Vaccine dilemma
COVID-19 has disrupted lives of millions and has taken whole country into its grip. It had shown to everyone of us what we call trying times and how dangerous it can be to behave like a careless being.
In this pandemic vaccines have emerged like a magic cure. Ex US president had himself pleaded to manufacture vaccines as soon as possible. In India, we were successful in manufacturing two indigenous vaccines, thanks to SII and Bharat Biotech. Even after successful rollout of these vaccines in the months of February, we are witnessing people dying at an alarming rate and probability of 3rd wave is a reality now. Many of us are blaming politicians for not making pre-arrangements to inoculate people, for not using time to build capacity, but when I deep dive, I find many reasons due to which we still have very few people who have got jabs.
It all started when GoI gave permission to two vaccines Covishield and Covaxin to inoculate frontline warriors and then to 45+ years population. But there were two major reasons vaccination drive could not pick pace, first of them was that Covaxin was given approval before trials were finished for the same and second major reason was the Vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy was not associated with any of government action but with the people’s mindset and rumour mongering around vaccination drive. I remember lots of celebrity, politicians and elite persons encouraging people to go for vaccination but yet it was appearing that all voices were dropping on deaf ears. One of the major reason behind this vaccine hesitancy was that cases were dropping during this time period. People relaxed themselves at the back seat, violated all social distancing norms and ignored the importance of vaccination, price of all these carelessness we are paying right now. We could have saved many lives if we had paid little attention instead of being careless.
One more reason is popping now-a-days where various political parties claimed that central government has sold vaccines to more than hundred countries instead of providing vaccines to its own population. Yes this is absolutely true, Government was actively supporting vaccine diplomacy and giving vaccines to countries which had friendly relations with India. Claiming it a wrong move might not be a good reason at this moment when we look from diplomatic angle. India is a soft power, we do not have millions of dollars or lots of arms to give foreign countries to make positive relations, that’s why we use our soft power like culture, people to people connect, medical supports etc. India is considered pharmacy of the world, if we did not take move of Vaccine diplomacy, it would have been a waste opportunity which comes once in years. Yes it is true, we should have built capacity but vaccine diplomacy was absolutely correct in its own sense.
From government pleading to people to take jab, we have come to situation where people are pleading to government to give vaccines. It has been almost two weeks when vaccines slots were opened for 18+, now government need to relook at his decision whether it was right or not, whether it has right amount of stock to fulfill its commitment. We need extreme level of micromanagement and data driven approach where we can assess how much slots are opening for 45+ population and how much are coming to take vaccines, if there is a mismatch in numbers then how much vaccines we can give to 18+. This strategy cannot be same for whole country, this should be region specific, that’s why decision making powers should be delegated to states, so they can optimize use of available vaccines.
Vaccines are the only hope for safeguarding people from COVID-19 that’s why making a concrete strategy is of utmost importance at this moment. I hope governments will make the right decision before 3rd wave strikes the whole country.