Vaccine is surging ahead in India swiftly, but the conditions are getting intensively disrupted as more people are contracting the side effects. A demand arose in the aftermath of the vaccine progress by the government. The Indian government proposes a plan towards issuing digital Covid-19 vaccination certificates that will be valid globally. The stumbling block in the whole scenario is that vaccination is not preventing transmission as we have observed over the past few days.
Cases erupted out of the blue of people suffering hardening reactions after intaking their dose of vaccine. While the government is trying to work out the inculcation of digital certificates, the WHO is varying the fact that such a piping risk could not be undertaken just yet. Earlier this week, the World Health Organization cautioned that being vaccinated against Covid-19 may not prevent transmission.
It also captivated the disquiet message that vaccination passports might not be an effective strategy for restarting travel. Travel restrictions have been imposed ever since the pandemic gobbled up in India. WHO has paradoxically upheld the idea of some countries in the European Union to avail of the vaccination passport.
In today’s scenario, the world is overseeing the surge in the vaccination program. India reported on Saturday that it had administered more than ten crore doses. The condescending argument, does the vaccine doses have shown efficacy and, does the vast majority of people get termed as safe from the vaccine? We unequivocally doubt that. There is a myth that shouldn’t get believed. The government officials had constantly aforesaid that vaccines guarantee a low risk of infection.
The vaccine efficiency could get delineated into two parameters, severity of the disease and mortality rates. What the second wave has depicted is that the severity lies within every age group. Although, the proboscis has always been the lack of awareness among people about the vaccine. The government lacks preciseness in swiftly tracing out the exact source of the disease which often leads to higher transmission.
The Myth around Vaccine’s Efficiency, People have been Misguided
Reminiscing the last few months, Indian citizens have taken the virus lightly and now are browned about the second wave. A lot of it has to go with the statistical numbers presented by the government. India presumably had a much higher wave the first time round than the numbers predicted. Testings were going through negligibly, but the authorities spike the recovery rates to gain confidence from the Indian citizens.
But the situation today suggests that people had gone slightly in the blanket thinking that once the vaccine develops, it would be the end of the global pandemic. It is not like what it turned out to be. The cushion cover that was being laid out has played out, and the reality is wobbling the economy massively. We are inhibiting what the COVID-19 wave pans out like in the coming months or so. The testing samples collected are actually on a higher trajectory than predicted by the government.
Whenever we listen to the voice of the journalists, we will observe that they get hyped over the manufacturing capacity of vaccines in India. India’s vaccine manufacturing capacity without accounting for exports is just over two million a day. In context to operate a piled-up level, it is well short of where it should be. Hypothetically, there is a myth that case fatality rates are lower in India. Systematic evidence which is correctly gathered shows that India’s fatality rates are no different than those of other countries. The damage these myths cause in telling that the circumstances haven’t worsened is immense.
Worrying signs could get seen as India’s age group between 45 to 75 years has more fatality rates than the rest of the fretful countries, including countries like China, Brazil, Italy, and the US. As we contemplate the aforestated factors, it would be fair to say that India is hiding the real-worthy situation of cases and vaccines in India. The launching of vaccination passports would further deteriorate the situation as it exposes people to the coronavirus’ threat.
Why might Vaccination Passports not be an effective strategy?
Vaccine certificates may not be an effective strategy as gigantic loopholes arise in the vaccination inoculation. The vast majority of the population hasn’t yet got their initial doses. WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris referring to the current synopsis said, “We are still waiting on adequate supplies to provide the vaccines to all the countries that need them.”
Some Indian states have appealed for Covid-19 negative tests or final Covid-19 Vaccination certificates. The vaccination progress is hindering as more people acquire fake certificates of Covid-19 negative tests. Thus it becomes onerous to find the exact sources of the virus. India is seeking support from the WHO to avail of the vaccination passports. Validating the certificate would magnify the risk of transmission as it is uncertain that people taking the vaccine gets freed from the disease or not.
How are the Plans for Vaccination Passports panning out for India?
India’s plans get aligned with WHO’s Standard, Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), which is in the world, and the country would follow the norms when in place. WHO in consultation with India is designing and working on the format of the digital certificate including vital aspects that a digital certificate should contain and digital verifiability of same.
Digital certificates, once issued by India, will be valid globally. The plan is laying down another strain on the nation. The government is looking for attention and gaining praise from the citizens. The adversity of the virus would not go until they declare a hundred percent guarantee until the virus. Enhancing tourism at a sensitive time would not only expand the risk, but the severity in cases would also increase.
India currently adopts no such policy in domestic or international travel, but the efforts are compiling towards a new tourism journey. While tourism could expand, we should not adhere to the policies of the Government. The citizens should make no mistake that we have passed a resolutely burdensome state, but the risk is far from over.
If not anything else, the bump in the economy suggests that the conundrum is worse than it appears with the naked eye. The officials insisted the policy get rechecked by the WHO. They believe that the WHO officials would put their confirmation consent and agree to the proposal. However, the WHO has a different perspective on the whole scenario; and says that until a significant proportion of the population doesn’t get vaccinated, it may not be an effective strategy. They condemn that the patients should not get thrown in the dark.
“Regarding international travel, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has been regularly updating India’s policy as the disease transmission dynamics unfold.” Said Samiran Panda, head, epidemiology, and communicable diseases, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and a signatory of the government’s National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration Covid-19.
The inquest raised in the consciousness of Indian citizens about the second wave surge.
India’s vaccine diplomacy is in shambles. We have exported 65 million doses of vaccines. Any dignified country would abundant its complications rather than firstly allying the neighboring countries. In hindsight, no authorities could have seen the second wave coming. The reported cases got buried down by the government, which portrayed a picture that everything is going fluidly about the Covid-19.
But the situation lacked interoperability, and here we are facing the most arduous second wave of the virus. Although the testing rates stand higher today, the policymakers didn’t have a primitive focal point on the Testing Positivity Rates. Most cases discovered during the initial phases got contacted at the International airports. The strenuous state of affairs worsened when the new variants started contracting people in states like Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. Here the citizens have to move back and forth to other states for picking up an international flight.
The biggest stumbling block in the vaccine progress is that the government has taken reactionary decisions more often than not. It has not helped the cause of many higher contraction places. So to even consider uplifting the tourism by providing vaccination passports would be the pathway for more cases. The frontline healthcare workers under the priority bracket for the vaccines have not administered both of their shots. Of the three crore healthcare workers in India, less than one-third have received both vaccine shots. The shortage becomes a talking point when the healthcare workers, due to curing the patients are not safe from the transmission of the virus.
India’s vaccine progress doesn’t allow India to go ahead with vaccination passports for restarting traveling
Although India has acquired goodwill and recognition alongside the world by supplying the vaccines but letting the nation suffer because of the shortage is ridiculous. India is the biggest manufactures of the Covaxin vaccine, despite that the vaccination progress hasn’t kickstarted delivering emphatic results. The vaccine diplomacy hasn’t worked wonders for the government, and they face mounting pressure from the citizens to present accurate facts and figures of the reality.
The introduction of the vaccination passports would rather enhance the burden on the citizen who is not fully vaccinated, as there would be more compelling laws to ascertain. The trajectory of the vaccination progress is much lower than the government results portray. As out of the 27 crore senior citizens, only three crores have been vaccinated. Thus, we would be venting the way for the virus to spread more immersively than before. The second wave could turn out to be the most prolific eras since the coronavirus burst onto the scene.
Real-worthy recommendations for the policymakers
The policymakers need to shift their attention towards genetic testing for variants creating havoc right now in the Indian sub-continent. Systematically, tracking of the virus and finding whether it’s a correlation between that and the severity of the disease and the number of people in the hospitals and mortality. In case the numbers hung out to dry highly, then it would mean that we have to reprocess our vaccine strategy.
And that will have to get amended within a short period. Look at the spatial spread and where it is spreading to get ahead of the Covid-19 virus. Lockdowns or any worthy of restrictive measures are not very useful once the virus has started transmitting because then it is a two-week lag. The policymakers need to enhance the testing, which it has failed to do so. Rather than working on schemes that are irrelevant at these sensitive times, the government should increase its promptness to combat the adversity.
