A grand declaration was made for India’s COVID-19 vaccination programme in May this year — that all eligible adults would be fully vaccinated by December 31, 2021. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar had made this announcement on May 28, and in June, this was affirmed by the Union government to the Supreme Court as well, with estimates regarding the eligible population that would be vaccinated varying between 94 crore and 108 crore. However, it was expected that India may not be able to meet this target.
At the time of writing, on December 28, here’s where things stand in the country — 142.6 crore doses have been administered in total. Of these, 84 crore of the eligible adult population has been administered the first dose and 58.5 crore people have been administered both doses of the vaccine.
On Christmas day, Prime Minister Modi said in a speech that more than 61% of India's adult population received both doses of the vaccine, and 90% received at least one dose.
In light of this, here’s where the vaccination coverage in the southern states stands:
Tamil Nadu: As of December 26, Tamil Nadu said 85.71% of the population received the first dose of the vaccine and the second dose coverage was at 57.85%.
According to the CoWIN portal, on December 28 at noon, 4.95 crore people have been administered the first dose and 3.29 crore have received both doses.
Tamil Nadu’s Health Department has been running mass vaccination programmes every Sunday, which began on September 12, to inoculate as many people as possible.
Andhra Pradesh: As of noon on December 28, the CoWIN dashboard showed that 3.92 crore people were administered the first dose, and 2.87 crore received both doses of the vaccine. State officials informed Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy on December 27 that vaccination coverage stood at 98.96% for the first dose and 71.76% for the second dose.
Nellore, Vizianagaram, Prakasam, Anantapur, West Godavari, Kurnool and Chittoor districts recorded 100% inoculations.
Telangana: Data was last given by the state on December 24, which put the total eligible adult beneficiaries at 2.77 crore, with first dose coverage at 99% and second dose coverage at 63%. However, several districts were above 100% coverage for the first dose, and this is likely because the number of eligible beneficiaries exceeded estimates and there is a floating population as well.
According to CoWIN, 2.76 people received the first dose and 1.8 crore received the second dose in the state.
Kerala: CoWIN showed Kerala’s first dose coverage of the COVID-19 vaccine at 2.60 crore and second dose coverage at 2.06 crore. As per the state’s vaccination bulletin on December 26, 98% of the eligible population received the first dose and 77% of the eligible population have received both doses.
Further, the bulletin said that a total number of 2.66 crore people are eligible for the vaccine in the state.
Karnataka: Karnataka has administered 8.49 crore vaccine doses so far — 4.74 crore first doses and 3.75 crore second doses. According to the state Health Minister Sudhakar, 75% of people in the state received both doses of the vaccine, with 4.89 crore eligible beneficiaries in the state.