The vaccination ‘cocktail’ in UP is another reminder of all that is ailing our vaccination drive

The claims of the Union and the State Governments about the efficient and expedient handling of the vaccination campaign notwithstanding, the hydra of confusion and problems obdurately refuses to be slain. After a roller-coaster of accusations and counter-accusations, revolving mainly around vaccines, or rather the lack of those, now fresh colours of fungus in human body are being discovered almost every other day. Even if we were to leave the state of vaccine preparedness to the experts, the element of human error or oversight occasionally creeps in and adds to the already existent apprehensions of “vaccine hesitancy”. In the latest such case, nearly 20 villagers in Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharthnagar district were recently given a vaccine “cocktail”— the first shot they received was of Covishield and the second dose happened to be Covaxin. Of course, a probe into the incident has been ordered but instances like this go a long way in germinating the seeds of doubt into the minds of the common populace that is already scared and confused, what with the various variants of the virus and multi-coloured fungus being discovered inside human bodies.

To precipitate matters, the left hand of the Government is bereft of the knowledge what the right hand is up to. We have seen it with regard to the announcement of opening up of the inoculation drive for all individuals in the 18-44 age bracket. Almost immediately, however, several States announced that they were not yet ready for this kind of vaccination experience, largely on account of the shortage of vaccines. For its part, the Centre steadfastly maintained that there was no dearth of jabs while, at the same time, several States were crying hoarse that they had been left in the lurch since the foreign manufacturers were taking the plea that they were authorised to do business only with the Centre and not with individual States. Then, as mentioned in these columns recently, there’s the debate whether it’s finally time to hold class XII Board examinations. Compounding the matter is the fact that all stakeholders, mainly the students, teachers, the support staff at examination centres and even the parents, need to be vaccinated. Even if arrangements are made to provide all such candidates their first shot over the next fortnight, they would still have to wait three months for the second dose. The Governments must be on guard against any information misfiring or negligence.