As he officially launched the first phase of the nationwide rollout of Covid-19 vaccines today (January 16) to unleash India’s ultimate move in its long-drawn-out battle with the novel coronavirus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi very aptly quoted a noted Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, who had said: “Manav jab jor lagata hai, pathar paani ban jaata hai.” (When man tries hard, he can turn rock into water.)
Ever since the incredibly swift advent of vaccines against the deadly and seemingly insurmountable disease, one which has killed well over 20 lakh people around the world and more than 1.5 lakh in India alone, the whole country was waiting – both hopefully and desperately – for this day.
The world’s largest immunisation programme – virtually managed by CoWIN, an online digital platform developed by the Union Health Ministry – kicked off in all states and union territories at over 3,000 session sites. With each session site scheduled to inoculate around 100 beneficiaries today, around 3 lakh people in India received their first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of this evening.
The groundwork for this audaciously ambitious programme had been meticulously laid out.
A helpline number – 1075 – was set up to address all queries and clear all doubts about the vaccine rollout, the CoWIN software and the pandemic in general.
The delivery of sufficient doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s ‘Covaxin’ –the two approved (and indigenously manufactured) vaccines – across the country was completed by January 15, with dry runs done days earlier.
The CoWIN platform – which with real-time data about vaccine stocks, storage temperature and beneficiaries shall assist programme managers at all levels of administration in tracking vaccine utilisation beneficiary coverage, dropouts and session completion rate, among other things – was also reviewed personally by Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan ahead of the rollout.
As decided earlier, healthcare workers from both the government and private sectors shall receive the vaccine during the maiden stage of the multi-phased national immunisation campaign.
In Odisha, mass vaccination began in full swing today at 161 centres across its length and breadth. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik personally interacted with those vaccinated in various districts and collected feedback from them about their overall experience.
In the state’s capital, 100 healthcare workers were administered Covid-19 vaccines across six different designated sites – including the Capital Hospital, AIIMS, Urban Community Health Centre (CHC) Unit IV, KIIMS, SUM Hospital. Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhary had told the press yesterday that the government shall vaccinate as many as 9,000 health workers in the state capital during the January 16-23 period.
Interestingly, the first among them was Biranchi Naik, a 51-year-old sanitation worker who has been working at the Capital Hospital for the past three decades. Soon after Naik, the director and a senior doctor of the hospital also took the Covid jabs to boost public confidence in the vaccine’s safety.
Additional Chief Secretary (Health and Family Welfare) Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra declared before the media that a total of 16,100 corona warriors were scheduled to be vaccinated by the end of today. Revealing that the state government had prepared a database of 3.28 lakh health workers for vaccination in the first phase, he said 1.92 lakh among them will be vaccinated in the first phase and the remaining in the second phase by January 25.
Mohapatra also announced the state government’s decision to suspend the vaccination campaign for a day tomorrow (January 17) to observe the impact of the vaccine. The Chief Minister is not known to have received any negative feedback from the vaccine takers he communicated with earlier today, but he decided to err on the side of caution for the health and well-being of the people of his state.
Although apprehension remains among some sections of the public, including health workers, regarding the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines, it is fast fading away thanks to reassurances from a rising number of health experts from the government and private sector that the benefits of taking the jab far outweigh the risks.
No one can tell yet how strongly and swiftly can the Covid-19 vaccination drive bring an end to the ongoing pandemic in the country. But one thing can certainly be said of today: It was a great start.
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