Vaccine For Kids Is Great, But Where Are The Vaccines?
Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.
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By Slogger
First publised on 2021-07-12 12:18:05
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Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.
View all posts by this Author
While it is good news that India's drug regulator will consider for approval this week the Covid vaccine developed by Zydus Cadilla and tested on children above 12, the vaccination drive in India is once again getting derailed due to non-availability of vaccines in sufficient numbers. It was estimated that India will have to vaccinate at least 1 crore persons on a daily basis from July to December to achieve the target of vaccinating about 55-65 percent of its adult population with the aim to achieve herd immunity. But the slackening of the drive means that the target is unlikely to be reached before February, if not later.
The latest vaccination figures, culled through CoWin data, show that the average daily jabs have fallen to 37.2 lakhs per day this week, down from almost 42 lakh jabs per day in the preceding week and 61.1 lakh jabs daily in the week before that when the new vaccination regime had kicked in. The rapid decline in the number of daily jabs is entirely due to supply constraints. The simple fact is that there are not enough vaccines to jab one crore persons daily. The government had earlier said that enough vaccines wold be available to meet the daily target from the middle of July. Hence, it is hoped that the situation will improve from next week onwards.
There is no doubt that if the Zydus vaccine for kids between 12 and 18 years of age is given the nod for emergency use, it will hasten the reopening of educational institutions from the 6th standard onwards. That, again, will depend on the availability of vaccines. Since as of now there is only one candidate for vaccine for kids in India (although the US regulators have approved vaccines by Pfizer and BioNTech for kids between 12-15 years of age), it is going to be a slow process and the wait for physical classes is likely to continue. But it will be a beginning for the better and it is hoped more vaccine candidates will join the race to develop a vaccine for kids below 18 years of age. Although the WHO says "Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults, so unless they are part of a group at higher risk of severe COVID-19, it is less urgent to vaccinate them than older people, those with chronic health conditions and health workers", parents will be rightly worried to send them to school without vaccination.
