I had written 4 months back about the India’s Covid Vaccine rollout plans. Even to someone who is not in public health, the enormity of the challenge was obvious. At 3 million vaccines a day and assuming children would need to be vaccinated too, I had said it would take over 2 years to get the country vaccinated. It was critical to have plans for managing the pandemic during those 2 years. The surge of cases that has now hit India has shown the inadequacy of the preparation. Indian healthcare system is struggling to cope with the increases in the hospitalizations – lack of Covid beds, ICU beds & Oxygen. In my view, India needs to do the following:
- Continue to work on the Vaccination roll-out. While India has hit a milestone of 100 million doses, it is still far behind the over 2 billion doses required. India needs to clear any bottlenecks on the supply side. In parallel, India needs to educate the citizens on the need to get vaccinated.
- As the vaccine roll-out will take more than a year, India needs to plan assuming the worst – that there would be other Covid surges.
- Increase the medical supply to handle any surges – beds, ventilators, pharmaceuticals for treating patients
- Continue mask requirements, social distancing and ensure small public gatherings
- Support the economy – the surges & lockdowns will impact the economy over the next 2 years – the government will need to provide stimulus as required.
- Support people impacted negatively by the economy – social welfare schemes need to be bolstered.
- The Central & State governments need to be transparent with the public. This is not the time for politicking and scoring brownie points at the cost of transparency. That will damage the trust of the citizens with the system
As the April 2021 surge has shown, we cannot be complacent with this pandemic – while we should hope for the best, lets prepare for the worst!
gopaldevanahalli 