DigitEye India Fact Checkers
The number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in India crossed 100 crore doses on October 21, a gigantic milestone achieved by the country. However, there are conflicting statements making rounds in the media, creating lot of confusion about the exact number of people fully vaccinated. Here’s one such confusing claims on twitter:
ONE BILLION vaccinated.. thanks to this great man.. honourable PM Modi.. No one could’ve handled the pandemic better than him.. Can’t even imagine the condition,, had this happened before 2014!! ?? #ModiHaiToMumkinHai
#PMModi #OneBillionDoses pic.twitter.com/r5gGIQNyOD— trisha ?? (@trisha28018992) October 21, 2021
Even the website Quartz India is among those to make the confusing statement:
However, the confusion got confounded from the statements made by the visiting UK Foreign Secretary in New Delhi. On the occasion of the bilateral meeting on Saturday of the delegations from India and the UK at Hyderabad House, UK Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss congratulated India on the occasion of vaccinating “one billion people”. See the video below and the wording at 2.31 minute to be precise.
The same message has been reiterated by Truss in her exclusive to Vishnu Som of NDTV, when she congratulated India for achieving the milestone of vaccinating “one billion” people.
FACT CHECK
To avoid confusion about the number of people and doses given , Digiteye India has taken it up to put forward the statistics straight.
India has, no doubt, achieved administering “one billion doses” countrywide to achieve the gigantic milestone in its journey to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. The government website has given out state-wise figures and there’s no confusion from the government side, going by the website statistics. The one billion landmark pertains to total number of vaccine doses — 100 crore vaccinations.
Further, here are the latest figures as of October 23, 2021, made available by the Government of India (PIB). The last three rows give out the exact numbers.
The statewise figures are also available on Mygov.in/Covid-19 website of the Government of India as on 23 Oct 2021, 08:00 IST (GMT+5:30).
What’s the exact figure and percentage?
As both vaccines — Covishield and Covaxin — among others, require two doses to each person to be considered fully vaccinated, it means, as of October 23, 2021, about 71 crore (to be precise 715,388,049) people have received one dose of the vaccine, while 30 crore (to be precise 304,946,360) people have received both the vaccines.
In terms of percentage, out of India’s 1.3 billion people, 30 crore or 300 million people have been fully vaccinated. In other words, out of India’s 1.3 billion, 0.3 billion people have been fully vaccinated.
Coming to the first dose, 71,53,88,049 or approximately 71 crore people have received one dose so far, which means about 54% of the total population has been vaccinated at least with one dose. However, it should be noted that the children aged below 18 are yet to be made eligible for vaccination.
In cumulative terms, about 23% of the total population of India has been fully vaccinated as of October 23, 2021. However, many people, including the UK Foreign Secretary confused between the number of people and the number of vaccine doses.
Claim: One billion people in India vaccinated, said UK Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss.
Conclusion: India administered one billion doses of vaccination which covers 23% of the total population of 1.3 billion. Out of this approximately 715 million were given one dose, which is 54% of the total population.
Our Rating: Misinterpretation — 
