Prognosis
India’s 1 Billion Vaccines Milestone Hides a Worrying Divide
- Only 20% of India’s 1.4 billion people are fully vaccinated
- Long gap between doses, no-show for second shot among reasons
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India will soon have administered 1 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses, but the milestone masks a yawning gap between the number of people who have been fully inoculated and those that have had just one shot.
While it is likely to hit the billion-doses mark this week, the country has only given two shots to nearly 21% of its population of about 1.4 billion, according Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. By comparison, 51% have had a single dose, making it one of the highest disparities in the world, the tracker shows. Neighboring China, the only nation to dish out more vaccine doses than India, has fully inoculated some 1.05 billion, or 75% of its citizens, as of late September.