Have we learnt our lessons well? In light of the recent oxygen crisis and the vaccine drive in India

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A LITTLE BACKGROUND:

· No one is oblivious of the fact that India experienced its worst national emergency since independence over 60 days between April - May 2021 when it was struck by the Second Wave of COVID 19. While all this was disturbing for most Indians, to some, it was just a political tool to leverage against the government. The gasping breaths of Covid-19 patients was politicized to the lowest levels shamelessly. But the moot question still remained; who was responsible for this lapse? The center or the states? Or was it both? Being Indians, we must get used to the fact that anything can be politicized in India.

· During the oxygen crisis, the production was not the major problem as a lot of us would know. India produces large amount of industrial oxygen on daily basis, medical oxygen though is different from this. But with most of the oxygen plants located in remote and scarcely populated cites like in the North east, it was challenging to have an unhindered supply of oxygen through-out India. Medical oxygen can only be supplied in cryogenic tankers which normally caters up to a 200- kilometer radius. However, due to increasing demand for supply during the Second Wave, the tankers had to cater up to 1000 kilometers radius.

· However, in Just a month, the total capacity of oxygen was increased from 5000 tons to 9200 tons by converting high purity industrial oxygen into medical oxygen.

· However, the core issue remained in the supply from oxygen plants to the hospitals primarily due to availability of limited number of tankers, the distances from hospitals and the problem further was compounded by the lack of coordination & cooperation between the center and the states, inadvertently or deliberately.

· The center was too invested in the state elections in the middle of a pandemic, it let it’s guard down, it no longer considered weaning phase of pandemic a threat. However, on resurgence of Second Wave the government approach was to tackle the situation with full might and effort, unlike many states whose efforts were in alleging the center completely accountable while denying the same accountability for themselves, even partly.

· Error of Judgement is acceptable but Error of Intent is not. What also irked was the inflated demands for oxygen, fake panic calls by states for oxygen on social media, petty stunts like blocking each other’s oxygen supply. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see that not many states acknowledged when the oxygen was supplied to them by the center in response to their SOS calls. Not many states thanked the government for its promptness, or assured the audience not to panic. It appeared that the thin line between spreading “information” and spreading “fake news” was aptly exploited by few.

· Nonetheless, the disastrous Second Wave passed and the cases have been going down drastically to just 40,000 cases per day as compared to 4 lakhs in Apr 21. So now we should look ahead, focus on the future course because Pandemic rate is down today but the danger still looms. One good outcome of the Second Wave has been our awakening, alertness and realization. It tested us to our limits. Now that we’re awake and aware, we know where we lacked and paid what consequences. It’s time to ponder how well prepared we are.

OXYGEN

· We are now familiar with various modes of transport being used for oxygen delivery to make the supply chain more efficient. The railways have been a great way of transporting oxygen without any hinderance through the Green Corridors. During the Second surge, railways delivered nearly 5000 metric tons of liquid medical oxygen in around 300 tankers in various states. Similarly, airlifting also enabled the same amount of oxygen delivery. Opting for different modes of transports will expand the network and strengthen the logistics in the future too. Moreover, to further increase the efficiency of the logistics, the Oxygen Digital Tracking System, app and web is for effective and instantaneous communication of allocation orders, dispatches from plants and real time monitoring of oxygen movement in the country was launched on 1 May 21, and in less than three weeks, it monitored over 12,800 trips for more than 1,800 tankers.

· It is now being expanded as we are readying for the Third Wave. Through this system, we can also instantly divert the supply of LMO (Liquid Medical Oxygen) if it reaches one place which has enough oxygen.

· Now the capacity and plants. 1594 Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) plants are being established for better availability near the demand clusters. This includes the 162 plants sanctioned in 2020 under the PM Cares Fund, out of these 74 have been installed and rest are to be set up by July 2021. 1,051 additional PSA Plants sanctioned under PM Cares Fund in March & April 21 should be commissioned in the next few months in phased manner.

In March 2020, the capacity of Oxygen tankers was 12,408 Metric tons and the number of tankers were 1040. Now the capacity of the tankers has increased to 23,056 MT and the numbers have increased to 1681 which include the converted as well as the imported tankers. (Data from Ministry of Commerce and Industry documents)

· Training drivers for driving oxygen tankers was taken into account too. Around 2500 additional drivers are being trained to drive oxygen tankers by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) as skilled drivers are essential to ensure uninterrupted transportation of oxygen.

Let’s move on to the vaccine now,

VACCINE

52.76 Lakh vaccines were registered on 28th of June in India and even though that’s just half our target of 1 crore doses per day, it’s still a praiseworthy figure. 52 Lakhs jabs in a day means the entire country like Israel vaccinated twice in just one day. It’s not a cake walk to vaccinate a country this big a state like Uttar Pradesh is 2/3rd the population of USA. We broke the world record for maximum Covid cases & deaths in a day during peak of Second Wave. But We also broke the world record for highest vaccinations in a day on June 21st when the allocation was centralized which we owed to ourselves. Nonetheless, after priding for a minute we must realize that what we need is consistency in continuity. Only then will we be able to achieve are goal. India’s low rates of vaccine is because of its population size which is second largest after China, not because of lack of capabilities.

Bharat Biotech Intl Ltd had increased Covaxin production from 90 lakh a month to 2 crore doses last month onwards, and is expected to increase it further up to 5.5 crore doses a month post July 2021. In the case of Sputnik-V, the government said the production is expected to increase from 30 lakhs to 1.2 crore doses gradually.

It has also ordered purchase of 44 crores of vaccines including Covishield(25 crores) and Covaxin (19 crores) which will be available by December this year and it has also ordered to purchase 30 crore doses of Biological E’s vaccine which will be available by September. Total 70 Crore vaccines have been ordered. Moreover, 80 million vaccines will be imported from USA.

About 3.98 crore jabs were given during the week ending June 25. Nearly four crore jabs achieved in a week in June shows a consistent increase in the jabs being given daily. The government is looking at nearly 20 crore vaccinations happening in the month of July and 30 crore vaccinations in a month from August onwards. Among the states which gave the highest jabs over this week were Uttar Pradesh at 45 lakh jabs, Madhya Pradesh at 37 lakhs, Karnataka at 31 lakh, Maharashtra at 30 lakh, Rajasthan at 28 lakh and Gujarat at 26 lakh jabs.

According to the affidavit submitted by center to the SC, 51 crores doses will be available in July and 135 crores will be available from Aug to Dec 2021 to vaccinate the adult population of roughly 95 crores.

So, it could be said that the months from July onwards are going to be quite crucial and shall determine whether or not our government is capable of putting words into actions. It will also assess how ready we are for the Third Wave. It will have a bearing on fate of this nation.

People have started misinterpreting the likelihood of Third Wave to complete their bucket lists prior to its arrival. But, the Third Wave is not a monsoon that can be predicted for time & direction. In April we had run out of beds in the hospitals and in June-July we’re running out of rooms in hill stations. The third wave is like a forecasted potential storm, so you don’t enjoy but you gird up your loins. We can’t be foolish enough to make the same blunder again. Wearing masks, keeping vacations aside & vaccination in the forefront is the need today. As US President Joe Biden said, “The most patriotic thing you can do is get vaccinated.” Do that and we may not have to blame the government. We citizens are the triggers for these waves.

Our capabilities have increased; vaccines are being manufactured at faster pace and the cabinet reshuffle will hopefully be instrumental in getting the pandemic-battered India back on its track. But now a lot depends on our attitude and seriousness. The negligence has to be eradicated. We have to circumvent this predicament together regardless of whom we support and whom we blame because 'unity does not mean sameness', it means ‘oneness of purpose’ and there’s not much we can attain without unity. That is the basic lesson we have learnt from our past and we shall see how well we have learnt it.