All posts in this series
- About Covishield & Covaxin
- COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout & Efficacy
- Covid19 Vaccine Risks
- Covishield is Back in News
COVID-19 infection arrives
India got its first reported case of COVID-19 infection on Jan 27 2020. The first case was reported in Kerala, India, where a 20 yr old student returning from Wuhan city, china presented herself to the Emergency Department in General Hospital, Thrissur, Kerala, with a one-day history of dry cough and sore throat. From there, the reported cases grew (even-though at lesser rate than the fear) and in a lockstep move with world community and WHO advice, on the evening of 24 March 2020, the GOI ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days. This lockdown continued in various stages till the Unlock 2.0, announced for the period of 1 to 31 July 2020 and ending with Unlock 6.0 in December 2020.
Vaccination was explained as the only treatment option. Alternate treatment options like Homeopathy, Ayurveda etc were sidelined and allopathy was promoted as the only temporary treatment option even when Allopathy had no real treatment to offer. The wait was on for the life saving, COVID-19 stopping, all powerful vaccines. The virus was going to mutate and spread so fast that unless vaccines were rolled out fast, there was gonna be major casualties as each wave of new mutation spreads. This was the projected scenario. India also was working on its own vaccine and also license manufacturing another one for domestic use.
The two vaccines that were approved for emergency use were:
- Covishield (Serum Institute of India)
- Covaxin (Bharat Biotech)
However, neither of the vaccines had completed their trails:
Read full report here.
COVID19 Vaccination phases
Jan 16, 2021 – The first dose of COVID19 vaccination started
Feb 2021 – The second dose of vaccination commenced for healthcare workers.
After the two doses of the COVID19 vaccination, the necessity of a third dose was highlighted to keep people safe from variants of COVID19 and hence, the third dose or booster dose was made available.
Read full report here
May, 2022 – The Central Govt announced free covid boosters to all adults
Jan 2023 – The need for a second booster (fourth dose) was put forward by doctors
The government promoted and took several measures to ensure that people take the third dose while the demand for the fourth already emerged. Read Full Report here.
With reference to the fourth dose (second booster), Dr. Raman Gangakhedkar (former head of epidemiology and communicable diseases at the ICMR) said on January 25, 2023:
Read Full Report here.
At present there are many COVID-19 vaccine candidates in India, including the ones for kids, a group who had negligible infection rate (if any) from COVID-19.
A full list of vaccines that are avaiable now for COVID-19 as per ICMR
Efficacy of vaccines
As we can understand from the expert opinion, regardless of the vaccination status, people are not fully protected against COVID19 and the variants.
In April 2023, there was a rise in COVID19 cases once again and several states also started advising people to mask up and follow social distancing even if they are fully vaccinated.
Read Full Report here.
In August 2023, we had another variant of the virus called EG.5 (nicknamed Eris) which was present in Europe and India. It was first detected earlier in 2023. WHO also had categorised it as a “variant of interest”. Read news report here.
So as we can see, regardless of the number of vaccine doses people have taken, the virus mutations have not ended. The initial claim was that vaccines will stop the virus, which later changed to vaccines won’t get you seriously ill from the virus. Then the claim changed to you will not be dead if you take the vaccine. However as we can see, regardless of the number of vaccine doses taken, the infection still happens.
The above verifies what was explained by Pujyapad Puri Shankaracharyaji way back in 2021. He said that these vaccines would prove to be ineffective and their use would result in future waves of the disease that would be resistant to the vaccines.