Centre’s vaccination campaign is name-sake, only for advertisements and announcements: Atishi

The AAP MLA, Atishi, said the Centre failed even when they decentralised and asked the states to procure vaccines but refused to deliver, and now too when they have centralised the campaign.

File pic: Zee News

New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party’s senior leader and MLA Atishi said that the vaccination drive is a joke for the Central government; how can we launch a universal campaign without sufficient vaccines? Delhi has received not even a single extra dose despite the universal campaign being launched from Monday.

In a ‘Vaccination Bulletin’ through a video address on Monday, she said the Centre failed even when they decentralised and asked the states to procure vaccines but refused to deliver, and now too when they have centralised the campaign.

Atishi said, "Centre’s vaccination campaign is only for advertisements and announcements, the reality is that Delhi has not been supplied even a single dose today (Monday, June 21), when a universal campaign was supposed to be launched. Centre will be making merely 15,19,000 doses available in July. At this speed, Delhi will take more than 13 months to vaccinate its population."

"Sheer misplanning and mismanagement by the Central government in vaccination campaign; we keep on getting new policies but no vaccines; the shortage continues to persist. The centre has still not allowed WHO approved vaccines like Pfizer, Moderna & Johnson & Johnson; but keep talking about mass vaccination. Is this a joke made by them? Delhi has 8,27,000 lakh vaccines for 45+; 5 days stock of Covaxin and 57 days stock of Covishieldz For 18-44, we have 1 days’ stock of Covaxin and 13 days stock of Covishield," she added. 

Aam Aadmi Party’s MLA Atishi said, “Today is 21st June, and it was announced by the Central Government that from 21st June, for the entire country and for everyone above the age of 18, vaccination would be provided by the Central Government and every person eligible for the vaccination would be vaccinated. The Delhi Government had a hope that on 21st June, Delhi and the entire country for that matter, would be provided many extra doses of vaccine by the Central Government. We had this hope that the scarcity of vaccines that Delhi has been facing for the youth between 18-44 would reduce and everyone’s vaccination would be carried out as soon as possible."

According to Atishi, "This makes us sad as well as surprised that today is June 21st yet not even one single dose of vaccine has been provided to the Delhi Government. What kind of a vaccination campaign is this which is just an announcement, just an advertisement while vaccination is taking place nowhere? Delhi government has received just a mere email from the Central Government suggesting that walk-in vaccination must be carried out for 18-44 as well. Delhi Government would definitely do this vaccination. But until we aren’t provided more doses of vaccines, what is the point of this Vaccination Campaign or Vaccination Abhiyaan?”

AAP senior leader Atishi said, “We’ve received this information from the Central Government that next month, that is from 1st of July, Delhi would get a total of 15,19,000 doses of vaccine. 15,19,000 doses are the same number of doses that have been received in many previous months or only less than that. In June, we received approximately 14 lakh doses of vaccine, if we combine both the categories of 18 to 44 and 45+. If we look at May, Delhi received nearly 13.25 lakh doses of vaccine. In April, we received 23 lakh doses of vaccine. So, when the Central government was not running a universal campaign, when the vaccination campaign was only going on for 45+ in April, at that time Delhi was given 23 lakh doses of vaccine. And now when a full-fledged universal campaign is being executed throughout the country, only 15 Lakh doses are being made available.”

She said, “If you go ahead and see the statistics, and we release these numbers every day in Delhi’s Vaccination Bulletin, you’ll see that till now in Delhi, 65,26,770 doses have been administered. Out of which 15,78,382 people are those who have received both doses. If we subtract this number from the total eligible population, it comes out that, in Delhi, there are 83.73 lakh such people who have not received even a single dose of vaccine yet. So, if these 83.73 Lakh people need to be administered two doses of vaccine, so for them, 1.67 crore doses of vaccine are required. 33 lakh are such people who have been administered the first dose of the vaccine and they are yet to receive their second dose. So, if both these numbers are combined, it comes out that to vaccinate Delhi entirely, we need 2 crore doses of vaccine. But in July, wherein the universal vaccination campaign has already started, how many doses of vaccines are we getting? We’re getting 15,19,000 doses only. If we keep on getting vaccine doses at this speed, it will take us more than 13 months to vaccinate Delhi entirely. So, now you can think, if for thirteen months Delhi’s people are not vaccinated, how many waves of COVID-19 could come. This is a very crucial matter for Delhi!”

She said, “We were sitting with this hope and expectation that after 21st June, when a universal vaccination campaign starts, more doses of vaccines will be made available. We were sitting with this hope that Delhi’s people will now get a greater number of vaccines. But now, 21st of June has arrived and now 21st June will also go. But even after this campaign has started on the 21st of June, Delhi has not received even a single extra dose of vaccine. The information that we’ve received says that Delhi will get 15,19,000 doses of vaccine in July, if Delhi continues to receive the vaccine at this speed, it will take Delhi more than 13 months to vaccinate itself entirely.”

She said, “It is our appeal to the Central government to not run programs just for name-sake. You said, a few months back, that we’re decentralizing the system and that the states can buy vaccines for themselves. But when the states went to buy these vaccines, you tied the companies’ hands from behind and said that you can sell only those numbers of vaccines that are allowed by us. So, there was no benefit of decentralizing. Today, you said that from 21st June we’ll run a centralized vaccination campaign where the Central Government will provide vaccination to everyone. Now the centralized vaccination campaign has started also yet Delhi has not received even a single dose of vaccine. What kind of misplanning and mismanagement is this from the side of the Central Government? Sometimes we come up with one policy and then another time we come up with another policy. The policies keep on changing. India and Delhi do receive these new policies; however, vaccines are never received.”

AAP MLA Atishi said, “It is our request to the Central Government to provide vaccines to Delhi’s people as soon as possible. Not just this, till now, there are various vaccines in the world that the Government of India has not approved such as Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, which have been approved in many other countries. Out of these three vaccines- Pfizer has been approved in over 60 countries, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson have been approved in more than 40 countries. The three of these vaccines have been approved by WHO. However, the Government of India has not approved them. Because they have not been approved, so they’ve not been imported. Because they have not been approved, their manufacturing is not taking place in India. And we’re vaccinating at such a speed wherein we need 13 months just to vaccinate Delhi. So, this is not a vaccination program! It is a joke made by the Central Government.” 

She said, “If we go ahead and see Delhi’s stock position, it stands where it stood yesterday. Today also, Delhi has 8,27,000 lakh vaccines for 45+ and for 18-44, Delhi has 2,68,000 vaccines. For 45+, we have a 5 days stock of Covaxin and 57 days stock of Covishield available. For 18-44, we have one day stock of Covaxin and 13 days stock of Covishield available. So, from today, from 21st June, when the nationwide universal vaccination campaign has started, it has had no effect on Delhi’s stock position. Delhi has not received even a single extra dose of vaccine. Delhi has been extremely vulnerable in COVID’s waves as we have tourists from the country and abroad and Delhi’s population density is very high. So, it is our appeal to the Central Government to not leave Delhi at the speed of 13 months and provide vaccines to Delhi’s people at a faster rate.”