Year 2020 shook the world with the fears of Coronavirus. Year 2021 seems to be the calendar year for fears and suspicions surrounding vaccination.
Here are some doubts and questions posed by people knowing what is happening around through media sources.
"How the government can give permission to Covaxin to inject the people taking a consent from them? Is this not inhuman? How can a vaccine that hasn't completed the Phase-3 trials can be given to the masses? Is this going to be Phase-3 trials in disguise? Are they planning to cell the vaccine outside India boasting the numbers of recipients and hiding the side effects?" are the questions from Samyukta, a lecturer.
"Some Indians are illiterates. Many are educated but uninformed about what is happening around. When they are asked to sign on a consent letter at the vaccination center, they do it without reading anything on the paper. Who is responsible if something happens to them? If the Bharat Biotech's Covaxin is so confident, it has to give the consent in reverse. They should give assurance in the form of Health and Life insurance. Can they do?", is another opinion from Prasada Rao, an advocate.
"Why so hurry to give vaccines in masses to the Indian public? The cases are gradually coming down. There are no signs of second wave despite elections in some places, heavy crowds at restaurants, malls and theatres. It is meaningless to give a vaccine to the masses without testing the efficacy when there is no medical emergency like in the USA. I see only politics and business in this vaccine dama", says Dr Christopher, a PhD scholar.
When we tried to ask a couple of doctors of medicine to comment on this, they are tight lipped for unknown reason. But in the condition of anonymity, a Cardiologist said, "I am a Covid warrior. I am neither going to take the vaccine nor encourage my family members to get injected. I am on a 'wait and see' mode".
"I don't mind to take the shot, when they say that it may work or not but no side effects. I read in some parts of the media that a healthy recipient died within a week after taking a shot in trials. How can I dare to take now? I feel it is better to fight Covid 19 with natural immunity, than dying with the vaccine", opined a taxi driver from Tirupati.
"I have a doubt on Serum Institute's Covishield also. They claim that they got the efficacy certificate based on the trials they conducted on 24000 participants in Brazil, UK and South Africa, but not in India. How can we believe that the government has given the genuine certificate to the company based on the numbers they presented, when it has given the 'restricted use' permission to Bharat Biotech's Covaxin against consent letter from the recipient".
When the suspicions and fears are like this, how can the vaccine shots prove to be the end of pandemic?
As per an article in The Hindu today, “This situation could have been avoided if the government had waited for few more weeks for the efficacy data of Covaxin to become available before granting it restricted use approval,” says the Bhopal-based Anant Bhan, a researcher in global health and bioethics.
It should also be noted that according to The Print, a few States have already said they would use Covishield as the “default option” and Covaxin as a “buffer stock”.