NEW DELHI – India’s Covid-19 vaccinations run into problems early on as fewer people than expected show up for their shot, leaving the country far behind the pace it takes to reach its goal: 300 million vaccinations by August.
The lower-than-expected turnout appears to be due to both technical issues with the app that notifies people when it is their turn for an injection, and fears about the safety of vaccines developed and approved on an accelerated timetable .
The country had given about 1.5 million people their first photos on Saturday, a week after the start of the effort. That is an average of about 200,000 per day. It would have to manage 1.3 million a day to meet its target for August.
India has more experience with government vaccination and more production capacity than most countries, and had warned that the campaign would start slowly. But in the first week, more than 40% fewer people showed up for admissions than expected.
Government officials say they are still working to resolve the bottlenecks, but the low early turnout among health workers – the first to be offered the vaccine – suggests a much longer than expected timeline to protect the population through vaccinations.