Only 1 in 10 jabs after four weeks.
Only about one in 10, or about 23,628 healthcare workers, were vaccinated with the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on February 13, according to data from the Health Ministry.
February 13 was an important day in India’s COVID-19 vaccination schedule marking 28 days, or four weeks, since Prime Minister Narendra Modi canceled the vaccination program on January 16.
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On the first day, 2,07,229 people were vaccinated, according to figures from the Ministry of Health so far. Ideally, everyone should have been vaccinated with the second injection on February 13.
Two-dose vaccines
The second doses of Covaxin and Covishield, the two approved vaccines, are recommended to be given four to six weeks apart, according to the Indian General Drug Controller guidelines. While some international studies show that vaccines may be more effective, when given separately even over a 6-12 week period, current Indian policy does not recommend such a wide gap.
Unlike many countries where available vaccines are less than required, India has yet to exhaust its first stock of vaccines, around 16 million doses, which the government had ordered from vaccine companies in the first week of January.
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As of February 14, about 8.24 million frontline and healthcare workers had been inoculated with at least one dose of the vaccine. Of these, about 2.72 lakh were vaccinated on February 13. No updated figures were available on February 14, which, following past trends, is unlikely to have seen an increase in vaccines.
The 8.2 million vaccinations have been performed in 1.72 lakh of vaccination sessions, suggesting that only about half of the total vaccination capacity was being used. For almost a week, about 4,00,000 vaccinations have been made a day.
The number of active cases of coronavirus patients in India dropped to 1.37 lakh as of February 14 or around 1.26% of the total positive cases in India. About eight out of 10 of the new cases are from six states. Kerala reported the highest number of new cases daily with 5,471, followed by Maharashtra with 3,611 and Tamil Nadu with 477.
Only Maharashtra and Kerala reported double-digit deaths: 38 and 16 on February 14. In all, 92 new deaths were reported on February 14.
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