India Announces Centralized COVID-19 Vaccination Drive
Deaths continue to plunge in Brazil as more vaccinations are administered.
On Monday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a centralized COVID-19 vaccination drive where doses will be provided for free to all states for individuals aged 18 years and older. The new program is set to being on June 21, and all vaccine doses will be procured by India’s federal government. The original program, which began on May 1 and saw the responsibility fall to individual states, will be replaced. Many states faced challenges due to a shortage of supplies and the hopes are that the more centralized program will aid in the inoculation efforts.
In Germany, the government’s health ministry recently announced that all age groups eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine can now get one. Additionally, younger individuals aged 12 years and older can now get the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Germany has so far administered 55 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
In the United Kingdom, more than half of the adult population has now received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Since the start of the inoculation efforts, a total of 26,422,303 second doses have been administered. The government has also announced that a first dose will be offered to all adults by the end of July.
Data Table per Our World in Data (June 6, 2021, 12 AM EST)
In the United States, despite more than half of the adult population having received at least 1 dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the country may not meet President Biden’s goal of 70% by July 4. Vaccination rates have been continually dropping, with just around 1% of adults a week receiving their first dose, the lowest since mid-February.
Data Table per CDC COVID-19 Tracker (June 6, 2021, 6 AM EST)
For more information on COVID-19 vaccination research, distribution, and assessment, check out some of these recent Contagion stories:
CDC Finds Urban-Rural Disparity in COVID-19 Vaccinations
Those Taking Anti-Inflammatories Do Not Respond as Well to COVID-19 Vaccine
Mask Wearing, Physical Distancing Still Important During Vaccine Distribution
