Looks like Govt centers have again been removed from COWIN. lol
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India's COVID-19 Vaccination Drive
- Thread starter Navjot Singh
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pujaari
Newbie
For once would like to congratulate modi government on this achievement. Achieving promised 65 cr vaccination by Aug is no mean achievement.Richly deserve the credit. Let's hope and pray now that 3rd wave never strikes India and even if it does, the losses are minimal.
The government did nothing.
The government blocked exports and launched CoWIN. Imagine the situation without. Government can’t obviously manufacture it personally but can make policies to improv supply based on domestic needs. Congrats to the government for this achievement. It’s no easy feat and certainly not a gimmick either.
Blocked exports coz of the piss poor planning. World's largest vaccine maker didn't have enough stock for itself but started exporting the bulk of the quantity. Placed order for May launch (for 18+) on April 28. Yes. Excellent planning all around. Told states to deal with vaccine manufacturers themselves and then on realizing it was a shit plan, to begin with, they retracted it a few days later to save their face but ended up blaming the states anyway.
We could have vaccinated at least 1.5 times more population if we had started ordering from last year itself. The government didn't pay a penny to the companies for vaccine development. The only money they gave was for the orders. Bill gates gave SII more money than our government to work on the vaccine. That's no mean feat. We have 7 public vaccine manufacturing companies but they can't earn you money so we gave contracts to only private companies to make the vaccines. Bharat Biotech still can't get WHO approval because we didn't bother them to publish the data back then. Instead, we allowed its CEO to give fake claims in media like its 110% effective against the virus coz PR trumps data.
And the people without any documentation or papers can't get vaccinated. And also, we are the only country charging 5% GST on vaccines and offering vaccines for money in private hospitals coz government has to earn money and not save lives.
We could have vaccinated at least 1.5 times more population if we had started ordering from last year itself. The government didn't pay a penny to the companies for vaccine development. The only money they gave was for the orders. Bill gates gave SII more money than our government to work on the vaccine. That's no mean feat. We have 7 public vaccine manufacturing companies but they can't earn you money so we gave contracts to only private companies to make the vaccines. Bharat Biotech still can't get WHO approval because we didn't bother them to publish the data back then. Instead, we allowed its CEO to give fake claims in media like its 110% effective against the virus coz PR trumps data.
And the people without any documentation or papers can't get vaccinated. And also, we are the only country charging 5% GST on vaccines and offering vaccines for money in private hospitals coz government has to earn money and not save lives.
pujaari
Newbie
I just believe in giving credit where its due. Without getting into the politics and who did what or what not, something has worked that has led to such large scale vaccination and everyone including the government deserves to be credited. Its very easy to get cynical, i always end up being that but for once making an exception given how huge the challenge is.
Why indulge in logic when you can just believe everything they boast?
I agree with everything you said except one thing. You can't change the healthcare setup overnight. The wealthy and middle class are used to depending on the private setups for their healthcare needs. The word I used is "used to". It's not ideal, but it isn't a system that can be changed in a year or even five. It'll take consistent efforts over a decade to make our government provided socialized healthcare of an acceptable quality to the middle class and above. Even then it won't be sufficient if there are wait times involved like that seen in the UK and Canada...
The government decided to charge GST on vaccines in private. Is there any GST on vaccines given freely in the government centres? Why GST on a life saving drug, you could ask. It's a fair moral question. But in a practical scenario, GST is a cumulative tax that accumulates at every step of the manufacturing process. Considering how India is still not self sufficient in procuring our own active pharmaceutical agents, which are the raw chemicals needed to manufacture drugs, we have import taxes applicable at the very first step, which of course gets passed down, eventually accumulating along with all other taxes as GST. So what the government did was reduce taxes to the lowest slab possible.
There are flaws of course. But credit is due to the entire country, especially the workers in the Healthcare setup who actually work from 8-6pm (as far as I've seen near me) to vaccinate hundreds of people in each center. The government messed up for a long time initially, but the ground reality today is the entire country is sick of it and doing their best to protect themselves from the next wave. People are lining up for vaccines without being bigots and idiots like that seen in first world countries. Healthcare workers are still getting beaten up but not once acted on their threats to go on strike here in my state.
The battle isn't lost yet, and giving credit where it's due isn't a crime, nor does it mitigate the wrongdoings. Both can and should coexist. Praise where it's due and criticism where it's due.
The government decided to charge GST on vaccines in private. Is there any GST on vaccines given freely in the government centres? Why GST on a life saving drug, you could ask. It's a fair moral question. But in a practical scenario, GST is a cumulative tax that accumulates at every step of the manufacturing process. Considering how India is still not self sufficient in procuring our own active pharmaceutical agents, which are the raw chemicals needed to manufacture drugs, we have import taxes applicable at the very first step, which of course gets passed down, eventually accumulating along with all other taxes as GST. So what the government did was reduce taxes to the lowest slab possible.
There are flaws of course. But credit is due to the entire country, especially the workers in the Healthcare setup who actually work from 8-6pm (as far as I've seen near me) to vaccinate hundreds of people in each center. The government messed up for a long time initially, but the ground reality today is the entire country is sick of it and doing their best to protect themselves from the next wave. People are lining up for vaccines without being bigots and idiots like that seen in first world countries. Healthcare workers are still getting beaten up but not once acted on their threats to go on strike here in my state.
The battle isn't lost yet, and giving credit where it's due isn't a crime, nor does it mitigate the wrongdoings. Both can and should coexist. Praise where it's due and criticism where it's due.
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pujaari
Newbie
Well, if i may have the right then would like to call myself a seeker and not a believer and in some way also responsible for being part of the problem that has no easy solutions.
He had 7 years. How long is he going to use this excuse? Because I am sure even after 14 years of the BJP government, they will give the same excuse. The government started shutting down temp COVID Camps and hospitals from November 2020 itself as if the pandemic had ended.
Yes. GST is charged on every vial distributed in the country. I don't think GST discriminates based on where the vaccine is going. Government foots the cost, but I am sure it's reflected somewhere. The raw materials request that SII floated was not for the COVISHIELD vaccine. For that, they had ample raw materials. The only thing was that the Indian government never placed sufficient order quantities. Just google how much stock the government ordered for the first 6 months. And was it enough to vaccinate a country as big as ours? The stock is only improving now because they have to save their face.
Why should I give them credit when the government can't even foot the bill for a vaccine for every Indian for the insane taxes each of us pays?
If this government thinks charging for a life-saving vaccine is okay, then to hell with them and their fake achievements. I am supposed to pay 18% tax on a payment I make for my web hosting to a company with no office in India, for a server that is 1000s of miles away from here and then I am supposed to thank them for this? Gurgaon removed all the government centres from COWIN and the administration can't even provide a proper address for those centres. People living near those centres have no idea that you can get vaccinated there so where is their achievement? Government enabled walk-in vaccinations so late. People in remote areas could never get COWIN to work because they didn't know about it or the network failed. Even now, there is no fixed time for the vaccination slots to open.
In America, you can walk in to your closest Walmart and get vaccinated. Here either pay 1200 for a vaccine in a private hospital or try decoding the address of the random government center whose full address is Mullahera UPHC and then stand in line for hours to get a token or come tomorrow if you couldn't get it today.
Some achievement indeed.
Yes. GST is charged on every vial distributed in the country. I don't think GST discriminates based on where the vaccine is going. Government foots the cost, but I am sure it's reflected somewhere. The raw materials request that SII floated was not for the COVISHIELD vaccine. For that, they had ample raw materials. The only thing was that the Indian government never placed sufficient order quantities. Just google how much stock the government ordered for the first 6 months. And was it enough to vaccinate a country as big as ours? The stock is only improving now because they have to save their face.
Why should I give them credit when the government can't even foot the bill for a vaccine for every Indian for the insane taxes each of us pays?
If this government thinks charging for a life-saving vaccine is okay, then to hell with them and their fake achievements. I am supposed to pay 18% tax on a payment I make for my web hosting to a company with no office in India, for a server that is 1000s of miles away from here and then I am supposed to thank them for this? Gurgaon removed all the government centres from COWIN and the administration can't even provide a proper address for those centres. People living near those centres have no idea that you can get vaccinated there so where is their achievement? Government enabled walk-in vaccinations so late. People in remote areas could never get COWIN to work because they didn't know about it or the network failed. Even now, there is no fixed time for the vaccination slots to open.
In America, you can walk in to your closest Walmart and get vaccinated. Here either pay 1200 for a vaccine in a private hospital or try decoding the address of the random government center whose full address is Mullahera UPHC and then stand in line for hours to get a token or come tomorrow if you couldn't get it today.
Some achievement indeed.
1.21 crore vaccinations done till 9 PM. What a great achievement. Hopefully we can vaccinate 60-70% of eligible population by December.