Covid vaccination saved lives, boosted confidence in economy post 2nd wave decline: Economic Survey

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, January 31

Vaccination played a critical role in minimising loss of lives, boosting confidence in the economy towards resumption of activity and containing the sequential decline in output due to second wave, the Economic survey noted on Monday.

It said that as India completed one year of its Covid-19 vaccination drive on January 16, it crossed the historic milestone of administering more than 156 crore doses of vaccine.

“More than 88 crore people (93 per cent of the adult population) have received at least one dose of which around 66 crore people (70 per cent of the adult population) stands fully vaccinated. With vaccination drive further extended to the age group of 15-18 years starting January 3, 2022, more than 50 per cent of India’s population in this age group have received their first dose of the vaccine as on January 19,” the survey said.

Noting the resurgence in daily new cases since end-December 2021, marking the onset of Omicron variant induced third wave, the survey said rapid progress in vaccination coverage and further strengthening of testing and health infrastructure assumed critical importance in protecting lives and containing the spread of the infection.

“The average daily vaccination rate has increased four-fold from 19.3 lakh in May 2021 to 75.4 lakh as of 16th January 2021,” it said a day after India completed two years of the detection of first Covid case and 75 per cent adults were fully jabbed.

The Survey said that Covid vaccination has been an integral pillar of the comprehensive strategy of Government of India for containment and management of the pandemic.

Tracing the history of the drive that started on 16th January 2021, the survey said India commenced the world’s largest vaccination programme with an ambitious target to inoculate its entire eligible population by December 31, 2021, with at least the first dose.

In the first phase, the vaccination drive was sequentially expanded to cover healthcare workers and frontline workers. The second phase started on March 1, 2021 (for above 60 years) and April 1, 2021 (from 45-59 years) making all persons aged 45 years and above eligible for vaccination. This cohort had accounted for more than 80 per cent of the Covid-19 mortality in the country.

The third phase began on May 1, 2021 to vaccinate people in the age group of 18-45 years.

“From January 3, 2022, the vaccination drive has been further extended to include those in the age group of 15-18 years. Taking cognisance of the recent global surge of the Omicron variant, the Variant of Concern declared by WHO on 26th November 2021, booster doses to healthcare and frontline workers as well as senior citizens above 60 years of age with co-morbidities have been allowed by government from January 10, 2022,” the survey noted adding that vaccination access and pricing have been deregulated to quicken the pace of vaccination across states and all age groups.

“The latest available data at the time of writing shows that 99 per cent of the registered healthcare workers and 100 per cent of the frontline workers, 87 per cent of the population aged between 18- 44 years, 95 per cent of the population aged between 45-60 years and 89 per cent of the population above 60 years have been covered under the first dose,” said the survey adding that vaccination drive continued to gather speed and breadth with the number of days taken to achieve an additional 10 crore doses reducing significantly from 86 days during the initial phase to 15 days now.

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