With the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in Karnataka crossing the seven crore mark on Saturday, the State is inching towards achieving 100% inoculation. With 2,83,338 doses administered till 6 p.m. on Saturday, the total number of doses touched 7,01,99,026. Of these 2,65,27,346 are second doses.
With a target population of 4.89 crore, the State had a task of administering a total of 9.78 crore doses (first and second doses included). With 7.01 crore doses administered till Saturday, the State has achieved a cumulative coverage of 71.67%. The challenge is to administer the remaining 2.76 crore doses. As of Saturday, the State had a stock of 90,76,172 doses.
Currently, the State is in the sixth position in the country after Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Bihar. On September 17, during the mega vaccination drive that coincided with the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the State had crossed five crore mark. The State has been conducting special vaccination camps every Wednesday with a target of 10 lakh doses. However, with not many people coming forward to get jabbed, the State has been able to administer around five to six lakh doses only every Wednesday.
COVID-19 vaccination was rolled out on January 16 for healthcare workers followed by frontline workers in the first and second phases. So far, 77% of the targeted 8,98,717 healthcare workers have been fully vaccinated while 85.1% has been jabbed with the first dose. Over 96% of the targeted 8,69,700 frontline workers have been fully vaccinated.
Last-mile issues
Arundathi Chandrashekar, State Mission Director, National Health Mission, said, “Although over 40 lakh people are due for the second dose in Karnataka, it has become a challenging task for the State to get them inoculated as people are not coming forward.” With the number of new cases declining, people have become reluctant to get vaccinated. The government has started ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ door-to-door campaign to motivate those who are yet to get vaccinated.
“This is a national campaign that will go on till November 30 as the trend is the same across the country,” she said.
