Vaccine cost should be borne by the Centre; it is too expensive for common man siasat.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from siasat.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Institutional collapse
Bureaucracy must be held to account in India’s Covid surge
It is the opinion of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that the media’s job during the Covid-19 pandemic should be to create an atmosphere of “positivity, hope and trust”. Idealistic beginners in journalism schools will hopefully interpret that as the exact opposite of what their job actually entails. But the cautionary overtones in the statement from the ruling party’s ideological patriarch are a heartening indication that the media may perhaps be among the few institutions actually doing its job of speaking truth to power.
That cannot be said for many, especially in the context of the country’s abysmal lack of preparedness for a second surge in Covid-19. Even if one attributes the ruling party’s political resolution passed in its national executive meeting on February 21 which declared that the BJP, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has “defeated Covid”
Two sets of figures have brought out the enormity of the task confronting the states that seek to procure Covid-19 vaccines, strengthening a perception that the Centre is keen on passing the buck during a national health crisis.
⚫ The Centre’s decision to allow Covid-19 vaccination for adults aged 18 or above more than doubles the target population from May 1. The number of the potential beneficiaries rockets from around 350 million to nearly 900 million, jacking up the number of required doses from 700 million to nearly 1.8 billion.
India currently has access to around 90 million doses per month of vaccines made within the country.
Former Health Secretary K Sujatha Rao has been warning against the opening up of vaccine administration without proper planning to ensure adequate supplies and pricing mechanisms
Unilateral decision : States are unhappy with Modi s decision to pass buck on vaccine costs scroll.in - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scroll.in Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.