What are the five suggestions Manmohan Singh has given to PM Modi on Corona?

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Through this letter, he has made several suggestions to the government. Singh has said that vaccination has to be expedited as it is important in the battle with corona.

Manmohan Singh says that it should be seen how many people are being vaccinated or the corona vaccine, instead of seeing what percentage of the population is being vaccinated.

He pointed out that only a very small part of the population in India has been vaccinated so far. The former PM has given five suggestions to the current PM.

Key to our fight against Covid19 must be ramping up vaccination effort. We must resist temptation to look at absolute numbers being vaccinated, focus instead on percentage of population vaccinated: Former PM Dr. Manmohan Singh writes to PM Modi on ramping up vaccination programme pic.twitter.com/ZD5SbQOE0u

— Congress (@INCIndia) April 18, 2021

Five suggestions Manmohan Singh has given to PM Modi on Corona

1. The government should indicate which vaccine producers have been ordered for how many doses. How many orders have been accepted for their supply for the next six months? If we want to vaccinate a certain population during these six months, we should place an order in advance so that there is no difficulty in supplying the vaccine.

2. The government should explain how all this will be done and how the vaccine will be distributed in all the states.

3. States should provide some flexibility in deciding frontline workers so that people below 45 years of age can also be vaccinated. For example, state teachers, bus-taxi-three wheeler drivers, municipal and panchayat staff, and court-going lawyers may want to be declared front-line workers. By doing so, the vaccine can be administered even when you are under 45 years of age.

4. India has emerged as the world’s largest vaccine producer in the last few decades. This is because of the policies adopted by the government. In the case of this emergency, the government should provide facilities and concessions to vaccine producers to increase production. This has been done before while fighting diseases like AIDS.

5. Supply of indigenous vaccine is limited. In such a situation, the vaccine approved by reliable agencies like the European Medical Agency and USFDA should be ordered without the condition of domestic trial. I think experts will also consider it justified by looking at the emergency. This facility will be for a fixed time frame within which bridge trials will be completed in India. Those who should be vaccinated should also be informed that they have been approved by trusted agencies abroad.

The suggestions sent by Manmohan Singh were preceded by a meeting of the Congress Working Committee a day before it discussed ways to fight the corona epidemic.