Thread by @surajbrf

The vaccination prioritization is set out in the official documentation posted on ICMR’s and MoHFW’s sites:
vaccine.icmr.org.in/covid-19-vacci…
mohfw.gov.in/pdf/Covid19Com…
Page 64 explicitly lists the priority groups.

It was published back in 2020.

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https://twitter.com/ShekharGupta/status/1379436220489506825

The document offers detailed information on how to communicate a mass vaccination campaign, stating the roles of government, mainstream media, religious leaders, and more.

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The Indian guidelines are essentially the same as the prioritization defined in other major economies:
USA: cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…
UK: gov.uk/government/pub…
Germany: thelocal.de/20210310/expla…

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Evidence shows that every large major country has taken the same approach to vaccination prioritization. Further, they all have similar institutional structures that defined the prioritization plans.

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They all have biomedical research entities (e.g. ICMR or CDC) driving vaccine development and together with an expert committee (e.g. NEGVAC or ACIP) advising the health ministry (e.g. MoHFW) that executes the plans.

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Every country is struggling to ramp up vaccination. This is where India is right now in 7-day moving average:

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That’s right - India overtook the US in 7-day average and has the same acceleration slope as China, just ~2 weeks behind despite China’s 2 month head start having started vaccine research before the world even knew about Covid.

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Your job is to be part of the institutional solution, not stand on a soapbox and yell. Nowhere in a mature country do citizens compet for vaccines in an open market in the midst of a raging pandemic. Indian vaccination development and rollout is on par with ROW.

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As the ICMR communication guidelines doc shows, every institution has a role in propagating the vaccination plan. That includes YOU - a part of the mainstream media. In the middle of a pandemic response, don’t go on about sarkar and babus.

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The press has a job to educate the population about accelerated vaccine development, trials and rapid rollout. That’s what the population pays money for newspapers and cable TV for. It is not to hear personal opinions and politics in the middle of a global crisis.

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Don’t complain in the middle of a pandemic “but why can’t I have a vaccine if I can afford to pay for it ?” It’s irresponsible behavior. Public health policy in every mature country has taken exactly the same phased rollout approach.

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If you aren’t eligible, you wait until you are. Your bank balance has absolutely no relevance. It’s that simple.

In a modern country, the press has a role to play in educating them about how institutional structures work in regular times and particularly in crisis time.

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Don’t turn it into an opportunity to foist divisive hunger games ideas with no basis in any other modern society. That is dangeously irresponsible behavior in the middle of a public health response to a pandemic.

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Read the ICMR/MoHFW comm strategy document. It takes great pains to carefully address questions : priority, rollout, hesitation, messaging, how to leverage the government, press and civil society to do things successfully.

You have one job here, and you’re failing at it.

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