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Vice admiral Henrique Gouveia de Melo, is a former submarine commander who has instilled confidence in Portugal's vaccination drive. The drive had a faltering start in January 2021. Gouveia has reminded Portuguese people of the vaccine campaigns that came before- against measles, polio and other deadly diseases. Public memories of these campaigns including the first national vaccination plan in 1965 have helped take the fully vaccinated percentage to 83%, highest in the European Union. Israel and UK are at 61% and 66% fully vaccinated after starting much earlier.  Spain is also close to Portugal in fully vaccinated people. In Portugal the focus remained on protecting people, and vaccine skeptics played a very small role. Portugal used large scale vaccination centers in sports facilities with the help of the military and municipalities.  Gouveia brought with him a team of 30 military strategists, mathematicians and doctors to work with health ministry officials to coordinate a network of 300 vaccination centers, mostly in municipal sports stadiums, with 5000 doctors, nurses and volunteers. 154,000 jabs were given daily. He is shown in military uniform talking to people, instilling trust and confidence day after day. ...

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As the coronavirus surges in India with over 300,000 cases a day on April 26, a clear picture on the vaccination drive in the country is critical. The following is the picture of the vaccination progress from Union Health Ministry in India as shown in The Hindustan Times. India has vaccinated 140 million people with at least one dose says this report in The Hindustan Times.  On Saturday 24th April 2.4 million doses were given for that day at 8 pm. This was done over 99 days. This means about 12% of the population of 1.2 billion has been vaccinated.  This compares with the vaccination in Germany for about 21% of people vaccinated with over 18 million getting the first dose in Germany by around April 25. Both Germany and India have suffered from vaccine shortages, some skepticism about vaccinations. Gradually sentiment is shifting in both countries so that once skeptical Germany now has about 75% of people willing to take vaccine on April 25, 2021. In India about 6 million healthcare workers have 2 doses of vaccine, and about 9 million have 1 dose. About 6 million frontline workers have 2 doses and 12 million frontline workers have 1 dose of vaccine.  There is a shortage of vaccine supplies and a bold decision was made by the Indian government on April 25th 2021, after the surge of cases to a world wide maximum of over 300,000 cases a day. The decision was to give immediate regulatory approval for the three major vaccines in the US to be brought and used in India. And delivery will be speeded up - no customs duties and fast processing of supplies access to speedy logistical supply routes. This is a huge step forward for the vaccination drive as this means Pfizer, Moderna and J&J vaccines can now be used in India. The government is also urging the companies to make in India or export to India with prices that provide flexibility in pricing for the private market. The locally produced Covishield Astra Zeneca based vaccine produced by Serum Institute will be allowed to be sold to the private market at 600 rupees or close to about $10. Pfizer and Moderna, J&J can price in a way that would be somewhere around this price range. The access to more vaccines and the ability of the companies to make a reasonable profit in the Indian private market means that vaccine supplies should open up in May and June.  This could give a huge boost to vaccination numbers so that India's vaccination percentage of population vaccinated should keep up with that in countries like Germany and France that were slower to get started in Europe but are now catching up quickly. This is a massive achievement because the population numbers are huge compared to Europe. ...

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During the first days of vaccination drive in India the uptake is lower than expected, below 48% in many states of India. Healthcare workers are coming forward in smaller numbers. The glitches in the app that was used to transmit information is one reason, the other being that not enough information was disclosed about the two vaccines.  On the first day Jan. 16 India vaccinated 200,000 healthcare workers. The target was 300,000. The uptake is lowest in states such as Tamilnadu and Punjab.  One of the reasons for the low uptake is also that India has a lower number of cases, and cases are in decline in India for coronavirus. The first wave peaked on September 13 at over 90,000 and has declined ever since to 13,000 on January 19, 2021. The Indian diet includes vegetables and a large part of the country is vegetarian. Indian diet also includes herbs such as turmeric, ginger and cinnamon, and many others that help build immunity. The lack of cars for large numbers of the population means a lot more exercize walking long distances is essential in daily living. Another factor is that the mandate for masks is strictly followed everywhere. Also helpful is that after independence in 1947 the pharmaceutical industry was built up to serve the large population with prices regulated carefully by the government, enabling steady supply of medicine during the pandemic. ...

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Lack of vaccine supplies and differences between the European Union Commission in Brussels and the German, French governments is slowing the vaccination drive in both countries. The lack of a national concerted effort with the whole country, local and federal governments in agreement, is restricting the effectiveness of the vaccination drives. The failure to contract for more vaccine supplies adds to the problems. By contrast India has coordinated its drive for vaccinations, with the local and federal governments in agreement, and the whole population largely behind the effort to vaccinate. Very critical for a population of 1.4 billion when one includes Bangladesh which has received 2 million doses of vaccine. India has gone one step further with supplying of vaccines to Brazil, Morocco, and other countries. BBC says India has exported 60 million vaccine doses to 76 countries. This is an amazing story and much credit goes to the concerted government effort at all levels local, state and federal and public support. Germany and France can gain by looking at the Indian experience in vaccination drives, just as India has gained by looking at the vaccination drive in the UK, Israel and the US. ...

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The failure of the vaccination drive in Africa is the subject of this report in the NYT. Africa's 1.2 billion people lag far behind the rest of the world in 2021. South America has accelerated its vaccination drive and with Europe is leading in vaccinations in July 2021. 

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German federal and state leaders meet on acceleration of the vaccination drive. Steps will be taken to allow family doctors to give vaccinations after Easter. About 15.4 million vaccine doses should be available in April. The goal is still is to make vaccine available to every German citizen by summer.

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After averaging over 433 deaths daily over the past week California now leads the U.S. in deaths from coronavirus surpassing New York. The U.S. vaccination drive is reaching 1.5 million vaccinations daily.

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The US received a boost in the economy with larger public spending than the European Union countries and more spending on vaccines. This is changing quickly as the EU has secured a large order of vaccines from Pfizer and other companies. France and Germany are now making steady progress in their vaccination drives. Britain has already secured results in the NHS vaccination drive, a leader in the field.

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After a meeting with 16 state leaders Germany's chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed on tighter restrictions to curb spread of Covid-19. Under new rules only people with two vaccinations plus with a covid negative test or booster shot will be allowed into restaurants and bars. The booster shot vaccination drive will be a major action plan in weeks to come, and Scholz emphasized importance of booster shots.

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For the first time the number of people vaccinated in a single state in India reaches 40 million. In Maharashtra state in western India, with state capital Mumbai, the vaccinations crossed 40 million on July 20, 2021, according to the state's Additional Chief Secretary for Health. India has vaccinated 410 million people by July 20, 2021. About 3 million people are getting vaccinations daily.

Maharashtra was one of the top 5 states in the first and second waves of the coronavirus in India. About 2 million healthcare and front line workers have been fully vaccinated in Maharashtra. Maharashtra has a 2021 population of about 125 million according to Aadhar and is the second most populous state in India after UP which has an effective vaccination drive. 

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The US looks at outpacing Europe with faster economic growth because of a rapidly progressing vaccination drive. The slow pace of Europe's vaccination drive will affect tourism in Europe in the summer of 2021.

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Graphs in this Washington Post report show the success or failure of vaccination drives around the world from the US and Canada to Europe, Brazil, Japan and Africa as of the first week of July 2021. Japan and Africa are far behind Europe and America. By July 4, 59% of Americans were fully vaccinated short of Biden's goal of 70%, according to CDC. Canada, Italy, Germany have passed the US. By making vaccinations mandatory France is working to catchup with Germany and Italy. Canada and UK lead in vaccination drives. 

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India's vaccination drive accelerates with people over the age of 45 years being vaccinated. Over 3 million people are being vaccinated every day. With the surge in the coronavirus cases more effort is going into the vaccination drive. Lockdowns are in place in Maharashtra state.

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Italy faces tighter restrictions and a national lockdown at Easter for the coronavirus, Italians who were the first to go into lockdown on March 10, 2020, now think they will be the last to exit lockdowns. The mood in Europe is of frustration with the slow vaccination drive and the failure to procure enough vaccine supplies and to approve vaccines in time. The US and Britain have vaccination drives that are moving rapidly leading to a reduction in cases and deaths. In Europe new cases are rising since mid February 2021, and there is the spread of the new variant first detected in the UK.  The variants make up 70% of new cases in France says Health Minister Olivier Veran. ICU's in France are 80% full. Elections in France in 2022 and in Germany in September 2021 are leading to government reluctance to impose tighter restrictions. The government strategy is now being questioned. Only 30% of Germans now have confidence in chancellor Merkel's ability to make competent decisions. The CDU's partner in the government, the SDU socialists have even less trust with SDU getting less than 10%. There are signs of a third wave of coronavirus in Germany resulting from variants of the virus, slow vaccinations, and reopenings. ...

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How a deficiency in trust is affecting the US effort to vaccinate its whole population in 2021. The US government took steps early to build vaccine supplies, and was one of the first countries with the UK to begin its vaccination drive. Then after 6 months something went wrong. The deficiency in trust led to about 80 million people many of them young, to avoid getting vaccinated. US president Biden said the country was losing patience with these people. He setup a vaccine mandate and required all employees in private sector in companies with more than 100 employees to get vaccinated. This applied to about two thirds of American workers. All federal government workers were also required to get vaccinated. Yet even after the vaccine mandate the number of vaccinations has not exceeded 900,000 a day. By contrast India was doing 20 million a day. By September 2021 the US had fallen behind all nations in the G-7 in percentage of people vaccinated with one or two doses, behind Italy, France, UK, Germany, Japan, Canada. Trust was also needed, not just vaccine supplies to make a vaccination drive effective. By September the US passed the 675,000 deaths that happened in 1918 pandemic. The deficiency in trust leads one expert to call it breakthrough without followthrough. Other experts see the entrenched social forces that had diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1970's also affecting the vaccination drive. ...

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New evidence from Britain that vaccination is reducing cases, deaths and transmission. Israeli experts also confirm that vaccination works to reduce deaths and cases of coronavirus based on Israel's vaccination drive, a pioneering effort in vaccination.

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Germany faces the possibility of a pandemic surge of the unvaccinated, something that is happening today in the southern United States.  For days the percentage of people that are fully vaccinated remains at 62%. Some vaccination centers are closed. A vaccination center outside the train station in Cologne offers passersby free vaccinations. Berlin's Social Democrat mayor Michael Muller is very frustrated. He says "I am now coming to a point where I think we have exhausted what we can do in politics."  At 62% the rate of fully vaccinated people in Germany is too low to prevent a surge of the Delta variant in the way that it has hit the southern US, and California. Vaccination rates of close to 85% are needed to tackle the risk of another surge in highly contagious delta variant. Not everyone remaining is die hard opposed to vaccines. The Robert Koch Institute estimate is that 5 to 10% of people are in that die hard category. The remaining 20-30 % are people who have various other concerns and fears, hesitancy, that may be changed.  The chairman of the World Medical Association Frank Ulrich Montgomery favors a vaccine mandate, what he calls a 2G rule, that should be introduced in Germany requiring vaccination to attend events, sports, restaurant visits, adopted nationwide. German government has rejected idea of mandatory vaccination of health personnel, that was adopted in France. Vaccination drives are regionally based. Some are ineffective such as the Deutsche Bahn train system vaccination drive for commuters that only had a few hundred doses of J&J vaccine and ran out quickly in Berlin. One prick J&J some say is better for vaccine skeptics. Vaccine skeptics think they may get away without getting covid infection. How does one get over this misconception? Others including members of the Greens party say vaccine needs to be delivered where people are- transit points, bus stops, doses offered in evening and early morning hours, trying new ways to reach people and inspire confidence. Germany now ranks behind France but ahead of Bulgaria in terms of vaccination percentage in September 2021, not a good situation. ...

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India's vaccination drive which has passed one billion vaccinations is one of the great stories of our time. This report in DW.com looks at vaccination drive in a region that is densely forested. It is in central India in the state of Chhattisgarh with about 30 million people and about 7 million tribal people living in dense forests that make up 40% of the state's territory.  One such place is the Dandakaranya forest, Sukma district, 500 kilometres from the state captial of Raipur. It takes an arduous journey just to get to this place which has no electricity, no potable water and no road connectivity.  Block development officer Kapil Kashyap from Sukma tells DW.com how they worked hard, won trust among villagers and brought basic medical services to them. Astonishingly with such effort to overcome vaccine hesitancy, 95% of the people in the village here had their first shot, and 40% received two doses. It is such a kind of effort in every district that prime minister Modi has called for in the unrelenting effort needed to vaccinate fully 1.3 billion Indians. ...

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Already vaccination experts at the Baylor College of Medicine cited here say they foresee another wave of the coronavirus in the Southern US because of vaccine skepticism barriers to vaccination, and much of the population not being vaccinated. The percentage of the population in the Carolinas, Georgia, Georgia and Louisiana, that has both doses of vaccine is low. About 50% have had just one dose. In southern states Mississippi and Alabama the vaccination rates are much lower leaving large parts of the population unvaccinated. The widespread presence of the Delta variant in the UK and the R rate being between 1.00 and 1.2 in UK shows that the UK even with higher vaccination rates than the US is still facing a danger of another wave as it reopens.  The ominous aspect of this is that from just over 400,000 the vaccinations per day dropped to 316,000i n the US. This means there will be a period when vaccination drive is stalled while the reopening is fully underway with a new contagious variant twice as contagious as the original coronavirus. This leaves the US at risk of another wave, with the south and western US, younger people who are out more and unvaccinated, more at risk.  ...

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Eleanor Morgan describes her work giving vaccination jabs at a mass vaccination centre in North London. She had experience as an assistant psychologist and signed up for training to join the historic vaccination drive of the NHS in Britain.

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About 67 million doses have been given out of 89 million doses distributed in the U.S. vaccination drive according to this report tracking the drive in the US.

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After a good start the vaccination drive is slowing both in India and the US. Vaccine supplies need to be boosted in India and the government has given approval to the Pfizer, Moderna and J&J vaccines to boost supplies. The Sputnik vaccine from Russia has also gained approval with new supplies of that vaccine expected in India. Vaccine skepticism is a problem in the US and Europe. Supplies of the Pfizer vaccine will be boosted in Europe with the EU contract for 1.8 billion doses signed recently. This should give the slow vaccination drives in France and Germany a boost.