COVID-19 vaccination drive: India’s average daily vaccination per million in a week drops from 2554 per million to 2408

COVID-19 vaccination drive: India’s average daily vaccination per million in a week drops from 2554 per million to 2408

FPJ Web DeskUpdated: Tuesday, April 20, 2021, 03:57 PM IST
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi receives the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine, at AIIMS in New Delhi, on April 8, 2021/ File | ANI

The total number of COVID-19 vaccines doses in the country has crossed 12.71 crore till April 20 morning, as per the government data. But India’s average daily vaccination per million people in the week ending April 18 was 2,408, lower than 2,554 per million in the previous week, stated a report.

This drop is despite India having a special focus on the inoculation process with ‘Tika Utsav’ across India, from 11 to 14 April. The fall in average vaccination numbers is mainly due to a shortage in vaccine availability in the country.

Over the last few weeks, the shortage of vaccines had put pressure on the central government to impose export curbs and allow foreign vaccine manufacturers to come to India. Until recently, only two vaccine manufacturers were permitted to sell in the country. The two vaccines were Serum Institute of India's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin. Now, Sputnik has received government approval too.

According to Crisil report, India’s average daily vaccination per million people in the week ending April 18 was 2408, lower than 2554 per million in the previous week, indicating the slowdown in pace. “As of April 18, 16.4 per cent of the population in the age group of 40-60 were vaccinated, and among those aged 60 plus, a higher 33.1 per cent have been vaccinated,” stated Crisil in its report.

The report, which evaluated the present situation of the pandemic on the economy, stated among the states the rate of spread has not been secular. “Infection rates in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi significantly increased in the week ending April 18 (compared with the week prior) and, consequently, led to an increase in their share of caseload. In contrast, the rate of increase in cases in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra slowed down, so their shares decreased (refer chart below),” it stated.

India continues to record over two lakh cases a day, with 2,59,170 new cases in the last 24 hours as of April 20. This is slightly lower than the previous day's tally. The country also recorded 1,761 deaths - the highest single-day death toll since the pandemic began.


The rising cases have prompted many states to impose localised restrictions on movement of people and commerce to control the spread. The rating agency in the report stated, “But so far, electricity consumption and Goods and Services Tax (GST) e-way bills collection, which are used as proxies to track economic activity, have softened only somewhat. Given the volatile nature and revisions of daily/weekly data, it needs to be seen whether the softening in these indicators is a blip, or marks a shift in a trend.”

The impact of these restrictions are beginning to affect retail mobility, which dipped across more states – with the highest decline seen in Maharashtra (17.7 percentage points decline between March to April till date, on average), stated Crisil.

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