After much waiting, the Coronavirus vaccine is set to roll out in India from 16 January onwards.
The Government of India on Monday announced that it has ordered 11 million doses of the Covishield vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
The drug is expected to roll out of SII’s Pune facility by Tuesday.
India is one of the worst-affected Covid-19 countries. The government of India should make vaccines available for every Indian, especially the poor who cannot afford to buy it from the market.
Further, vaccines should be first made available to the vulnerable group of people.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday underscored that politicians should not jump the queue to take the vaccine but wait for their turn. This is a very important statement and hopefully will send out a strong message.
The government has prepared a priority list for the first phase of vaccination and vaccines should be rolled out accordingly.
Overall, 30 crore people will receive the vaccine in this phase. No preference should be extended to the VIPs.
Even though Arunachal Pradesh witnessed lower mortality and lower cases in comparison to the rest of the country, Covid-19 had hit the state badly.
The health workers and police personnel were the worst affected. The government should not compromise with priority lists and provide vaccines to frontline workers first.