Thread by @vsirnate

I don’t care what you say but the fact that we are discussing the price of vaccines and how much of this price burden will be shifted on to states and on customers is all the evidence you need to KNOW for a fact that the wrong guys are in power.

And let me state it right here right now that the 50% supply to the govt that will be allocated to states is going to be done in the most politically skewed manner.

Someone just pinged me about my tweet. Let me respond publicly. Take this pandemic as a crisis response test. We need to be prepared for something bigger and much worse with a higher fatality rate. Unfortunately the level of profiteering in India during this

pandemic has been immense and more than I can see in any other country that calls itself “great” or aspires to “greatness”.

Neither could the govt ensure testing, PPE, oxygen vaccines and body disposal but it also didn’t significantly expand capacity

To make matters worse it has lied about literally everything from its funds gathering to its allocation to testing and infection rates to actual deaths.

You have to be a special kind of evil to profit off of people when they’re absolutely helpless. A very special kind of evil.

My worry is also about the future. What happens if these systems aren’t fixed or in place when the next pandemic hits? At this point the debate on expansion of public health investments by govts should be settled. But it’s not. We are still being run by folks who won’t

vaccinate everyone for free. They’re just always kowtowing to capital. But capital doesn’t care about people. It cares about profit.

At this point the vaccine should be seen as a human entitlement not a product for customer purchase. That’s my point. Governments exist to protect people. Not to enable their rendering as “customers”. People count as people, not because they can pay for something.

And there is precedent as so many are pointing out. Polio vaccinations for instance supported by state and international agencies. It worked!

Sorry for this extended speech

But really how is it that the biggest visions are yet another statue or temple or buildings when the vision should be for instance building the world’s largest Indian Public Health Service with a network of state of the art hospitals?

When did we allow our collective imagination to be restricted to ten new jets or two new submarines and new missiles here and there and butt ugly architectural concepts?

What does it mean to think BIG?

And pls don’t @ me “how will we pay for this”. If we can find money to build a true eyesore of a statue and buy some really ugly looking planes at more of a price than they’re actually worth, I think we have money to vax India’s poorest and then some.