Vaccination Process Has To Be Sped Up Fast
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-03-17 09:46:06
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
There is no doubt that India is the pharmacy of the world and that it has the best infrastructure and capacity to produce the highest number of vaccines in the world. Similarly, there is no doubt that in times of health emergencies such as the Covid pandemic, all countries should help others who are at a disadvantage. India has used its vaccine manufacturing capacity to provide vaccines to 70 countries across the world. But when this good deed comes against the backdrop of slow vaccination in India, it becomes the subject of debate.
As per records released by the government, India has exported 5.8 crore doses of the Covid vaccine while only 3.5 crore doses have been administered to people in India. This is unjust, more so when Covid cases are multiplying again in India and the country is probably facing a second wave of infections. The figures of fresh daily infections are not accurate as testing has been reduced significantly. If testing is done at the levels it was being done even three months ago, one is sure that the figure will be much higher. Hence, the government needs to reexamine its policy of placing restrictions on who can take the vaccine and reducing exports to inoculate more Indians.
Experts have suggested that the government should do away with the age bar and make vaccination open to all. They have also suggested that the period between the two doses should be increased so that more people can get the first dose quickly. Targeted drives and allowing more vaccines have also been suggested to speed up the process. These are all eminently sane suggestions and the government should follow up on them. It has already announced that it will buy another 10crore doses from Serum Institute. But the vaccination process can only gain momentum if the age bar is done away with and the period between the two doses is increased from 28 days to, say, 42 days. The government should seriously think about this and implement the suggestions given by experts.
India needs to inoculate at least 60 crore people with the first jab by August, at the latest. From 18th March to 30th August, we have 166 days if people are to be jabbed on all days. That means that 36,15,000 people have to be given the first dose everyday from tomorrow. If we include the second jab candidates, then the figure will almost double. We are at present doing about 20 lakh jabs a day. Hence, India needs to double this only for the first dose and make it 4X if both the first and second doses are to be administered within August. Some hard decisions need to be taken by the government and it should take them in the interests of the health of the people. If Covid continues to spread as rapidly as it has started to, we would once again need to impose restrictions and that would cripple the economy and result in loss of livelihood for many more people.
