Hindu Daily Digest - Editor’s Pick: No vaccine for all, yet

(The Editor's Pick is a new newsletter from The Hindu that provides a snapshot of the most important stories from today's edition of our newspaper, along with a note from our top editors on why we chose to give prominence to these stories.)

With calls growing from many quarters to make vaccines available to all adults, the Union health ministry on Tuesday said that it wasn’t possible to suddenly ramp up vaccinations and said vaccinations aren’t given according to individual choice but according to need.

On Tuesday the country reported administering a single-day record of 4.3 million inoculations. Maharashtra, the worst-hit state by the pandemic, had asked the Centre to relax the age limit for vaccination to 25 years. The Delhi government has also said that it will appeal to the Centre to open up vaccination for all age groups. Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that it was important for the country to follow the scientific protocol when it came to vaccinations. All countries had employed a restrictive criterion that prioritised the elderly, health care workers, those with comorbidities and India too was following a guidance protocol of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in prioritising those most at risk, he said.

V.K. Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog claimed that India was the only country that was administering vaccines to even healthy adults over 45. However, in the United States anyone 16 and older in several states is eligible to be vaccinated and President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that all adults in the country will be eligible for vaccination by April 19. In Israel too, anyone over 16 has been eligible for a vaccine since the first week of February.

Meanwhile the Centre said the next four weeks were going to be ‘critical’ and noted that in this second wave of COVID-19, cases appear to be spreading faster than last time. Aside from reinforcing safety measures, the need to ramp up vaccinations has never been more stark. That marks this story out as our top pick of the day.

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