AP PHOTOS: The elderly of India leave loneliness to get the vaccine

NEW DELHI – They wake up but barely notice the needle pin.

Pandemic-weary and mostly sequetered in their homes for a year, the elderly of India are now standing in long lines at vaccination sites, then rolling up the sleeves to get views to protect them. the face of the coronavirus.

Indian hospitals are scrambling to deliver the doses in the second phase of the country’s COVID-19 inoculation campaign.

The government plans to take in 300 million people by August, including health care workers, people over 60 and those over 45 with high health risks, but the vaccination campaign is high -important that started in January is still going far below capacity.

More than 26 million people have been shot, although only 4.72 million are fully vaccinated by both doses.

The distance has raised concerns that India could miss its vaccine targets. The effort is fraught with supply challenges in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people, but the campaign has added momentum since new diseases began to escalate again after months of steady decline.