How much truth is there in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim of faster vaccination than developed countries? – Fact Check
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation for the 9th time on Monday during the Corona epidemic. In this address, he made two big announcements.
First – from June 21, all citizens above the age of 18 years will be vaccinated free of cost and the central government will bear the cost.
Second – Under the Garib Kalyan Yojana, 80 crore poor people will be given free ration till November.
But apart from these two announcements, the Prime Minister also made some big claims in the 33-minute speech. The most important of these claims was about the speed of vaccination in India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “We have to remember that the speed of India’s vaccination is very fast in the world and India is faster than many developed countries in terms of vaccination.”
The Prime Minister has made this claim at a time when many states have stopped the vaccination scheme for those above 18 years of age, started from May 1, due to lack of vaccine in the country.
To understand how much truth is in this claim, the BBC gathered information on vaccination data from India, America, Britain, Germany and France. For this comparative study, we have selected America, Britain, Germany and France because they are counted among the most developed countries of the world. Also, India has been compared repeatedly in the press conferences of the Ministry of Health with the speed of vaccination in America.
According to John Hopkins University, as of June 6, 2021, 300 million vaccine doses have been used in America.
Till June 6, 70 million vaccine doses have been used in Britain.
To date, 56.5 million vaccine doses have been used in Germany, while for France the figure is a little over 40 million.
Whereas till June 6, 23 crore 27 lakh doses have been used in India.
That is, India is in second place among these four countries in the use of vaccine doses.
how many people got the vaccine
But we cannot understand the vaccination campaign of these countries just by talking about the use of dosage. These figures will also have to be seen on how many people have used these doses in each country.
By June 7, more than 13.89 million people in the US have received both doses of the vaccine.
As of 6 June, more than 27 million people have been vaccinated in the UK.
In Germany, more than 81 million people have been fully vaccinated.
In France, more than 12 million people have received both doses of the vaccine.
Whereas in India till June 6, 40 million people have received both doses of the vaccine.
That is, if we talk about vaccination of both doses of people, then India is again at number two.
But if we talk about one dose vaccine, then India is ahead of America.
What percentage of the population got vaccinated?
Here, if we look at the statistics of vaccination on the basis of coverage of population percentage, then India is behind among the four countries. This is because the population of America is 328 million, the population of Britain is 69 million. Whereas the population of India is 131 crores. Germany and France are much smaller than India in terms of population.
Therefore, about 42 percent of people have been vaccinated (both doses) in America, about 41 percent in Britain, 21 percent in Germany and 19 percent in France.
Whereas in India only 3.28 percent people have got complete vaccination.
This means that India has the lowest coverage in percentage of population, because India’s population is very high.
In how many days, where was the vaccine?
Now let us know in which country when vaccination was started.
Vaccination was first introduced in the UK on 8 December 2020. There are AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines being used. After that vaccination has been started in the US from December 14, 2020. There Moderna and Pfizer Vaccines are being used.
Immunization started simultaneously in Germany and France on December 27, 2020. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are being used in both countries.
Vaccination in India has been delayed since January 16, 2021 and is using the local version of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaccine.
This is not the first time that the government has claimed to accelerate the vaccination rate.
On May 10, in the press conference being held by the Ministry of Health, it was also claimed that India had applied 170 million vaccines in 114 days and America took 115 and China 119 days to implement.
We found in our investigation that the US has used 170 million vaccine doses on 7 April itself. That is, the claim made by the Ministry of Health of America for 115 days is correct. This speed cannot be compared with Britain, France and Germany, because these countries are very small in terms of population.
It is clear from these figures that it is most important to state the basis of India’s rapid vaccination claim, which Prime Minister Modi did not tell while making the claim.
