Covid-19: At current vaccination pace, India won’t reach 70% coverage until year-end

The hype around tika utsav failed to lift India’s vaccination drive last week. Amid complaints of vaccine shortage and rising infections, herd immunity seems far away, calculations show. The four-day ‘tika utsav’, or ‘vaccine festival’, came to an end on 14 April amidst fast-rising covid-19 cases. Despite the hype, India’s vaccinations slowed down in this period compared to the previous week. If the recent pace continues, India won’t reach 70% vaccine coverage until December 2021, a Mint analysis shows.