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Sridhar V

@sritara

23 Jun

A short thread on vaccination on June 22, 2021. An inevitable fall from the peak?
6.07 m vaccines were delivered y’day, a fall of 32 % from a day earlier, clearly demonstrating that the spike is unsustainable.

2. Covaxin dose deliveries, the weak link in the chain, fell by 23 %. Covishield, the mainstay, which accounted for >95% of vaccinations y’day, fell by >32 % and Sputnik, of which only 4125 doses were delivered y’day increased marginally.

3. The avg for June (3.55m doses/day) has improved significantly thanks to the spectacular, but evidently weakening, spike. Like all averages, this can be misleading. Remove the two extraordinary days and the avg is down to 3.16 m doses/day.

Read 8 tweets

Sridhar V

@sritara

22 Jun

THREAD on the spectacular single-day spike on June 21 - a whopping 8.87 million doses administered in India.
1. The questions to ask are: How may this have happened? Is this sustainable over a longer time frame?

2. First, the context. Vaccine doses delivered yesterday was 42 % higher than the previous highest single-day number registered on March 16 (6.25 m doses). Indeed, apart from the March instance, dose delivery crossed 5 m/day only once - on April 7. So, this is indeed a big deal.

3. In the first 20 days of June an average of 3.16 m doses were delivered. Monday’s spike was 181 % higher than this avg. Let us look at the numbers a little more closely. In the last month or so Covshield had been accounting for about 88% of all deliveries. Y’day it was 92.35 %!

Read 18 tweets

Sridhar V

@sritara

16 Jun

Thread on BBIL’s justification of higher Covaxin’s prices and the media’s gullible coverage of BBIL’s claims about costs, pricing and output.
1. Most stories in the business media are solely based on the BBIL’s press release of June 15, 2021, without any contestation.

2. To innocent journos who know little about manufacturing and costs, BBIL explains vaccine making has many steps and risks associated with production and marketing of a pharma product. It doesn’t tell us that these risks were known to it BEFORE it undertook to develop Covaxin.

3. It refers to the “complex” manufacturing process associated with the inactivated virus vaccine platform. Again, it does not bother to tell us that nobody forced the company to adopt this platform. It was a choice BBIL made, with its eyes open.

Read 20 tweets

Sridhar V

@sritara

9 Jun

Thread on the yawning gap between vaccine procurement and production

1. This is in the light of the Govt announcement on June 8 (VK Paul, head, Group on Vaccination) that the Govt is set to procure 770 million doses b/w Aug and Dec 2021.

2. To place the numbers in context: India has so far delivered about 235 m doses, of which about 90 % are Covishield. In April, the avg daily vaccination rate was 2.935 m, which dipped to 1.928 m/day in May - fall of 34% . Things improved in June, but not convincingly enough.

3. In the first 4 days of June the daily strike rate was almost 4 m doses but yesterday it was just 2.740, a drop of almost one-third. IOW, things look up but not convincingly enough.

Read 15 tweets

Sridhar V

@sritara

7 Jun

A thread on the PM’s speech today

1. Most important takeaway: This is not a course correction. It is a mere amendment to the disastrous vaccine policy. Why do I say this?

2. The decision to provide “free” vaccines to states for 18-44 is welcome, but it comes with no intent to streamline vaccine distribution by making it dependent on objective, normative and verifiable standards. The arbitrary allocations to states will continue.

3. The only difference is that instead of a three-tiered pricing regime, there will be a two-tier pricing regime as 25 % of vaccine allocations will be to private sector. Already, how this is happening, and what prices are being charged is shrouded in opacity. This won’t change.

Read 8 tweets

Sridhar V

@sritara

28 May

THREAD on BBIL’s saga of an incredibly spun yarn, based on its most recent release, today.
1. Starts with a treatise on vaccine making for the intellectually-challenged journalists - “complex and multifactorial process” with 100s of steps, it says.

2. Explains how the regulatory pathway is complex and takes time, effort, coordination with supply chains, etc. Generally, more fluff

3. Now comes to the real deal - that scaling production is a "step-by-step process". (BTW, what manufacturing process isn’t?). But here’s the innocently-couched punch: “There is a four-month lag time for COVAXIN to translate into actual vaccination.”

Read 11 tweets

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