Resuming once again after Diwali. The past week saw 38 million vaccinations, close to the 40m threshold of the top 10 best weeks.
The month of Nov (to 13th) has seen 58 million vaccinations, almost equal to the total in May.
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The daily performance chart shows the past week very stable at 5.5-6.5m doses a day, typically around 2m first doses and 4m second doses, stabilizing rapidly from the little over 21 million in the week prior due to Diwali.
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The first and second dose data is better demonstrated by this graph, which shows the rapid evolution of dose breakdown since October. September was the last month of first dose acceleration; Oct and now Nov have seen a rapid move to 2nd dose delivery instead:
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At around 4m second doses a day, India is a couple of weeks off from overtaking Europe in this figure, as the relative slopes of the two entities show.
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However, this isn’t all positive. From an analysis of the data, second dose numbers could be higher than present. There’s clearly no shortage of vaccines, with supply now at a ridiculous 180 million, more than most countries’ populations:
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From a deep dive into this data, my preliminary view is that the mechanism of waiting for people to come for their second doses is not sufficient. In most urban areas, first dose saturation means mass go-to-people drives for second doses can be done - and should be done.
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India is at a point where first dose saturation of adult population is at par with or better than US/Europe.
Yes those geographies also have vaccines for 12+ and now 5+ group, but their coverage is quite low still; looking at the 18+ group, India has now attained parity.
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The following graphs show the extent of dose coverage end Oct, data from the wonderful covid19india.org, now being continued thanks to IIT-H at covid19tracker.in . Thank you @stellensatz @agrawalmanindra and everyone who kept it going.
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Anecdotal data also aligns with this - not just small states like HP but metropolises like Mumbai now at 100% first dose coverage.
Even back in end Oct, the covid19india site showed a large number of districts at over 1L/lakh doses done.
hindustantimes.com/india-news/mum…
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The per-lakh figure is a little misleading since divides by entire population, not just adults, so coverage of 18+ population (~68% of total) is even higher .
India is a young country. In US/EU, 75-79% of population is 18+.
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This means India has a greater need to get at least one, ideally two vaccines that children can receive. The huge Covishield supply is not usable as it may never be approved for children, but Covaxin and Bio-E are both at the cusp of approval:
theprint.in/health/why-cov…
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Hopefully @PMOIndia @MoHFW_INDIA will prioritize:
1. Accelerating 2nd dose deliveries through aggressive go-to-people drives, doing 5m/day or more second doses.
2. Quickly approve Covaxin/BioE for children and dedicate the supply to quickly vaccinating the young.
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