"July has come, the vaccine has not arrived," tweeted Rahul Gandhi on Friday. The Congress leader was hitting out at the alleged lack of the availability of coronavirus vaccines in the country.

Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan immediately hit out at Gandhi, saying that he has already put out the facts on vaccine availability for the month of July. "What is Rahul Gandhi Ji’s problem? Does he not read? Does he not understand? There is no vaccine for the virus of arrogance and ignorance! Congress must think of a leadership overhaul," the Union Health Minister added.

On Thursday, the Centre said that 12 crore vaccines (both Covishield and Covaxin) will be made available to States in July. On the first day of the month, nearly 4.8 million doses were administered. It has also been clarified that private hospitals will get their own share of doses. So, the overall availability is definitely more than 12 crore doses for July.

The pace of vaccination has picked up since June 21. Only one weekday saw less than 4 million doses administered. July was expected to see 22 crore vaccines. But the target is going to be missed due to production-related constraints.