Rich Indians hope to fly to UK to get themselves inoculated though citizens there will get first preference

When the UK became the first country to approve the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 next week onwards, little did it know that it would trigger a “vaccine tourism” trend. Given that it could take some time coming here, many well-heeled Indians are busy making plans to get the shot there and are flooding travel agents with queries. Such is their desperation that they are willing to overlook the fact that the UK would cater to its citizens first before visitors and there can be no jumping the queue. Given that the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors have suffered a body blow due to pandemic-induced restrictions, travel agents are upbeat about the development and are doing all they can to assist. Some enterprising souls have come up with “packages” for Indians, planning on getting deals with airlines to offer fixed-price seats and with hotels and hospitals in the UK for “dosing” stays. 

This desperation is fuelled by three factors. First, we are the second worst-hit country in the world after the US. Second, there are mixed signals from the Government. October saw the Prime Minister assure the country that every single citizen would get the vaccine as soon as it was ready, albeit in a phased manner with certain categories of people set to get it first. Now Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan says that the Government has not talked about vaccinating the entire population. Senior officials say that India may not need to vaccinate all of its 1.3 billion people if it manages to inoculate a critical mass and break the virus’ transmission. Plus, there have been issues with the AstraZeneca and Oxford University vaccine with a trial volunteer suffering serious side effects and suing the company and the manufacturer earlier revealing that its high efficacy may have been in part due to a dosing error. Given the high efficacy of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, it’s not surprising that those who can afford it want to opt for the UK protocol. Besides, the Pfizer shot is unlikely to be available in India any time soon because we cannot put a sub-zero cold chain infrastructure in place overnight. We have to work with what’s best suited to us. Efficacy is more important than being the first in the race.