For all the applause that rang out in mid-June when Gujarat crossed the 2 crore mark in its vaccination reach, it completed the month ranking 15th among the states in the country, in terms of number of people vaccinated per lakh of population.
Vaccinating 37,400 people per lakh of population in the state, Gujarat lags behind even states and union territories such as Kerala, Delhi, Lakshadweep and Goa. Given this status it also falls behind Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh that have reportedly covered 3.2 crore and 3.1 crore people, respectively. To date, Gujarat has delivered the 1st dose of the vaccines to 2 crore and 61 thousand of its citizens, of whom 56.17 lakh have got their 2nd dose.
Turns out, the vaccination drive in the state lost some steam in the past few days due to shortage of vaccine supply, with several vaccination centres being forced to down their shutters. On June 30, 2.79 lakh were vaccinated, which is little more than half of the 5.20 lakh doses administered on June 21, when the state allowed walk-in registration for the 18-44 age group.
“We send a fixed number of doses per vaccination site, so if a vaccination site has a capacity of 200 doses and a lot of people come suddenly, it becomes difficult. We have the capacity to administer up to five lakh doses but the stock we are receiving daily from the central government is around 3.5-4 lakh doses on an average,” informs Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel.
Meanwhile, the distribution of the vaccines in the state remains disparate, displaying gender gap as well as regional imbalances. As per the CoWin portal, the state saw 22.63 lakh less women receiving the vaccines than the men. Similarly, the penetration varies between districts. While 12.81 per cent of Porbandar’s population is fully vaccinated, in districts such as Botad and Tapi, this number was below three per cent.
