NEW DELHI, June 28 India has become number one in the world overtaking the United States in terms of total number of COVID vaccine doses administered, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Monday.
It drew a comparison between the two nations and pointed out that India’s COVID Vaccination drive had started on January 16, 2021, whereas the COVID vaccination in USA had started on December 14, 2020.
It pointed out that among the six top countries, India was the last to start the vaccination drive on January 16, 2021, it has long overtaken the UK, Italy Germany and France and now the US. Vaccination drive was started in the UK on December 8, 200 and so far it had administered 7.67 crores doses, Italy (Dec 27) administered 4.96 crores. Germany (also Dec 27) administered 7.14 crore doses and France (again Dec 27) and so far 5.24 crore doses. The US which started the drive on December 14 has so far administered 32.33 crore doses.
The Ministry further informed that India’s cumulative vaccination coverage had exceeded 32.36 Crores on Sunday. A total of 32,36,63,297 vaccine doses had been administered through 43,21,898 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am on Monday. 17,21,268 vaccine doses were administered in the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile, official figures released today showed India reported 46,148 new cases in the last 24 hours, which meant that less than 1 lakh daily new cases have been reported for 21 continuous days now.
India has also been witnessing a continuous fall in its active caseload. The country’s Active Caseload stands at 5,72,994 on Monday and a net decline of 13,409 was witnessed in the last 24 hours and active cases were now only 1.89% of the country’s total positive cases. In all 12,430 recoveries were reported during the last 24 hours as compared to the daily new cases, the Ministry disclosed.
A total of 15,70,515 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours in the country. Cumulatively, India has conducted over 40.63 crore (40,63,71,279) tests so far.
Out of the people infected since the beginning of the pandemic, 2,93,09,607 people have already recovered from COVID-19 and 58,578 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours. This constitutes an overall recovery rate of 96.80%, which is showing a sustained increasing trend.
While on one side testing capacity has been enhanced across the country, a continued decline in weekly case positivity is noticed. Weekly Positivity Rate is currently at 2.81% while the Daily Positivity Rate stands at 2.94% today. It has remained less than 5% for 21 consecutive days now, the government stated.
(Manas Dasgupta)