PM Modi kicks-off the Covid-19 vaccine drive, urges people to show patience

India's vaccination drive is based on principles of humanity, says the prime minister

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched ‘world’s largest vaccination drive’ against Covid-19, congratulating citizens and scientists for the feat. He cautioned people to ensure that they take both the doses at one month’s gap and show patience as the country begins to give the antidote to its huge population.

“Don't make the mistake of taking one dose and then forgetting about dose two and don’t forget coronavirus appropriate behaviour after getting the dose. The patience with which you fought coronavirus, show the same patience during vaccination now,” Modi said.

As Modi kicked off the vaccine roll-out with a click of a button, a video message played the Sanskrit chant - sarve bhavantu sukhinah, sarve santu niramaya - (All be happy, All be free of illness).

He said that India’s vaccination drive is based on principles of humanity and that those who needed the vaccine the most would get it first.

“Those who are most at risk will get it first - doctors, nurses, paramedics - they deserve it most on priority,” Modi said, as India began the exercise of vaccinating 30 million health care and frontline workers.

On day one, around 300,000 health care workers will be given the first dose of the vaccine.

Modi choked as he talked about the struggles of families torn apart due to Covid. “Mothers could not be with their ailing children...Kids could not give a traditional farewell to their parents who died in the pandemic.”

AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria receives COVID-19 vaccine jab at AIIMS, Delhi.

All this while, he said that there was someone who was giving us hope.“Nirasha ke usi vatavaran mein koi asha ka sanchar kar raha tha...Humein bachane ke liye apne prano ko sankat mein daal raha tha.”

He said that health and frontline workers stayed away from their families for months in discharging their duties and several did not make it. “Neither science or society was prepared for a situation like this...No one had imagined a challenge like Covid.”

Recalling the days of lockdown, Modi said that it was impossible to keep such a big population indoors. “We had the estimate of how the livelihood and the economy will be impacted...The best way to stop the spread was for everyone to stay where they were.”

He said however there are districts in India where there hasn’t been a single Covid deaths and several where no new Covid case has been reported for the past two weeks.

He said that the whole world has seen how well we tackled the pandemic from evacuating Indian citizens stuck abroad to ramping up production of PPE kits and expanding the network of testing labs.

First dose of Covid-19 vaccine being administered in Delhi.

Modi said that the vaccination drive would go on for long and other countries will be able to learn from India’s experiences given the size and scale of the exercise.

He also asked the citizens not to pay heed to rumours about the vaccine since experts have given emergency approval following scientific rigour. He said India had a great track record in vaccine production and that 60 per cent of children of the world get vaccines made in India.

“Our Covid vaccine is much cheaper than the foreign ones and more suitable to Indian situation.”