Thread by @vikramchandra

Here's what many experts feel should be done immediately:
This is like a war - India needs firm, decisive leadership.
Having first centralised power on Covid, the centre now seems to have handed responsibility to the states. That makes sense at one level... (1/n)

...no one really wants to take responsibility for a disaster of this magnitude.
But with 3500 deaths a day, India can't afford to have states squabbling between themselves and with the centre over resources like oxygen. This can't be left to the SC to handle either. (2/n)

Hence we should immediately set up a Covid Disaster Group, with full decision making powers. This should have a twin mandate
1. Double availability of oxygen equipped hospital beds within a week
2. Vaccinate 500 mill people by August. Reach 250 mill doses a month by July. (3/n)

For the oxygen equipped beds, requisition whatever is required. Conference centres, hotels, sports stadiums. Send in oxygen straight from the supplies that steel or oil plants have organised. Set up coordination cells so that hospitals don't have to tweet for O2 (4/n)

For the vaccination programme, get a realistic handle on the demand/supply gap. There is no point in communication to overcome vaccine hesitancy if there are no supplies. Top priority must be to get to 250 mill doses a month by July. Not later than that (5/n)

If there was a war, we wouldn't leave it to the SC, states, corporates, NGOs or citizens to figure out solutions. Covid is costing us as much in lives as any war we have seen, and it is going to get worse. It has to be tackled in a similar manner. (6/6)

P.S. The Covid Disaster Committee I mention above should have full decision making powers, and involve the centre, states, NGOs, corporates... Ideally, it should be chaired by @PMOIndia and also have top opposition leaders in it. Every day's delay costs at least 3500 lives..