Members of ground staff walk past a container stacked at a cargo terminal of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on December 22, 2020. The airport will be used as a handling and distribution center for coronavirus vaccines. | Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images

India approved two coronavirus vaccines. Only one has completed phase 3 trials.

India will begin vaccinating 300 million people following the emergency approval of two coronavirus vaccines earlier this week.

The country was the second (after the United Kingdom) to rubber-stamp the inexpensive and easy-to-store AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine. But the approval of a second vaccine, the domestically developed Covaxin, is raising concerns because it was given while phase 3 trials of the drug are still underway and before its efficacy data has been made public.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi cheered the approval of both vaccines on