India becomes fastest country to reach 1 million COVID-19 vaccinations

India has become the fastest country to reach 1 million Covid-19 vaccination, the Health Ministry said on Thursday. “We achieved this within 6 days, US did this in 10 days, Spain in 12 days, Israel in 14 days, UK in 18 days, Italy in 19 days, Germany in 20 days and UAE in 27 days,” said Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan. According to the health ministry, India has administered over 25 lakh vaccine doses so far, as per data available till 2 pm. “The number of active cases are declining, there are 1,75,000 active cases in the country as of now. A steady and declining trend is being exhibited,” Bhushan added. Two states still have 40,000 or more active cases and contribute 67 per cent of the total caseload – Kerala with 72,000 active cases and Maharashtra with 44,000 active cases. 

India’s cumulative Covid-19 positivity rate is 5.51% and is declining. Odisha, Haryana, Rajasthan, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are among better performing states with over 35 per cent vaccination coverage of healthcare workers, the government said. However, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra have less than 21 pc vaccination coverage. Earlier in the day, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that India has flattened its COVID-19 graph and 146 districts have reported no new case of the viral disease in the last seven days, 18 in 14 days, six in 21 days and 21 districts in the last 28 days.  This has been achieved due to pro-active testing with more than 19.5 crore COVID-19 tests conducted in the country so far, Vardhan, who chaired the 23rd meeting of the high-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 through a video-conference, said, according to a statement issued by the health ministry.