India may miss its vaccination target of 13.5 crore doses for July if the country continues to vaccinate at the current pace. Till July 25, 2021, 9.94 crore doses of COVID vaccines were administered in the month, marking an average of approximately 38.26 lakh doses per day.
At this rate, India would land up administering about 12.5 crore doses by July end. To reach the 13.5 crore target, nearly 60 lakh daily doses would have to be administered, a figure that has been achieved only twice this month.
The speed of COVID vaccination administration has slowed down notably in July after a tremendous start to the new phase of universal vaccination on June 21, when a record 87 lakh doses were registered. It was then that the target of 13.5 crore doses of the vaccine for the month of July was announced.
Official data shows that the weekly doses administered had gone down from a high of 4.5 crore in the week ending June 26, to 2.8 crore in the week ending July 25. This, however, is still higher than the weekly average of 1.51 crore doses administered during the 27 weeks until July 23.
On June 7, 2021, PM Narendra Modi informed that COVID-19 vaccination would be made available free for all above 18 years of age.
In the meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry on Monday stated that above 43.51 crore vaccines have been administered across the country. As per the Ministry's statement, 18,99,874 vaccine doses were administered in the last 24 hours. Data reflects that more than 34 crore people have received at least one dose of the Coronavirus vaccine. And over 9.3 crore people have received both the doses.
As per the Union Health Ministry, the country reported 39,361 daily new contaminations of COVID-19 on Monday. The Ministry asserted that the last 29 days have seen less than 50,000 cases per day. On Monday, India’s active caseload was at 4,11,189 cases.
As per the Ministry, the daily positivity rate has come down to 3.41 per cent. “Daily positivity rate has remained below 5 per cent for 49 consecutive days now,” the Ministry stated.