NEW DELHI: Vaccinations against Covid-19 in India have had initial problems as fewer people than expected have taken their shots, placing the country well behind the pace needed to reach the target. to inoculate 300 million in August.
Lower-than-expected turnout seems to be due both to technical issues with the app that notifies people when it’s their turn to shoot, and fears about the safety of vaccines developed and approved on an accelerated schedule.
The country had given the first shots to about 1.5 million people as of Saturday, a week after the effort began. That is, an average of about 200,000 a day. It would need to manage 1.3 million daily to reach its August target.
India has more experience and manufacturing capacity to drive vaccination than most countries and had warned that the campaign would start slowly. But in the first week more than 40% fewer people showed up than expected.
Government officials say they are still working the bottlenecks, but the low early participation among health workers (the first to be offered the vaccine) suggests a much longer-than-expected timetable for protecting the population through vaccines.