Although the 2nd phase of Covid vaccination is gradually picking up pace across the country with 2.06 crore taking the shots already, a surge in cases in 6 states and 2 UTs has brought fresh worries. Whether it’s the onset of a second wave is still unclear, the development, however, has underlined the necessity to speed up vaccination. Arunachal Pradesh must remain careful with proper vigil and enforcement of SOPs for entrants from these places, if any. Until a majority of the population in the state is inoculated that would trigger herd immunity, alertness both on the part of the Health department and citizens must remain. A few days ago, DMO, West Kameng aired concern over the low turnout ratio of the district’s health workers in getting the 2nd dose. This is not the desirable attitude expected from them who have been instrumental in keeping the state safe and it sends a wrong message among citizens. Covid vaccination is not optional but a must and all targeted beneficiaries must take note of it. Reluctance or delay in this regard will only make the sprint towards a Covid-free Arunachal into a marathon.

Union Health Ministry is worried since for the second consecutive day, daily rise in new Covid infections have been above 18,000, taking the active caseloads to over 1.8 lakh. Although the current recovery is 96.95%, it’s actually a drop from the earlier one. So far, it was Maharashtra and Punjab which have been the biggest contributors to the most recent cases. But with the joining of Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the UTs of Delhi and Chandigarh, concern has revisited and in Saturday’s videoconference these states/UTs have been urged by the National Task Force on Covid-19 to step up vaccination in critical districts, tie up with more private hospitals and increase contact-tracing to at least 20 people for every new positive case. It has come to light that the first-hand reasons that contributed to this unexpected rise, among others are: fall in number of tests, lower RT-PCR tests which have proved to be more reliable compared to RAT and failure to conduct adequate contact-tracing of positive cases. These are the common problems for most of the states nowadays since the health administrations are really over-strained. Imposing travel restrictions or lockdown should be the last resort, but the wiser choice must be to make the vaccination process faster.

The Centre must rethink whether to stick to the original timeline as per which common people have to wait till July end for their turn to come. With 90% of the vaccination journey still left, it’s a race against time. It’s time to think out of the box.