On July 15, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare began a 75-day drive to administer booster doses for people above 18 for free. Since then the pace of booster administration has picked up speed in the country, with daily booster jabs increasing more than five-fold.
Average booster doses administered daily between July 15 and August 22 were 22.45 lakh. But average jabs between June 4 and July 8 was just 3.8 lakh. There has been over a five-fold increase in daily booster jabs since it was made free.
According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, as of August 22, 13.8 crore people have got booster doses in the country. India started vaccinating people above 18 with the precautionary doses of the Covid vaccine in April. However, it was made free for this age category only on July 15. On July 15, just 5.28 crore people got boosters across the country. This means since that day, the number of booster doses administered in the country jumped by more than two times. This is amid daily Covid infections and active cases dipping across the country.
Between July 9 and 15, 51.2 lakh people got booster shots in India. However, in the next 7-day interval, booster administration jumped by close to 200 per cent. Almost 1.5 crore people got booster doses between July 16 and 22.
Who is taking these shots?
Data from MoHFW shows that 58 per cent of the booster shots administered since January 2022 was given to people aged between 18 and 59. Seniors (people above 60) come next, forming 28 per cent of the population, followed by frontline and health workers.
Data also shows that between July 15 and August 22, 85 per cent of the people who took booster shots fall between the 18-59 age group. This is particularly interesting because, until July 15, the pace of booster administration was yet to pick up among the 18-59 age group. Until that day, while 5.2 crore people across the country got precautionary shots, this group formed just 14.7 per cent of it. At that time, booster doses were free only for people above 60 and frontline and healthcare workers, forming the majority of people who have gotten the jab.
Where do we stand globally?
All that being said, even now, only less than 10 per cent of India’s population has received booster jabs. This is when 30 per cent of the global population has received the shots, according to Ourworldindata.
Population wise, as of August 21, 54.3 per cent of Brazil, 56.3 per cent of China and 39 per cent of US, have received boosters. According to the latest UIDAI projections, there are around 95 crore people above 18 in India. This means just less than 15 per cent of the eligible population have got the booster vaccines.