Belying the general belief that the worst of the pandemic was behind us, some states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Punjab have seen a fresh surge in Covid infections in the recent days,
While Maharashtra state is contemplating new rounds of lock-downs in some of its districts reporting the rise in fresh cases, Punjab Government has decided to shut down all educational institutions and impose curbs on public places and restrict the free movement of people to fight the spurt in the virus. Meanwhile, there is a surprising slowdown in the vaccination drive, with the 60-plus age group expected to start getting the first jab sometime next month only. Even in the big metros where the drive began with the healthcare workers, the police, etc., deservedly getting priority, there remain huge gaps.
From healthcare and frontline workers, the Covid-19 vaccination drive is all set to reach the general public.
People above 60 years of age and those more than 45 years having co-morbidities will be vaccinated from 1 March, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar announced on Wednesday. They will be administered vaccines free of cost across 10,000 government centres. Meanwhile, vaccination will also be given at more than 20,000 private vaccination centres.
The Minister said those who want to get vaccinated from private hospitals will have to pay. “The amount they would need to pay will be decided by the Health Ministry within 3-4 days as they are in discussion with manufacturers and hospitals,” he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Union Health Ministry asked Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, and Chhattisgarh to expedite the vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers to confer immunity in the shortest possible time-frame in the wake of a rising trend of Covid-19 cases and positively rate in some districts.
Till now, a total of 1,19,07,392 vaccine doses have been administered. The beneficiaries include 64,71,047 healthcare workers (HCWs) who have taken the first dose, 13,21,635 HCWs who have taken the second dose, and 41,14,710 frontline workers (FLWs) who have taken the first dose. While the countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on 16 January, the vaccination of FLWs started on 2 February.
Amid the increase in the number of Covid cases once again, the country should expedite the vaccination drive.
Authorities should expedite the efforts for co-opting private sector health facilities to step up vaccinations as it is yet unclear about the government decision. There should be no hesitation in making the vaccines available even at a cost-plus basis for use by the private medical practitioners, if for no other reason than to partially compensate the huge costs of the free vaccination program undertaken by the authorities.
At the same time, doubts over the vaccines should be cleared.
