Is Modi's New Vaccination Policy Just A Move To Divert Criticism?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the country, announcing that beginning June 21, all adults will be eligible for free Covid vaccinations at government facilities. PM Modi stated that the Centre would acquire 75% off vaccinations and distribute them to states, while the private sector will receive the other 25%.

Because public health is implicated, Covid immunization should ideally be administered to everyone in India for free. Indeed, in a pandemic that knows no borders and respects none, every prosperous country, particularly those that have preordered vaccines, must aid the vaccine have-nots unreservedly now that its people have been vaccinated or can be inoculated with the abundant stock at hand.

When the initial wave of coronavirus was fading, India began immunization on January 16, 2021, with daily cases down to 15,144 from a peak of 97,894 on September 16. The prime minister declared triumph against the disease, even boasting that while the sickness spread rapidly in wealthier countries, India had managed to keep it under control. This attitude resulted in a lenient vaccination strategy, which has proven to be a mistake.

30 crore elderly and those with co-morbidities were to be immunized between March 1 and July 31, 2021. This amounted to 12 crore monthly dosages, or 4 million each day. It would take nearly two years to vaccinate everyone at this rate. The wave had died down when these policies and lineups were publicized, and a probable second wave was not expected. The Kumbh Mela, assembly elections, and other events were arranged to assume that normalcy had returned. The general people also got lax in taking the necessary safeguards.

Many people and eminent personalities claim that PM Modi tabled a new vaccination policy on June 1 to save his government from criticism and just a day before Supreme Court's judgment regarding the Centre's vaccine policy.

On April 30, the Supreme Court had observed, "Prima facie, the rational method of proceeding in a manner consistent with the right to life (which includes the right to health) under Article 21 would be for the Central Government to procure all vaccines and to negotiate the price with vaccine manufacturers. Once quantities are allocated by it to each State Government, the latter would lift the allocated quantities and carry out the distribution. In other words, while procurement would be centralized, distribution of the vaccines across India within the States/UTs would be decentralized. While we are not passing a conclusive determination on the constitutionality of the current policy, the manner in which the current policy has been framed would prima facie result in a detriment to the right to public health which is an integral element of Article 21 of the Constitution. Therefore, we believe that the Central Government should consider revisiting its current vaccine policy to ensure that it withstands the scrutiny of Articles 14 and Article 21 of the Constitution."

According to the government, vaccine availability will improve starting in July, and a crore people would be inoculated every day. Vaccination trials for youngsters are being conducted for them to be vaccinated as well. Even if all of this is true, it will take at least six months till the end of 2021 to vaccine 70% of the population and bring the epidemic under reasonable control.

While criticism follows our PM wherever he goes, this shift in policy comes after one month of decentralizing the vaccine distribution. The matter of fact is that you cannot run a trial-based scheme when the country is fighting a pandemic. Articulating one policy and then swiftly reversing it seems to be gameplay. Let's see if this will increase the pace of the vaccination drive or if a further change is needed.