Voice of Imphal Times Poor vaccination show, Don’t blame it on ‘Hesitancy’

After assumptive relief from the first wave of the Covid-19 Pandemic during the first four months of the year 2021, It is almost 3 months again that normal life has been put on halt due to certain restrictions taken up by the government to contain the spread of the 2nd wave which seems to be more dangerous than the first wave.
The Government of Manipur seems to be taking care of the Covid-19 2nd wave with extreme seriousness and, people across the state (who can access smartphones or local cable TV) have witnessed a restless Chief Minister working days and night taking up measures to save his people from the dreaded Covid-19, besides his additional government affairs job. Time and again the Chief Minister discussed the problem and requirement on how to contain the Covid-19 Pandemic and as per the discussion, many new measures have been taken up. The top priority, as noticed by common people which the government took up in this second wave is the installation of an Oxygen factory as well as an increase of the treatment center. This time a hospital especially for the Covid-19 treatment is all set to complete by September, as stated by the Dy. Chairman of Planning MLA L. Rameshwor. Let’s hope it is completed at the targeted time.
When measures for the construction of Covid hospitals as well increase in the treatment bed at existing hospital and preparation for an adequate supply of oxygen are going on, many other community control measures like imposing of curfew, declaration of containment zone, mass testing, Coovid-19 vaccination, and now house to house testing measures have also been taken up.
But one thing that the team Imphal Times fails to understand is why the government is not speeding up the Covid-19 vaccination programme, when almost all the concerned government authorities are saying that Covid-19 vaccination is the only alternative left to protect the people from the dreaded Covid-19 pandemic. In a state like Manipur blaming vaccine hesitancy as a reason for the delay in speeding the vaccination will be like blaming the cricket pitch for Gavaskar to strike century.
We have seen the Health department authority organized over 140 sessions in a day and administered over 30,000 doses to beneficiaries. That happened just a day before or perhaps on the day of the visit of the central team from the MoHFW who had been sent to the state to take stock of the Covid-19 containment measures being taken up by the state. Interestingly blaming the people with the term vaccine hesitancy the vaccination then reduced to half after the central team left and later, the vaccine administered per day has again gone down to around 6000 per day.
When it is known and advised that vaccination is the only way left to save the society why the vaccination drive has been slowing down.
As per an official report released on July 12, the total number of covid-19 positive cases is 7,520. No matter who should be credited, but the rate of recovery too is not bad , 590 persons were reported recovered and the recovery rate now touches 88.79%.
Now, if vaccination is the only means left as of now to protect the people, it should speed up. The centre has already sent revised guidelines for the implementation of the National Covid vaccination programme which came into effect on June 21 and till now the vaccine doses administered could not be increased. However, after the district administration started assisting the vaccination drive the doses administered had been increased to double during the last week of June.
Interestingly, those staff under the district administration have not been provided with proper PPE kits or sanitizers or even face mask while they were sent for survey on why there were low vaccination turn up and how could it be increased. Sources from the health department said that monetary requirements for the purpose had been issued to all the district authorities but many complaints of not getting the Covid protective kits while on work. This has perhaps degraded the spirit of those government employees used for Covid-19 containment survey.
Perhaps this is the reason for the decrease in administering vaccine doses falling it to just 4804 beneficiaries among which 188 beneficiaries got the second dose on July 11. On the following day the number of doses administered increased to 14,369 but much lesser than the number administered during the visit of the central team.
The total vaccine so far administered is 8,90,643 and the number of people who got 2nd dose was just 95,971 only. In a population with around 30 lakhs people it is unlikely that at least 50% of the total population may get the vaccine dose if the trend continues in the way.
For what reason and why the vaccination drive is slowing down instead of gearing up. There should be a reason, but if the reason is not properly put in the public domain, definitely it would be for political reasons as the state assembly election is just a year to go. Blaming using the term vaccination is a true lie and anybody can explain it.