The first wave of COVID-19 came as a surprise. Nations around the world have been ill-prepared to deal with the pandemic. And the American and European nations, despite their economic muscles and scientific knowledge, could not prevent the devastation of the pandemic. Thus, India’s suffering from the new coronavirus in the first outbreak is understandable, although some government measures have proven to be wrong in retrospect. But a year later, the second, more ubiquitous phase is certainly man-made, as Allahabad’s high court pointed out. never planned things in advance ”. Although the court’s comments referred to the way the Uttar Pradesh government has handled the recent outbreak of COVID, it applies more to the central government, which has chaired the country’s anti-COVID response from the outset.
More recently, the Indian government has begun announcing long-awaited measures. BJP leaders mocked Rahul Gandhi, describing him as a lobbyist for foreign companies, when congressional leaders asked the center to grant emergency permits to vaccines authorized by foreign regulators. Now, the Modi government has decided to allow the same foreign vaccines.
When the US government provided $ 11 billion in support to eight major pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines and signed purchase orders with them, guaranteeing the purchase of vaccines as early as July 2020. The Government of India has now decided to provide a $ 4,500 million loan. at the Serum Institute and Bharat Biotechnology. Such an excessive delay in responding to the request for tax support has severely undermined the production of vaccines to meet the demand for inoculation.
Given the rapid spread of the second wave, there was a demand for vaccination of all Indian adults. The center rejected it and said it was taking a scientific approach. But the central government accepted this request only after the new daily cases reached almost 3 lakhs.
Experts have suggested that in times of pandemic, scientific knowledge must be shared so that the capacity of pharmaceutical companies that have not discovered the vaccine can also be exploited to stimulate production. The US administration ensured that Merck manufactured the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. The government of India took several months to do the same. Only recently has the center facilitated the manufacture of Covaxin developed by Bharat biotech at three of the national public sector companies.
The nationalism of the vaccine must be hated. But no nation can export vaccines at the cost of its vaccination program. However, the center decided to export 64 million doses even when the fear of a second deadly wave was spreading across the country. A false sense of triumphism contributed to this irrational policy. The Government of India imposed export restrictions only after the new daily cases reached the lakes.
Despite the experience of TablighiJamaat in the early stages of the pandemic, the central and Uttarakhand governments have allowed more than three million to take a holy bath, turning KumbhMela into a possible super-spreader. Finally, the prime minister intervened, quite late, to practically give up the Kumbh. An early decision in this regard would have been an effective public health measure. The prime minister was proud of the massive mobilization of the people for the election rallies in Bengal. The Indian Electoral Commission and the center have refused to heed the sensible suggestion to suspend the extended elections of the West Bengal multiphase assembly. Thus, the late measures of the Modi government failed to stop the wave of the pandemic.
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