There is no vaccine hesitancy in India. Belying the narrative put forward by a section of the media, the latest IANS CVoter Covid Tracker shows that overall, 80 percent in India are pro-vaccine, which is almost 10 percent more positive than the American public sentiment on vaccines.

Yashwant Deshmukh, Founder-Director of CVoter, said, “In fact, India happens to be among the most pro-vaccine countries in the world. I don’t even know why exactly such subjective stories are done by some agencies, which only suits the weird narrative of India still being a country of snake charmers.

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“In our Covid tracker, we have done the cross tabs even on the lines of caste and religion. Yes, the upper caste and OBC are more open to vaccination when compared to the tribal populations and Muslims in India, but even they are Nett positive on vaccination drive. Overall, more than 80 percent in India are pro-vaccine. This is almost 10 percent more positive than the American public sentiment on vaccines.”

The latest data belies the reports in international media which talk about huge vaccine hesitancy in India without any data.

The IANC CVoter Covid Tracker has tracked data since January 22, 2021, on a daily basis. Since then, the pro-vaccine numbers have been high in the 80s or high 70s in percentage terms.

The all-India sample size is 43,032, covering all states and UTs during the last six months in proportion to the population. The margin of error is plus/minus 3 percent at the macro level, and plus/minus 5 percent at the micro-level.

As of June 21, the pro-vaccine number is at 84.6 percent, while the anti-vaccine number is at 7.6 percent.

In fact, it is the anti-vaccine number that has been coming down sharply. From the highest reading of 17.4 percent in February, it came down to only 7.6 percent on June 21.

Mirroring the high acceptance levels of vaccination, over 80 lakh Covid-19 vaccine doses were administered on Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also congratulated the country for the record single-day vaccination.

“Today’s record-breaking vaccination numbers are gladdening. The vaccine remains our strongest weapon to fight COVID-19. Congratulations to those who got vaccinated and kudos to all the front-line warriors working hard to ensure so many citizens got the vaccine. Well done India!” he tweeted.

India’s cumulative vaccination coverage exceeded 28.80 crores on Monday, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said after over 80 lakh doses were administered on a single day.