Health: The government has announced that COVID-19 vaccines will be made available to all citizens above the age of 18 years, starting May 1st, 2021. This relaxation of the government’s strategy has come at a time when India has been recording a daily surge of over two lakh cases of COVID-19 for the past 10 days. India now has more than 20 lakh active cases, second only to the USA.
In the first phase of India’s COVID-19 vaccination programme which was launched on January 16th, 2021, all health and frontline workers were eligible to take the vaccine. The second phase was initiated in two parts on March 1st, 2021 and April 1st, 2021, whereby people above 60 years of age, and those over 45 years, were eligible for vaccination.
The government has also allowed states to buy vaccines directly from manufacturers at a pre-declared price announced by these companies. Manufacturers must necessarily supply half their output to the Centre, which will release these doses based on the number of cases in various states. The rest can be sold to the states directly, or even be made available in the open market.
Read this article on how sharing information strategically can promote behavioural changes and influence public opinion in favour of the COVID-19 vaccine.
