India Must Be Ready To Vaccinate 800 Million People
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.
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By Linus Garg
First publised on 2020-12-12 07:18:02
About the Author
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.
View all posts by this Author
As several vaccine candidates gear up to put their products in the market in the early months of the 2021, India has to prepare itself for a rollout that covers at least 60 percent of the population (as health experts have said that that would be enough to protect all) or 800 million people. On the face of it, it looks like a herculean task. As the government has said that frontline workers (including health and security workers, and the armed forces) will receive the doses on priority basis and is already identifying and listing them, the rest would have to be registered and within them, senior citizens, children and persons with co-morbidities will have to be prioritized.
Hence, before any attempt is made to vaccinate the population, India must be ready with a list that clearly specifies who will be vaccinated when and where. The dates need not be filled now, but a list has to be ready. Since creating a list from scratch will be both time-consuming and confusing, it is better to use the Aadhar registrations as the base. That will leave a small percentage of people who have not yet registered for UID and they can be separately identified and enrolled for vaccination. But this has to be done by maintaining a balance between urban, semi-urban and rural areas. The government will also have to decide if it will allow private vaccination or everyone will have to get vaccinated through government agencies.
To do the actual vaccination, India can use its massive network of health workers and government hospitals and dispensaries. The private sector will also have to be fully involved. As of now, India has one of the world's largest immunization programs in inoculating infants. But the scale is very small compared to what is needed for Covid-19 vaccination. These workers will have to be trained to cope up with the massive inflow of people. That training must also start simultaneously and immediately. Then there are thousands of nurses and health workers who will also need to be trained and placed for the immunization work. All this has to be completed before the vaccines are delivered so that the country is ready for the rollout. If it is prepared, India will avoid mess-ups and win the war against coronavirus.
