Planning for Covid-19
Vaccination has picked up pace but much more needs to be done
Since August, the creaky Indian health care system has demonstrated an unprecedented ability to rise to the occasion, touching records of 810 million Covid-19 shots on some days. Overall, the pace of vaccine delivery in August was such that India was able to deliver a total of 180 million shots, which, according to the government, was more than all the G7 countries put together at 101 million doses. Though there is some justified official pride in these numbers, the fact is that India still has a long way to go before the entire adult population is covered. The absolute numbers sound impressive. As of September 10, India had vaccinated about 725 million people; some 40 per cent of these had had only one dose, however, which does not confer robust immunity; just 12.5 per cent have been fully vaccinated. That’s way behind the government’s initial target of fully vaccinating a third of the adult population by June. Obviously, these numbers mean that the pace of vaccination has to be sustained at August levels if India has a realistic chance of being fully vaccinated by the first half of 2022. The Kerala High Court’s directive to the government to tweak the Cowin portal to allow individuals to schedule their second dose in four weeks instead of 84 days on paid sites could pave the way for a reduction in the vaccine gap on all sites. In fact, now that India has shown the institutional capability to deliver more shots, the government would do well to shrink the gap between the first and second doses.
Hastening the vaccine programme is only part of the Covid-19 fight. Coping with the anticipated third wave in terms of ensuring adequate ICU beds, oxygen supplies, and medical infrastructure is, of course, the immediate concern. But epidemiologists have made it clear that the virus will mutate and become endemic, making herd immunity hard to achieve. This implies the Centre and the state governments need to start planning for this contingency earlier rather than later. It is worth noting that it took the country nearly eight months and several changes in protocols before the vaccine programme reached anywhere near some level of efficiency.
Much of this deficiency was the result of inadequate planning on the government’s part. Despite having the world’s largest vaccine supplier on its territory, India placed a modest order only in January — the programme began on January 16 — unlike several countries that placed large advance orders as early as November and even decided to indulge in vaccine diplomacy by donating shots to neighbouring nations. Now, the government is partnering the pharma industry to develop a multi-variant Covid-19 and one drug company has the approval to develop a DNA plasmid vaccine. These are forward-looking steps that are needed to protect the population from Covid-19 on a more permanent footing but experience has shown the gap between intent and execution can be wide. It is important for the government to ensure that manufacturing capabilities and delivery systems are tested and ready to protect the population over the long term well in time so that the tragedies of the second wave are never repeated.