Opinion:
An average adult Indian citizen today is getting resigned to his/her fate. The rampaging virus responsible for the pandemic is feared to be back with a vengeance. This after its scourge had ebbed for a while in the first two months of this year. It was never completely gone ever since its outbreak in March last year. And it was expected to be checked only with the arrival of a suitable vaccine for the mass use by the public. The vaccine did arrive rather well in time but perhaps by then the pathogen was waiting to turn more virulent. Virus’ newer and more deadly variants were detected a few months ago from now in the West, or countries like the UK. This kicked off the fear of the new mutants reaching far off destinations like India through air traffic. These did so before full precautions could be put in place. Initially too, the virus had entered the country by flyers coming from abroad. So it’s a long story that has once again been inadvertently replayed. The only difference between last year’s outbreak and this time’s repeat is in the extent of safeguards and promptness to bring them to ward off what still happened. In both the cases, the efforts couldn’t result in foolproof stopping of the virus. To understand this better, just look at New Zealand that has barred the entry of travelers from India in view of a fresh surge of COVID-19 virus in cities like Mumbai and Delhi. What other nations can do could have easily been possible for us to take recourse to before it turned out to be if not too, a bit late in the day. Anyway, to cut the long and rather sad story short, let’s look at the vaccine and how the hope that it brought to beat the pandemic is getting dashed by the day. Indeed, the virus is turning out to be stronger than the vaccine. It is so since even the vaccinated are catching the infection. The reason behind this has already been dealt with a bit here and it is because of the simple fact that the virus has overtaken the vaccine in its current form. Thus, further and unceasing research is needed to tackle the newer and more lethal shapes that the virus has been taking. The best scientists have been at work. Their dedication to the relentless search for an ideal antidote to the virus should also serve a lesson upon the higher-ups in politics and bureaucracy. The latter have often been wanting with respect to making the ideal use of the kind of vaccine that has been available so far. Experts say that the vaccine works in many cases though it may fail in some. So far the use of vaccines has been categorised in terms of age and profession, or as per the need as one of the top bureaucrats from the Union Health Ministry had put it. He said, “It has to be according to the need and not want.” Though he may be right but the point is that there are areas that are more affected by the virus than others. So the parts where the virus is more rampant, for example Maharashtra or Karnataka, than others need a greater degree of vaccination. Perhaps universal vaccination to cover all adults, rather than confining the vaccine shots to those above 60 or above 45 years. Another issue is the availability of the vaccine. Often States like Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra have been complaining of shortage of vaccines. In Delhi, people wait for their turn to get jabs at hospitals with often no success. The shortage is attributed to export of vaccines to other countries. This, Centre says, that exports were only as per the prior commitments while the States asking for more vaccines are not convinced. Whatever may be the case, the domestic needs deserve to get priority over catering to external demands as the second spate of the virus at home is spreading fast.
