Covid-19 booster shots are a must

For full normalcy, give booster shots to all adults, and expand vaccination to everyone above 12

India’s continued reluctance to widen the eligibility for booster shots of Covid-19 vaccines is inexplicable. Sure, it’s election season and everyone’s attention is largely on that, and with the seven-day average of cases at a 57-day low, there doesn’t seem to be any immediate risk of another major wave. Yet, this is exactly what happened around the same time last year — and April and May saw the devastating second wave.

Given the level of vaccination — 77.9% of Indians aged 15 or above have been fully vaccinated, and 17.1% are partly vaccinated — and the fact that Omicron infected (or re-infected) just about everybody in the cities, it is unlikely India will ever see that kind of situation again. But it still makes sense to give pretty much everyone a booster shot. To date, just around 2% of the 1.01 billion people in India aged 15 or above have received boosters. Research, including that done specifically on the Astra Zeneca/Oxford vaccine, sold in India as Covishield, shows that a booster dose is not just effective but also necessary. And scientists around the world are also coming around to the view that with three doses, people will be able to deal with most future variants of the Sars-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19.

While key ministers may be busy with the elections, it isn’t clear what the experts at Niti Aayog, Indian Council of Medical Research, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the Union health ministry, and the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization are waiting for (because the research is out there for anyone who cares to read it). Supplies do not appear to be a constraint at this point in time; and the country has approved even more vaccines

(there are now a total of nine vaccines approved for those over the age of 18). While on the subject, nor is it clear why the vaccine drive has not been expanded to those aged 12 years and above. India cannot return to complete normalcy till everyone over the age of 12 is vaccinated with two doses and everyone over the age of 18 years is given a booster shot. The science is quite clear on that — and it’s the only thing that should matter.