Covid vaccination pace for 15-17 age group slows down further: Data

At the current pace, child vaccinations may only be complete by the end of the year. India has 83.3 million children in the 12-14 age group who are yet to be vaccinated

Just over a month of starting its Covid vaccination for 15-17-year-olds, India has administered over 60 million doses to this age cohort. On February 10, data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare shows that the country had administered 50.8 million doses first and 10.5 million second doses.

A Business Standard analysis shows that the pace of vaccination is slowing down, and even second dose administration is catching up. Vaccination is nowhere near the levels witnessed during the first two weeks of January. For the first five days, since the vaccination drive started on January 3, the government had administered nearly 4 million doses daily to 15–17-year-olds. However, between January 8-14, the daily numbers dipped to 1.7 million. First dose administration dropped to 1.1 million daily doses between January 15 and 21. The number had further declined between January 22-28 to 605,363 daily doses. Between February 5 and February 10, the country averaged 410,306 doses daily.

Only 67 per cent of the 15-17 age group population has been vaccinated till now. Further analysis shows that even second dose administration takes time to catch up. Although 10 million second doses were administered till February 10, nearly 25 million had become eligible for second dose administration.

Currently, the government will take another two months to complete the first dose administration to all people in the 15-17 age group. The government will administer the first dose to all 15-17 years old by April 13. As second dose administration takes another 4-6 weeks, the entire cohort will be fully vaccinated by the end of May.

While Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin had received emergency use authorisation for children aged 12 and above, the government first opened the vaccination for the 15-17 age group

Between 12 and 14, there are 83.3 million children in the country. India’s vaccination programme can stretch till the end of the year. 

Until Thursday, Our World in Data data shows that India had administered a dose to nearly two-thirds of its total population.