The second wave of COVID-19 has raged like a forest fire through India. It has put our already fragile healthcare system on the brink of collapse and healthcare workers are being pushed to their absolute limits. This situation has become even scarier as hospitals have a severe lack of oxygen to treat infected patients which have left citizens begging and pleading any hospital to admit their loved ones to simply save their life. Death is in plain sight as almost 3 people are dying with every single passing minute due to the virus. The situation is grim and there seems to be only one way to escape this living hell – vaccination.
The Basic Statistics
On the 19th of April, the Central Government announced that everyone above the age of 18 could start getting their first doses of the vaccine from 1st May. But with how the situation regarding the second wave has unfolded, we have to ask ourselves why the government did not start vaccinating its citizens earlier? India began its vaccine roll out on 16thJanuary 2021 providing either doses of the ‘Covishield’ or ‘Covaxin’ which were approved by the Drug Controller of India on 1st January 2021. However, it is astonishing to see that until March, India vaccinated lesser people of its own country than overseas. According to the financial express, while India vaccinated almost 4 million frontline healthcare workers in the first two weeks after January 16th, more than 16 million vaccines were exported, and by 1st April when the drive was open to people above the above the age of 45, more than 65 million doses were already shipped abroad [1]. With less than 2.7% of the population fully vaccinated, it is clear that the Government had no clear thought or planning with the rollout of the vaccination drive.
Why did we Export Vaccines?
To understand the full picture, we have to understand how exporting vaccines is helping India. Since the early days of the pandemic, India had shown commitment and support in helping tackle the pandemic at a global stage and was one of the first countries to provide food, medicines, and essential supplies to countries in South Asia, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific. India being the world's largest vaccine manufacturers, took this as an opportunity to cement its diplomatic ties, supplying vaccines to 76 countries through different modalities including grants in aid, gifts, commercially, and through WHO – GAVI’s COVAX alliance [2]. Strengthening ties with these developing nations could also translate into critical votes at a time where India has managed to secure a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council as India prepare to host the G20 summit in 2023. The ongoing crisis had allowed India to leverage its image and reputation as a trusted, neutral, and credible development partner and to build on its strong capabilities in key sectors such as pharmaceuticals, medicine, biotechnology, clean energy, and humanitarian relief and recovery. The vaccine diplomacy India has exhibited has a huge potential to pay its dividends back in the future.
The Situation as of Today
An explosion of coronavirus cases in India in March caused India to put a temporary halt on the export of vaccines [3]. India continues to report astronomical figures of new coronavirus cases every day, which has alarmed the government and made them reevaluate the need and urgency of vaccinating its citizens. All this chaos at home has led to an acute shortage of vaccines in as many as 60 nations that were relying on India as their vaccine provider. The poor planning and execution of this vaccination drive has not only failed to inoculate our citizens but also stalled several other nations. Forecasts suggest that India would be capable of vaccinating the entire population only by November which puts dozens of poor and underdeveloped countries at risk of failing to vaccinate their respective citizens as well as succumbing to the pandemic. This atrocious mismanagement has not only decapitated our export capacity but in turn, left us relying on importing the Russian Sputnik vaccine to speed up the vaccination process. It is clear as day, the Government has realised its mistakes pertaining to the vaccine rollout and all the increased vaccinations at home are just panic-induced damage control.
Retrospection
The Government should have had a different approach to its vaccine diplomacy. Being the second most populated country and having the most active cases, the government should have made it their top priority to help its citizens first, which in turn would have taken a large load off the global pandemic disconcertment. Now we are left with not only a shortage for ourselves but also hampering the vaccination progress of other nations. The threat of the virus was severely downplayed and the premature declaration of victory against the coronavirus has ultimately led to our downfall. The divisive West Bengal election campaign and the Kumbh Mela saw people breach several COVID-19 protocols and this has further substantiated the government's misplaced priorities. Our current situation is completely avoidable, but the actions and mismanagement of the country. Selling vaccines to other countries only to build up a reputation and an image for ourselves while people were dying in our own country has now cost us gravely. In the end, it can simply be labelled as the right strategy implemented at the wrong time.
Article by-
Taher Dossaji
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