oppn parties Free Booster Doses For 75 Days Is A Welcome Move

News Snippets

  • Sikh extremists attacked a cinema hall in London that was playing Kangana Ranaut's controversial film 'Emergency'
  • A Delhi court directed the investigating agencies to senstize officers to collect nail clippings, fingernail scrappings or finger swab in order to get DNA profile as direct evidence of sexual attack is often not present and might result in an offender going scot free
  • Uniform Civil Code rules cleared by state cabinet, likely to be implemented in the next 10 days
  • Supreme Court reiterates that there is no point in arresting the accused after the chargesheet has been filed and the investigation is complete
  • Kolkata court sentences Sanjoy Roy, the sole accused in the R G Kar rape-murder case, to life term. West Bengal government and CBI to appeal in HC for the death penalty
  • Supreme Court stays criminal defamation case against Rahul Gandhi for his remarks against home minister Amit Shah in Jharkhand during the AICC plenary session
  • Government reviews import basket to align it with the policies of the Trump administration
  • NCLT orders liquidation of GoAir airlines
  • Archery - Indian archers bagged 2 silver in Nimes Archery tournament in France
  • Stocks make impressive gain on Monday - Sensex adds 454 points to 77073 and Nifty 141 points to 23344
  • D Gukesh draws with Fabiano Caruana in the Tata Steel chess tournament in the Netherlands
  • Women's U-19 T20 WC - In a stunning game, debutants Nigeria beat New Zealand by 2 runs
  • Rohit Sharma to play under Ajinkye Rahane in Mumbai's Ranji match against J&K
  • Virat Kohli to play in Delhi's last group Ranji trophy match against Saurashtra. This will be his first Ranji match in 12 years
  • The toll in the Rajouri mystery illness case rose to 17 even as the Centre sent a team to study the situation
Calling the case not 'rarest of rare', a court in Kolkata sentenced Sanjay Roy, the only accused in the R G Kar rape-murder case to life in prison until death
oppn parties
Free Booster Doses For 75 Days Is A Welcome Move

By Linus Garg
First publised on 2022-07-13 16:30:52

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.

In a welcome move, the Centre has announced that on the occasion of Azadi Ka Amrit Kaal being celebrated for 75 years of Indian Independence, all adults will be given free Covid booster doses from 15th of July for 75 days, that is till 26th of September. Since the vaccination drive has lost steam and since free booster doses are currently being given to only senior citizens, frontline and healthcare workers, this is a good decision which will perhaps make people take the booster dose.

Ideally, the booster dose should have been free for all at government facilities, with an option for those who wished to pay for it to get jabbed at a private facility. But the government had allocated only Rs 5000cr in 2022-23 for jabs to 15-17-age-group and senior citizens, frontline and healthcare workers, with a promise to increase the allocation if needed. Since tax collections have improved, the government should have allocated Rs 10000cr more for vaccination this fiscal and that could have provided free booster doses to all adults at the reduced price at which the government gets the doses.

However, since that was not done, this limited window for booster doses should be used to bring the vaccination drive back on track. Statistics show that less than 31 percent of senior citizens have received the booster dose and, alarmingly, less than 1 percent in the age group of 18-59 has received it nationally. This needs to be changed and in these 75 days, the government should try to jab as many people as it can by launching a massive vaccination drive as it was done in the initial days.