India�s vaccination drive: Few bumps along the road, but vaccine hesitancy reduces as turnout picks up

27-01-2021

In the first week, the drive was hampered by the turnout which was low as 22% in some states, as fears over the vaccine safety and misinformation fueled widespread hesitancy. Centre attributed low turnout to nervousness about safety among the healthcare workers who were first in line to get the jab coupled with the technical difficulties with the Co-WIN app designed to alert people to their vaccine appointments. The Centre was quick to address the rumours and fight the hesitancy as it has set a target of vaccinating 300 million people by August. The Delhi government made minor changes to the prescribed protocol, this apart from investing in campaigns made to build confidence amongst the beneficiaries. The measures included out-of-turn vaccine shots for those who missed their appointments on the scheduled day along with the beneficiaries who are allotted slots on future dates. This also allows the vaccination centres to go beyond the cap of 100 shots per day. Beneficiaries have also been let to take their shots in any centre according to their convenience instead of only to their registered ones. According to the government records, the capital has an estimated 300,000 health workers out of which nearly 240,000 have registered for vaccination. Delhi saw a turnout of 91.5% on Jan 25 with 7,408 out of 8,100 targeted beneficiaries. This is the highest single-day turnout achieved in the mass inoculation drive.
Meanwhile, January 25 also marked the day when Maharashtra crossed the mark of vaccinating 100,000 healthcare workers (HCWs) after it inoculated over 35,816 HCWs, its highest so far in a day � across 477 centres in the state. In West Bengal, only 71% of healthcare workers wanted to get the vaccine shots in the first six days of the drive. Senior health department officials in the state claim that some health workers were given the first shot out of turn to achieve the campaign target. To bolster the campaign, officials have doubled the number of health workers they are inviting to each centre per day from 100 to 200. They are also administering the vaccines to people beyond the online list put together by Co-WIN when the turnout is low.