With India still reeling under the coronavirus, the media landscape should have been full of advertisements promoting the benefits of vacci...
With India still reeling under the coronavirus, the media landscape should have been full of advertisements promoting the benefits of vaccination and the absolute importance of Covid-19-appropriate behaviour. But such campaigns are missing.
There are very few instances of advertisements that can be located in print media or on television or even radio. Also missing are billboards and posters. This silence over promoting Covid-appropriate behaviour is deafening.
Vaccine shortage, hesitancy
The second wave of the pandemic is receding – even as we wait for what the third wave will bring – and we are on the threshold of becoming “normal” and careless again. Lockdown fatigue and loss of income drive the urge towards “routine” behaviour and increased person-to-person proximity.
People are crowding markets, organising and attending mass functions – social, political and religious – and indulging in “revenge tourism”. The Maharashtra chief minister has wisely sought a national policy on political and religious gatherings.
It is an indisputable fact that the pandemic will end only when large numbers are vaccinated to break the chain of transmission, else the virus will infect and mutate into more variants. It is also an indisputable fact that our vaccination rates are far below what we need to vaccinate everyone by year-end (see here and here for more detailed analyses).
The blame game whether it is vaccine shortage or...
