Money9 Edit | Covid-19 vaccination drive needs better planning

Any large, complex project to work needs three pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to come together — planning, processing, delivering. The world’s largest vaccination drive has failed on all three counts.

With better management, it may still not be too late to salvage the harrowing situation.

India needs to put in place better demand forecasting. Citizens are playing ‘fastest fingers first’ in finding slots for getting themselves and their families vaccinated. At the same time, there are areas where doses are available in hundreds, but no takers. This demand supply mismatch needs to be bridged while more vaccine doses get manufactured.

RS Sharma understands technology better than most bureaucrats or ministers. His CoWIN portal should analyse pin codes that are witnessing more vaccine searches and redirect spare supply from surplus zones. The government will do well to employ IIM professors to help with operations models for such supply chain logistics to work. Then get IITians to automate it.

At one level, India will reduce wastage. At another, supply with be strengthened at geographies where cases peak and hesitancies disappear.

There are many 45+ struggling to find their second doses with the golden window between the two doses running out. No one has answers yet to their immunity questions. And there are millions of 18+ waiting in the wings as their vaccine tranches continue to stay beyond the horizon.

India needs to shelve this age divide. Vaccination windows should open for the 18+ if the 45+ haven’t opted for a slot up to 24 hours prior. Globally, 45+ are seen as being more vulnerable with much higher fatality rate. India is no exception. There is no room for hesitancy. Do whatever it takes, but let not a drop of vaccine go waste. Emulate Kerala.

K Vijay Raghavan, Principle Scientific Advisor to the government, has warned about the third wave. First, let us admit we are not prepared. Next, let us plan better — especially on the immunisation front, and finally, for the sake of life — place enough vaccine orders on time.

Emergency use approval of all globally certified vaccines is already in place. Let us expand the canvas beyond what Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech can deliver. We can become aatmanirbhar in 2022, but we must survive 2021.

While millions of men and women have soldiered on individually for everything from oxygen cylinders to hospital beds and even crematoriums, the State must ensure vaccine supply. The taxpayer seeks returns on investment too.

The onslaught of the second wave has taught us that time is of the essence. Let us not forget our lessons already.