Year of good hope, a harbinger of renewal and recovery. That’s what the world expected 2023 to be. The Indian population too had been through three extremely stressful years, after an unexpected pandemic left them shaken. The three waves of Covid-19 saw lakhs of people affected by the virus, many lost their lives, and the economy too took a bad hit.
But the beginning of 2023 was different. Just 265 people, in a population of 1.37 billion, tested positive for Covid on January 1. Things remained bright until mid-March, when Covid cases started rising again, much to the worry of people. On April 17, more than 7,000 people tested positive for the virus. The total number of active cases climbed to 61,000 as of April 18.
Considering the situation, the union government asked States to be alert. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya also ordered mock drills in States to help review the preparedness of the administration.
Pace of booster doses
At the same time, the pace of administration of booster doses remains quite low throughout the country. On April 7, only 16.5 per cent of the country’s population and 24 per cent of the fully-vaccinated population received booster shots. This is at a time when more than 90 per cent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated.
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In a situation like this, will the government ramp up its efforts to provide booster jabs to more people? Let’s dive into the digits and see what they have to spill.
India began vaccinating senior citizens, healthcare and frontline workers with booster doses at the beginning of 2022. That was around the time when the Omicron wave of Covid peaked in India. However, the daily number of vaccine doses started falling from January 29, 2022. Coincidentally, the number of Covid cases also started falling at that time. At this time, only senior citizens, health and frontline workers could get a free booster in India.
Then from the beginning of June, Covid cases started rising again in India. On July 24, it peaked with more than 21,000 people testing positive for Covid in a single day. Incidentally, 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. As part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav (75th Anniversary of Indian Independence), the government initiated free vaccine coverage.
75 days of free jabs
Data from CoWIN (Cowin is a web portal by the government of India that has details of vaccine registration) suggests that the drive was a success. In those 75 days, 15.75 crore people in the country received a booster. That is 75 per cent of the total number of people who had had a booster dose until that day. However, the numbers started declining from October 1.
The number of daily Covid cases too started falling from then, only to start rising again in March. But this time, people seem less enthusiastic about a Covid booster, according to our analysis of CoWIN data. We also looked at the cases from Mexico and Brazil, since both of them are emerging economies that were severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Data from the two countries showed that the rise in the number of Covid cases and the pace of booster-dose administration were co-related. The number of Covid cases and the number of daily booster dose administrations peaked at around the same time after the number of Covid cases started coming down.
Coincidence much?
Health experts, however, believe that this could be a coincidence and that the booster may not have a lot to do with bringing down Covid cases in India. One reason behind this is, the lack of proper trials anywhere in the world about boosters, says Amitav Banerjee, Head, Department of Community Medicine, Dr DY Patil Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre, Pune.
Banerjee says that it is hard to determine if the booster shot or the vaccination is preventing hospitalisation, or if it’s just a natural occurrence given that close to 90 per cent of our population currently has natural immunity. “And natural immunity has been established to be definitely more robust than the vaccine,” he adds.
Oommen John, Senior Public Health Expert, George Institute for Global Health also shared similar views. “Preventing transmission is not really the aim of any of these vaccines that are currently available,” he says, adding, “Before stressing on administering a booster, we need to know what is the strain that is causing this increase of cases.”
In a situation like this, the chances of a government-sponsored free booster programme look unlikely, despite the rising number of Covid cases. In fact, no amount has been allocated for Covid vaccination in the budget for FY24. The allocation was ₹5,000 crore in FY23 and ₹39,000 crore in FY22.
Stopping a new wave
Banerjee advocates for an emphasis on enhancing an individual’s overall health as a prudent measure. “Lifestyle and obesity should be controlled because this pandemic has the vulnerability among people who are obese and who are comorbid,” he adds.
Moreover, he highlights the need for elderly individuals and those with comorbidities to take ample precautions, including the avoidance of crowded places, to mitigate the risk of contracting the virus.
(With inputs from AJ Vinayak; Visualisations by Balakrishnan K)