Editor,
India is now third in terms of the number of people who have been vaccinated. However, if we compare the percentage of people being vaccinated, it’s not even above 10 percent of the total population.
Reports are coming from Britain that B.1.617.2, which is a type of B.1.617 (Indian variant) is more transmissible than the B.1.1.7 (UK variant) and to contain it there’s a need to increase the rate of jabbing. They also say that the time period between two doses should not be more than eight months for effectiveness of the vaccine.
The chief scientist of the WHO, Soumya Swaminathan said that the vaccination rate should be at least 30 percent of the world’s population; then only significant reduction in the deaths could be seen. Unfortunately, our state, especially in populated areas like the ICR, which has 40 k population in comparison to 15k population in districts with more numbers of working population and highest population under 18+ age are being provided with only 300 doses per day.
Government officials said that they have minimized the doses per day to maintain the SOP.
Was it due to less stock in the arsenal or maintaining social distance? Why not set up more vaccination camps, so that more of 18+ can be vaccinated and it will reduce the violation of SOP. Why not take risk jabbing more number of people per day when the next installment of jabs arrives? When hundreds of polling stations can be installed for election and millions of votes can be cast in a day, then why not the jabs, considering its availability?
Moreover, considering the population between 18 and 45 years of age, the proportion of vaccines should be more, as more number of population are in this category.
Recently, the Telangana government imported the Sputnik V vaccine from Russia, showing that the states can go for the outside market if there is a shortage in the home market.
Why not put a tender like them? Compared to the other states, we have lesser population, so it will be easy for us to get the number of vaccines we require; plus, we have a young, dynamic and talented CM, who can make the work more easy.
Lockdown is not the solution
Lockdown comes with the economic side-effect of hitting the poor the hardest. There are lots of people who are working in the private sector and their employers pay them only if they work, making it hard to survive during the lockdown.
Commercial areas are also about to come on the street if the lockdown continues. Therefore, it will be wiser to pace up the vaccination process than focusing on lockdown. We have young, talented bureaucrats under the government of Arunachal. Why not try to put their brain innovatively to tackle the virus and keep this lockdown formula at bay?
Abhaa Akha,
Itanagar