Dear Editor,
I write to commend, compliment, extol, and congratulate the government of India on reaching the record milestone of administering over one billion vaccines on Thursday October 21. When one speaks of such a number of vaccinations prior to now, one was thinking of polio, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, etc. against which billions were “vaccinated” (administered via drop or the needle). In terms of Covid related stats, India conducted 600 million Covid tests of its 1.4B people and found 34,128,098 infections. There were 453,000 deaths or just about a quarter of one percent of the population. Some 98.5% of those infected have recovered from Covid. There are over 300 M fully vaccinated in India or 37% of the population; 75% of adults got least one jab and some half of all adults are fully vaccinated. The Indian stats contrasts sharply with the US that leads the world in testing at 660 M, 45.2 M infections, 732K deaths, 410 M vaccinations (less than half of India’s), 190M or 58% of population fully vaccinated. And while it was vaccinating its people, India was also making vaccines available to several other countries including Guyana and Caricom nations. India provided some 70 countries with vaccines including developed and European nations. The developed countries kept their vaccines for themselves and only recently started making some (surplus) available to poor or developing countries. India was criticized in the developed countries and even by prominent Guya-nese and the media for its handling of Covid in March and April when the country was devastated by Covid. Even SN was critical of India’s handling of Covid. Since then, the Prime Minister took charge of Covid vaccination from the 28 states and several territories reducing deaths considerably. Vaccination in India as well as testing for Covid, as it is in the US and UK and several other countries, is free.
Sincerely,
Vishnu Bisram
