Punjab, Telangana see big jump in vaccination
Live MintAs India expands its covid-19 vaccine coverage to all Indians above the age of 18 years from 1 May, it’s instructive to see how major states fared in April, when inoculations were allowed for those above 45 years. This set includes Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India’s two-most populous states that are seeing rising caseloads and fatalities. Even as India’s covid-19 vaccine doses per capita increased marginally from 11% to 12% in the past week, the pace of increase was among the slowest across the most populous countries globally. Over the past week, Bengaluru added 126,000 new cases, twice that of Pune and thrice that of Mumbai, districts it had surpassed earlier as the country’s leading hotspot. The past week saw the highest number of deaths since the pandemic started even as the official covid-19 tally surpassed the 200,000 mark.