With 8% vaccination; UP has a long way to go

The Uttar Pradesh government has claimed that 50 per cent of the state’s population will be vaccinated by the end of this week, but the fact is that UP has still a long way to go as only eight per cent of the population is fully vaccinated with the double dose of Covid vaccine so far.

“The vaccination of the second dose is very less. It is because of unavailability of the vaccine,” a senior health official said.

It may be noted that Uttar Pradesh had vaccinated a total of 8.2 crores people till now, including 6.9 crores with the first dose and 1.32 crores with the double dose. The eligible population which needs to be covered is 15 crores in the state.

The government claims that 45% of the population has so far taken single dose but experts say that double dose is mandatory to develop sufficient antibodies to fight covid.

A senior official from the health department admitted that the population coverage for both double dose and the first dose was less but that they had used the vaccines which they had received from the Central Government. “One can only go by the availability of the vaccine. UP is a vast state and whatever vaccine which we have been given, is being consumed totally” he said on condition of anonymity.

“Another reason for the less coverage of the population may be that people become hesitant in getting themselves vaccinated when the number of the fresh corona cases come down. This time the number of new corona cases has come down to a large extent in Uttar Pradesh, therefore probably people are avoiding taking the second dose,” he added.

Even the vaccination in the private sector is very low. There are two vaccines that had been given the nod by the Government of India but when exactly they would come into the market, no one knows.

Private hospitals report that the number of people coming to get themselves vaccinated is also dropping. The spokesperson of Vivekanand Polyclinic said that paid Vaccination services were started on August 1 for which people have to pay Rs 780. They have vaccinated around 1100 beneficiaries till September 7.

Meanwhile, the state government claims that for the third time in the span of nearly a month, UP gave more than 30 lakh doses in a day. A total of 3342360 doses were administered on September 6. It is the highest ever vaccination achieved in a single day by any State since the start of the covid-19 vaccination drive.

A government spokesman said that Uttar Pradesh took almost 100 days to touch the vaccination figure of one crore. It then took 45 days to cross the 2-crore mark and 59 more days to reach 5 crores. The state then took 14 days to reach 6 crores and then 11 more days to cross 7 crore vaccinations on August 28. It just took 9 more days to go past the 8-crore mark on September 7.