100 crore and counting

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If there was one thing that could help us get rid of the funereal environment triggered by Covid-19, it was vaccination. Fortunately, the country has managed to make the inoculation process a success despite numerous curveballs and misinformation campaigns. The feat has been achieved in just over 10 months and has withstood the deadly second wave of the pandemic, which caused bereavements in many households and precipitated perhaps the most dramatic healthcare crisis in independent India.

This once-in-a century event required the entire country to display resilience and tackle a host of problems at operational levels. And India has once again shown that it can withstand challenges of any nature despite initial hiccups. The enterprising medical fraternity along with the government machinery deserve credit for ensuring nearly 75 percent of the population have got the first dose and over 31 percent have been fully vaccinated so far. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization, too has commended the feat, indicating that the world community too has a lot to learn from the way India has carried out the vaccination drive.

#VaccineCentury is trending today on social media and will dominate the news space for the next few days. But the 100-crore milestone should not make authorities complacent as the job is far from done. The Covid threat still persists and laggard states must step up vaccination drive. The entire ecosystem must be at it so that the pandemic threat is quelled.

Initially the country’s vaccine production was far short of the requirement the average jabs administered a day. The number has improved over the past few weeks but a rate of a crore per day would have helped the country reach the target of double jabs of everyone this year itself. The government should still try to step up the daily vaccination rate as much as possible and wrap up the double shot as soon as possible. The scare of the third wave has not vanished yet and should it happen, it would wreak the economy once again. Let us not again pay a heavy price for complacency.