1/ <Thread> On why Government of India's (GoI) vaccine plan for June 2021 is plain misleading. GoI says it will "make available" 12 crore vaccine doses in June, of which 6.1 crore is GoI quota and 5.9 crore will be available for direct purchase by States and private hospitals.
2/ You can read the press release of GoI, dated 30 May 2021, here at bit.ly/3vAG8Y3.
3/ Two points emerge from the press release and the data on vaccinations in May 2021. (a) GoI's promise to "make available" vaccines to States in May was hardly met; (b) the doses it has now promised to "make available" for June 2021 will also not be met. Most numbers are trash.
4/ First, the GoI had promised over two press releases (on 1 May and 14 May) that it would "make available" 4.4 crore doses for State governments and private hospitals for direct purchase; i.e., 2.13 crore doses for the 1st fortnight and 2.27 crore doses for the 2nd fortnight.
5/ "Make available" is the keyword here. It is not doses actually allocated in reality. It just means "x" quantity can be bought by you in "y" month. How is this arrived at? It looks like GoI works backward from a total production figure to divide doses across itself and States.
6/ For this, GoI assumes a total production capacity in India. Remember the Supreme Court affidavit? GoI had stated in the affidavit that SII's capacity is 6.5 crore doses/month and BB's capacity is 2 crore doses/month. Thus, you get a total of about 8.5 crore doses/month.
7/ Now, it appears that GoI then divides this 8.5 crore doses into two parts (the 50:50 formula). It keeps for itself 4-4.5 crore doses and then says the remaining 4-4.5 crore doses have been "made available" for States and private hospitals for direct purchase in that month.
8/ This looks reasonable at first glance. But the problem is that the production capacity of 8.5 crore doses/month is just an estimate. Actual production from SII and BB in May were significantly lower at just about 6-6.5 crore doses/month.
9/ For this, I took the total doses "administered" in May 2021 as a proxy for "production". The total doses administered in May 2021 were only 5.98 crore, at an average rate of 19.3 lakh doses/day. Even if we assume 3-4% wastage, the figure reaches nowhere near 8.5 crore doses.
10/ If the capacity was 8.5 crore doses/month, why was only 5.98 crore doses administered in May 2021? The reason is that India DOES NOT produce 8.5 crore doses/month. We won't know why exactly this is so unless vaccine producers speak up, but some guesses can be made.
11/ Globally, adenovirus vaccine production is seriously hampered by yield instability. You use large 2000 L tanks to grow mammalian cells for 2 months, and then allow the virus to replicate in these cells for a few days. Producers have a prior estimate of this replication rate.
12/ These prior estimates would be true only if cells divide and grow as expected. But they may not. A range of variations can exist in production conditions, which make biological production fundamentally different from industrial production. Guesses may be widely off-the-mark.
13/ For an excellent reference on the issues in upscaling adenovirus vaccine production, see chemistryworld.com/news/why-manuf…. h/t to @pash22.
14/ Such problems, combined with a refusal of the vaccine producers to be transparent about their actual capacities, are possibly the reasons why India did not produce 8.5 crore doses/month. Hence, any projection on what the States are "made available" is just writing on water.
15/ This leads to the States being misled by GoI on what is actually available for them. GoI knew this, but it preferred to continue to misguide States on what would be available over May 2021 to keep up the aura of "positivity".
16/ Take May 2021. Only 5.98 crore doses were administered. Of these, 5.1 crore doses were Covishield and 92 lakh doses were Covaxin. But GoI's SCI affidavit told us that SII's and BB's capacities were 6.5 crore doses/month and 2 crore doses/month respectively! Where is the rest?
17/ Now, though it administered only 5.98 crore doses in May, GoI said on 30 May that 4.03 crore doses were "made available" under GoI quota & 3.9 crore doses were "made available" to States/hospitals for direct purchase during May. Add the two channels. We get 7.9 crore doses.
18/ But only 5.98 crore doses were administered in May. The difference is extraordinarily huge: 2.5 crore doses. This quantity cannot be accounted for either by wastage or arguments like "they are in the pipeline".
19/ One way to check for the discrepancy is to look at the % of doses administered (NOT imaginarily "made available") from GoI quota and from direct purchases by States/hospitals. But GoI doesn't provide us that disaggregation. So the numbers don't tally, but we can't check why!
20/ Now, some may argue that we are missing out on the production in May that is still in stock in June. That is, there was indeed higher production in May, but it was not administered in May. So, there is no real issue of numbers not tallying. I went and checked this out.
21/ On 30 May, GoI said that 1.75 crore doses were still with the States to be administered. States have always disputed this stock figure put out by GoI. But let us work with it for now. This would mean that 6+1.75=7.75 crore doses were produced in May 2021. But, hey, wait...
22/ There were stocks on 30 April too, which were used in May. We should deduct it. The stock on 30 April was ~1 crore doses. On the net, then, the difference is ~75 lakh doses only (1.75-1=0.75). Even if it this true, there's still 1.7-2 crore unaccounted doses. Where are they?
23/ In sum, GoI, SII and BB were all overstating India's production capacities for May 2021. If May capacities were overstated, how can we be sure that their promises to expand capacities in June and July 2021 would be fulfilled? So, underproduction may continue throughout 2021.
24/ Now, take the promise for June 2021. We are promised the moon. The GoI says 12 crore doses will be available in June, of which 6.09 crore doses will be supplied under the GoI quota and 5.86 crore doses will be "available" (again!) for States/hospitals for direct purchase.
25/ You administered only 5.98 crore doses in May 2021, but would double it in June 2021? Where is the fresh supply going to come from? Large imports of Sputnik V would begin only by August 2021. The new Covaxin licensee companies will start production only by December 2021.
26/ Therefore, the number of doses promised for States in June 2021 is just a sham. It is far removed from the reality of vaccine productivity in India. These numbers are put out only to deceive the public into a "positive" mood. Facts don't matter; only narratives do!
27/ This is precisely the devious plan under which Union Ministers are dishing out hyperboles that India will vaccinate 100% of its population by December 2021, and a few other charlatans are writing that India would vaccinate 75% of its population by October 2021.
28/ The reality: in end-May 2021, the % of population vaccinated at least once was only 12% in India as compared to 58% in UK, 50% in US and 43% in Germany. The % of population vaccinated twice was only 3% in India as compared to 37% in UK, 40% in US and 17% in Germany.
29/ Also, number of doses given per 100 persons was 15 in India compared to 92 in UK, 88 in US, 59 in Germany and 40 in China. India's was also not the world's largest vaccination programme. The number of people who received one dose was ~16 crore in India and ~17 crore in US.
30/ GoI should stop deceiving Indian people with wrong claims and fake promises. It should say sorry, and tell Indians the reality: i.e., India cannot vaccinate 100% of its population before 2024. If by then, vaccines for children become available, let's look at 2025/2026! [END]
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