.
Dr. Suneela Garg, Professor in the Department of Community Medicine at Maulana Azad Medical College, said, “There is a need to further increase the coverage of the second dose in Delhi, especially during the festive season to prevent a surge after it. There is already an uptick in cases in Bengal after pooja. Technically, there is a need to reduce the gap between the two doses of Covishield to ideally eight weeks; now we have enough vaccine supply. Also, we need to remember Delhi has a huge floating population of people from the neighbouring states and the vaccine coverage in Uttar Pradesh is lower. Delhi can get cases from neighbouring states.”
Also read: India achieves the 100-crore vaccination milestone here.
