Latest surge in COVID-19 cases: Govt should focus all attention on vaccination of people

A total of 24,882 new COVID-19 infections on March 12, the highest this year; active cases cross 2 lakh again. That's the progress of a pandemic which likes to kill in waves. Fears are COVID-19 will not go far from where we live, whether that's in Timbuktu, New York, London or Pune in Maharashtra. Yes, Pune gives the creeps to those running away from the coronavirus. For, where would/can you run when east, west, north and south, whichever direction you head, there's coronavirus lying in wait!

And we thought India's COVID-19 numbers had somewhat stabilized with some government officials going to the extent of letting it out that the war was almost won and two doses of vaccine to each Indian will lay cold the coronavirus, eradicate it, which, they say is inanimate but somehow seems to have the ability to multiply and carry forward it's unholy agenda, infect in millions and millions and kill in the tens of thousands. And the wretch is mutating like its dead inanimate life depends on having as many variants as it can become.

Now, there's a race on to take into account all the variants, from the Brazil one to the United Kingdom variant to the South African kind, and lay them all out cold with one or more vaccines. But things aren't any more clearer or easier than they were. Scientists across the world are trying their best and that's the only happy note to this lousy COVID-19 symphony that we have been forced to listen to ever since it first created horror in Wuhan, China.

And, now, we hear deadlier versions of the variants will emerge and then there will be no end to the pandemic unless the Quad plan to beat COVID-19 succeeds. The Quad has decided to take on the progeny of the 'China Virus' though it will be only in the Indo-Pacific region, where the coronavirus will be taken head-on. The US, Japan and Australia and India agreed to deliver one billion doses of COVID vaccine to much of Asia by end of 2022.

That must give China, which wanted to be the world's pharmacy for COVID-19 vaccines, more than a crick in the neck. China's mood-shifts ever since the coronavirus started on its world tour have been confounding to say the least. As it is, China launched vaccine diplomacy to take advantage of Wuhan, but came up against India's 'vaccine maitri' and since then India's friendship with China has taken a beating and plummeted way below the bottom of Pangong Tso Lake in Ladakh.

Not many countries it seems want to test Chinese vaccines on their citizens. Even Pakistan, China's all-weather friend with sweeter than natural honey talk between them, wants to take no risks with Chinese vaccines and has reached out to India for a few million doses of Covishield or Covaxin.

We are living in a fearful state. People everywhere are a scared lot. Petrified of the invisible danger in and around them. We are living in hard times. There's the pandemic. And there are the vaccines, which millions take but millions more don't trust. People in the lakhs are not taking the vaccine at face value.

But don't forget unless a sizeable chunk of the population does not take the vaccine there will be no herd immunity to keep the coronavirus at arm's length. The novel coronavirus will be around come the 75th, and even the 100th anniversary of India's Independence. Globally, more than 11.84 crore people have been infected by the coronavirus so far and 26.28 lakh have died. But only a fraction of the global population has been vaccinated. India's second phase of vaccination drive is currently on. Everyone above 60 years of age and those over 45 years with comorbidities are being vaccinated.

But is everyone actually being vaccinated? The answer to that is an emphatic NO! The Government has not given a diktat that everyone will be vaccinated, that it is a must to get vaccinated. Government officials are not going door to door to request them to get vaccinated. The government is afraid, petrified, that tens of thousands in every locality would rise in opposition. So, it's leaving it to the people to decide for themselves. This kind of "left to the people operation" will work in a developed country, but not in a developing third world country where illiteracy is a byword and superstition an ingredient of the daily night grandmother's tale.

According to the Union Health Ministry, the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in India had crossed 2.56 crore till March 12, 2021. That accounts for how many of the 1.35 billion or 135 crore Indians? The alarming fact is that millions upon millions of Indians are not taking the vaccine and don't intend to go for vaccination! The Modi Government's reluctance to exhort Indians to get vaccinated will be the death of it.

(IPA Service)

Views expressed are personal