Almost 1.5 crore people in Uttar Pradesh have been administered the COVID-19 vaccine, read a May 17, 2021 press note released by the Press Information Bureau on how public health emergency response strategies are yielding results in the state.

This is misleading. While around 1.5 crore vaccine doses have been administered in the state, the beneficiary count is not 1.5 crore. This is because around 1.2 crore people have received their first dose and, of these, around 32 lakh got the second dose as well. So the number of people who have received vaccine jabs is essentially still 1.2 crore. Since one can only take the second dose after they have taken the first dose, the people receiving the second jab should be counted for the dose and not as another person receiving vaccine.

UP CM Yogi Adityanath had also made a similar statement on May 13. He had said that around 1.45 crore people in the age group of 45+ had been vaccinated, when the count for first dose stood at 1.15 crore in the state.


Other states too have made such claims. Another example is Maharashtra. The state just claimed that it "has so far vaccinated more than 2 crore beneficiaries". When the data, according to the Co-WIN dashboard, shows that more than 2 crore vaccine doses have been administered, which includes 1.58 crore people who got the first dose and of them, 42 lakh who got the second jab too.

BJP State General Secretary Andhra Pradesh S Vishnu Vardhan Reddy tweeted on May 17 that till date more than 18 crore Indians have been vaccinated. But, according to Co-Win dashboard, 14.4 crore Indians have received the first dose and of these, 4 crore have got the second one too.



In fact, in a graph tweeted by Amitabh Dubey, President, All India Professionals' Congress, the total number of doses administered is shown as population vaccinated and is compared against the projected eligible population of the state.

While the tweet is to show how "Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan have vaccinated a higher percentage of their population than most BJP states", but the calculation doesn't take in to consideration that those who got the second dose are being counted twice.


Media reports too haven't been behind on this miscalculation. On May 10, Patrika published a report and IANS tweeted saying 20% of Rajasthan's population had been vaccinated. They also claimed that number of total doses administered (1.41 crore) were the number of people vaccinated.


The state's projected population is around 7 crore, according to a report by the National Commission of Population.

Isha Bajpai

    Isha Bajpai is the Assistant Editor at FactChecker