India Coronavirus Dispatch: How states are fighting vaccine hesitancy

How vaccines are developed, no back-up plan if Covaxin efficacy data is not up to the mark, younger workers still reeling from lockdown, and more-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19

How states are fighting vaccine hesitancy

Even as India began an ambitious vaccination drive last week to inoculate over a billion people, the programme has been hampered by turnout as low as 22% in some states. This report in ThePrint provides a look into the measures states are taking to tackle vaccine hesitancy. 

Some of the measures states are taking include reminders about appointments for vaccination through WhatsApp and social media chat groups, counselling, and newspaper ads. The states are also promoting eminent and high-profile doctors who have received the jabs as influences. Read more here

Experts explain how vaccines are developed

Shahid Jameel, one of India's best-known virologists, and Virander Singh Chauhan, former director of Delhi-based International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) explained how long vaccines take to be developed in this report in The Indian Express.

A vaccine can take several years to develop. After a proof of concept has been established, the vaccine is first tested on animals and then on humans for safety and efficacy. Clinical trials are carried out in three phases to seek specific answers. The first phase is done in 20-100 healthy volunteers to check for safety, any serious side effects, and to see if it appears to work. The second phase uses several hundred volunteers to determine the most common short-term side effects, and efficacy. The third phase involves thousands of volunteers in a blinded manner to compare those who get the vaccine to those who don’t to reconfirm safety, side effects, and efficacy, according to the report. Read more here

If Covaxin fails to meet efficacy mark, Centre has no plan to re-vaccinate those who have taken it already

Experts have criticised the central government and the drug regulator for approving Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for emergency use in haste as the vaccine has not cleared Phase 3 trials yet and hasn't shown efficacy data. India has already begun using Covaxin to inoculate its health workers. However, the government has no backup plan in case the efficacy data, expected in the next month, is less than the 50% benchmark set by the World Health Organisation, according to a report in ThePrint.

As Covaxin is a two-dose vaccine, those who have received the first dose will be required to take the second dose 28 days later. But, there is no clarity on what would happen to people who have already received the first dose should the efficacy data not be up to the mark, the report said. Read more here

OPINION: India's vaccine diplomacy aims to create more space for itself in South Asia

As a goodwill gesture, the central government is exporting Covid-19 vaccines to many of its neighbours free of cost. This underlines India’s firm commitment to its ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy, former ambassador and secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty said in an opinion piece for The Quint. India’s vaccine diplomacy is also aimed at creating more space for itself in South Asia as China pushes hard to expand its influence in the region. Read more here

Nine months on, more younger workers remain unemployed

The lockdown imposed in March last year took the general public by surprise and several sections of the workforce were reeling from it for months due to unemployment. Nine months on, even as a majority of the pre-Covid workforce is back at work, more younger workers and women still remain jobless, according to a report in IndiaSpend.

By August last year, around 80% of the pre-Covid workforce was back at work. But, more younger workers lost their jobs and struggled to recover these, as did women workers, CMIE-CPHS data reveal. Also, while employment rates bounced back, the quality of employment deteriorated. Workers were compelled to move into less secure and low productivity sectors such as agriculture and construction. Read more here