The government said quite early on that they had no objection to the private sector importing

the vaccine as well. There were many equity and rights issues at stake but the government
addressed them, at least in principle, by saying that they would be providing vaccines to all
who wanted them at no cost. If people still wanted to switch to private providers and get the
vaccine from them, it was up to the consumers to make that decision for themselves. And
some private parties did import a certain number of vaccines. But these vaccines have been
lying in storage for almost a month now. The government has failed to come up with a price
at which the suppliers as well as the government is happy. The result is that 50,000-odd
vaccines have been in storage for about a month whereas people are falling sick every day.
There have also been a number of deaths in the past month and hundreds of thousands have
been bearing the cost of partial lockdowns. This does not seem to be a story of good
management or decisive and effective leadership.

Where do we go from here? We will have to live with lockdowns and disruptions for quite
some time even if we today decide to get a much larger number of vaccines as quickly as
possible for the simple reason that getting vaccines will not be quick or easy now. But, if we
do not start bringing urgency to our vaccination effort and do not increase the speed of
administration and the size of the programme, the lockdowns and/or disruptions to business
and life might have to continue for longer. This will cost us a lot more in terms of money and
lives than spending on vaccines. Will the government have a rethink and recalibrate?