The IT hub of Karnataka, Bangalore, has set a record in vaccination across India with 29.4 lakh people getting vaccinated with at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
According to data, 36.3 lakh doses have been administered so far in Bengaluru city, which has a population of 99 lakh. Of this, 29.4 lakh have got the first dose and 6.9 lakh beneficiaries, the second dose.
Bengaluru is followed by Mumbai, which has administered the first dose of COVID-19 to 27.6 lakh people out of its targeted population of 1.3 crore. Pune and Ahmedabad are third with around 20 lakh people getting vaccinated with at least one dose.
According to district-wise data from the Co-Win app, only 13 of the 726 districts across the country have vaccinated more than 10 lakh people with at least one dose as of Thursday. Delhi, with 11 districts in its fold, has administered the first dose to 42.9 lakh people and the second dose to 12.6 lakh benefeciaries.
In the south, Chennai is the only city other than Bengaluru that finds a mention in the above 10-lakh list. It has vaccinated 15.5 lakh people with at least one dose out of its targeted population of 46 lakh.
“We were also hit by vaccine shortage, but we did not take our eye off the vaccination drive. We knew we had to continue it if we have to flatten the COVID curve and put the economy on the recovery mode at the earliest,” Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar said.
Apart from getting the vaccine doses from the central government, the state started procuring vaccines on its own to tide over supply-related shortages. “Around 58.7 lakh doses of vaccines are scheduled to be received by the state in June, of which 45 lakh will be delivered by the Centre and the remaining 13.7 lakh doses will be procured by the state government,” Sudhakar said. Of this, 48.5 lakh doses are Covishield doses and 10.2 lakh Covaxin.
So far, Karnataka has received 1.45 crore doses of vaccines and has administered 1.4 crore doses, including the second dose.
The Minister also said that over 3 crore COVID-19 tests have been conducted in the state since the pandemic broke out last year. “Karnataka has cumulatively conducted 3,01,49,275 Covid-19 tests till Wednesday since March 8, 2020, when the pandemic broke out in the state,” Sudhakar said in a statement.
At the national level, Karnataka ranks second after Maharashtra on many indicators, including the total number of infections (26,69,514) and deaths (30,895) till Friday. According to data on the All-India COVID tracker of the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry, the state ranked top in the number of active cases — 2,80,186 across the country as on Friday.
Meanwhile, Karnataka recorded 16,068 new coronavirus cases and 364 succumbed to the pandemic on Friday. While the test positivity rate was 10.66%, the case fatality rate was as high as 2.26%. While Bengaluru recorded 3221 new cases and 206 Covid-19 -related deaths, Mysuru had 1265 positive cases and 18 deaths due to the virus.
