New Delhi: After a slow start of corona vaccination drive, China seems to be at the forefront. Within days, China will reach a staggering 1 billion doses in its Covid-19 vaccination drive -a scale and speed unrivaled by any other country in the world.
As of Wednesday, China had administered more than 945 million doses — three times the number delivered in the United States, and almost 40% of the 2.5 billion shots given globally. China only reached its first million doses on March 27 -two weeks behind the US. But the pace picked up significantly in May, with more than 500 million shots given over the past month, according to data from China’s National Health Commission. On Tuesday alone, it administered more than 20 million doses. At that rate, it is likely to exceed 1 billion doses this weekend.
The all-out campaign to “vaccinate all who can be vaccinated” is being carried out across the country, in major cities and tiny villages alike, with government workers descending on neighborhoods to convince people to get vaccinated. In state-owned companies, meanwhile, employees are urged by their bosses to take the shots, while vaccination sites offer benefits, ranging from shopping vouchers to free groceries and ice cream.
In the US about two weeks ago, approximately two million people were getting vaccinated daily, but this pace has now slowed down, due to which Biden’s goal of getting 70 percent of the population at least partially vaccinated by July 4 is in danger.
If we talk about India, on the 154th day of the vaccination campaign, India achieved a significant milestone and the total number of doses administered in the country so far has exceeded 270 million.