Thread by @bijaya_biswal

Bhubaneswar is about to become the first city to achieve 100% vaccination coverage. How did this happen?

Thanks to AN UNEQUAL VACCINE ALLOCATION POLICY that favored the people of Bhubaneswar at the cost of people elsewhere in Odisha. Read on.

Unlike other states,Odisha Government restricted COVAXIN to Bhubaneswar, while vaccinating with COVISHIELD everywhere else. This meant, the 10 lakh people of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation area (2.5% of Odisha’s population), received 11.6% of vaccine doses. 5 times their share

Khorda was the only district which administered BOTH Covaxin and Covishield while the other 29 districts administered only Covishield. Hence, when vaccination centres across Odisha kept closing down because of shortage, Bhubaneswar was always sitting on its stock of Covaxin.

Khorda received 7,30,000 vaccine doses in last 30 days, while other districts with equal population got 2-3 times lesser. For example, Mayurbhanj received 1,60,000. Sundergarh- 2,20,000. Balasore- 1,83,000

In last one month, Khorda with 5.6% population share of Odisha, got 16.6% of the total vaccines administered. To put into perspective, 22 lakh people had the vaccine share equal to 13 other districts with cumulative population of 1.2 crore.

The 13 districts are: Balangir, Boudh, Deogarh, Gajapati, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Kandhamal, Koraput, Malkangiri, Sonepur, Nuapada, Nayagada, Nabarangpur. Unlike Khorda, they already have a disproportionately low share of ICU beds. 1500 in Khorda as opposed to 256(in 13 districts)

Rayagada, which hit the headlines for having the “vaccine hesitant” Dongria Kondhs received only 70k vaccine doses for a population of 12 lakhs. If the government is actually worried about vaccination there, shouldn’t it have more dose allocation at least?

Lockdowns will only help in breaking the chain of transmission if meanwhile vaccination coverage is equitably done across the state. If we could achieve 70% vaccination coverage in EVERY district rather than 100% in one, rate of spread of infection could have slowed down.

What sucks more? Odisha Government’s free vaccination policy is planned to be funded by District Mineral Foundation money(from the 11 mining districts).

Which means, marginalized communities of mineral rich districts like Keonjhar, Sundergarh, Mayurbhanj, Jharsuguda, Koraput etc with miserable vaccination coverage, will have money meant for their welfare, diverted for seemingly “FREE” vaccination policy.

Source of all data: CoWin Dashboard and Odisha COVID Dashboard.

Now such articles make sense:
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/83…

sambadenglish.com/covid-vaccine-…