Private sector can be govt’s useful ally in Covid vaccination, not an adversary

Despite being the second-fastest country to vaccinate over 10 million people and currently having the third-highest number of people vaccinated against Covid-19, it is fair to say that India’s vaccination programme has gotten off to a slow start. At around 300,000 per day, the current vaccination rate is only a quarter of the 1.3 million per day that was estimated by the government in January. As Naushad Forbes, co-chairman of Forbes Marshall, pointed out in Business Standard a few days ago, at this rate it could take up to 17 years to administer two doses to 800 million adults.

In other words, the current pace of India’s vaccination programme is, paradoxically, both impressive and inadequate. To be effective, it must be ramped up 10-20 times, so that 80 per cent of the population can be protected by the end of the year. Speed is important for many reasons: the faster the population is immunised, the quicker the economic recovery, the smaller the risk of new strains, and lower the human cost.Read the full article on ThePrint