All About COVID-19: What Can We Expect In The Next Few Months?

With over 3 lakh active cases in India as of 14 December 2020, COVID-19 rages on in India, with 22,065 fresh COVID cases occurring daily. Till now, it has taken more than 144,000 lives in India, while claiming many more across the world. Having said that, COVID recovery rate in India is among the highest in the world, with 9.4 million as of 14 December 2020. As the world sees the rollout of vaccines from various companies like Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen and others, India too is playing its part in bestowing ammunition on its citizens. Generally, it takes about 4 stages, and at least 10 years to create a vaccine. But today, history is being re-written with the making of the COVID-19 vaccine in less than a year.

Further, as newer developments take place everyday, we wait for India and the world to show us a way out of the pandemic.

Here’s Homegrown updating you on the Centre and State governments’ proactive initiatives for battling COVID.

I. Global Analysis of Advance Market Commitments (AMC) for Vaccine Candidates

According to a new global analysis of advance market commitments (AMC) for vaccine candidates against the coronavirus, India has capitulated on its manufacturing capacity to pre-order 600 million doses of potential vaccines, while negotiating for another billion doses. If all these vaccine doses are approved to be utilised in the course of time, it should be enough to vaccinate half of the country’s population, which is over 1.3 billion. India plans to start the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine first to the healthcare workers followed by other groups.

Current models predict that there will not be enough vaccines to cover the world’s population until 2024, according to the report by the Center’s Launch and Scale Speedometer, an initiative that identifies hurdles to delivering health innovations to low-income countries. India plans to start the distribution of Covid-19 vaccine first to the healthcare workers followed by other groups.

II. States Promising Free Vaccines

State governments of Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Assam, and Puducherry have promised to provide free COVID-19 vaccines to its citizens. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has demanded free vaccine for all citizens across the country.

III. COVID-19 Vaccination Drive Likely to Begin By January 2021

Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO, Adar Poonawalla said that the COVID-19 vaccination drive is likely to begin in India by January as his firm — which is testing and manufacturing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate — is expecting to get emergency-use authorisation by month-end. He further said at The Economic Times Global Business Summit that everyone in India can expect to get vaccinated by October 2021, following which normal life is predicted to return.

IV. Government Issues Guidelines for COVID-19 Vaccination Drive

The Press Trust of India reported that the government has issued guidelines for COVID-19 vaccination drive. As per the guidelines, the COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) system will be used to track enlisted beneficiaries for the vaccination and anti-coronavirus vaccines on a real-time basis. Only pre-registered beneficiaries will be prioritised and there will be no provision for on-the-spot registrations. The states have been asked, as far as possible, to allocate the vaccine from one manufacturer to a district to avoid mixing of different COVID-19 vaccines in the field.

We will keep updating our readers on further developments on this.

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