As India began rolling out the Covid-19 vaccine earlier this year, some states such as Telangana, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu struggled to keep pace with the rest of the country. However, in the last two festive months, the momentum has picked up, with these three states, Maharashtra and Assam, performing higher-performing states and even better than the national average, the data showed.
As a group, these five states had given 452 doses per 1,000 population at the end of August, which is 6.6% less than the national average. Two months later, the cumulative coverage in these states increased to 844 doses per 1,000 population, higher than the national average (780).
These states were performing poorly due to various reasons. For example, Tamil Nadu faced high vaccine hesitations, with 42% of people reluctant to vaccinate earlier this year, according to a survey conducted by Facebook along with the University of Maryland and Carnegie Mellon University. Its vaccination coverage at the end of August was 427 per 1,000 population. However, the state organized a series of large-scale vaccination camps (seven since mid-September), even as vaccine hesitation began to subside after the second pandemic wave. As a result, its vaccination coverage increased by 80.6% to 771 doses per 1,000 at the end of October.
During this period, Telangana and West Bengal have increased their coverage by 79 per cent and 89 per cent respectively. All states, except West Bengal, gave lower doses in October than in September. However, some states are yet to pick up the pace. Meghalaya, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh each gave less than 600 doses per 1,000 population.
Vaccine Friendship
Bangladesh recorded the best increase in vaccination coverage last week among the most populous countries after three weeks. It received one million doses of Covishield from India under its “Vaccine Friendship” program after exports resumed two weeks ago. The Bangladesh government plans to vaccinate half its population, or 80 million people, by January. So far, it has vaccinated 40 million with at least the first dose, and has also started immunization of children aged 12-17 from 1 November.
Indonesia and the Philippines have slipped to third and fourth places, as Mexico jumped to second place for the first time. Earlier this week, Mexico received 6.5 million Sputnik V doses and 5.9 million AstraZeneca doses. There is increasing pressure on the Mexican government to expand its vaccination program to include children. Meanwhile, Indonesia became the first country to give emergency approval to Kovavax, a vaccine developed by Novavax and Serum Institute of India.
In Focus: Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh has been witnessing a steady increase in the cases of Kovid-19 since the first week of October. Eight of its 12 districts have reported more new infections this week than last week. It is the only state in India where more than 50% of the districts have registered an increase in cases.
Kangra district with 756 active cases accounts for 42% of the state’s total active caseload. This is the first time that Kangra, or any other district in the state, has reported over 800 cases since the third week of June.
Himachal Pradesh now has 1,796 active cases, the highest since the third week of August. On the positive side, the state has the highest vaccination coverage in the country. Kangra has immunized 71 per cent of its population with at least one dose and 42 per cent with both doses, which is expected to prevent hospitalizations and deaths.
orange signal
India reported 93,206 new cases this week, down 12.5%. This is the first time since the last week of February that the weekly count has dropped below 100,000. However, 17 states and union territories reported a rise in cases as compared to 12 in the previous week. West Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir posted the biggest jumps of 309 and 88 respectively.
Kerala still accounts for almost half of the confirmed cases in the country. Ernakulam, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, Kozhikode are the only four districts in India that each reported over 5,000 new cases in the last week.
India also recorded a sharp rise in its death count, but this was mostly due to the reconciliation exercise conducted by Kerala.
Even as the country celebrates Diwali, it is expected that the cases will not rise after this festive season, thanks to greater seroprevalence this time.
(howindialives.com is a database and search engine for public data)
Don’t miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint.
download
Our App Now!!
.