The Central Government has been advocating Covaxin since its launch, with Prime Minister Narendar Modi himself taking a jab of it. In the early stage, a citizen booking a slot to get inoculated was not given an option, as to choose between Covid Shield and Covaxin. Nobody understood the rationale behind not given a choice, after all if both the vaccines have the acceptable amounts of efficacy, what is the harm in being given the liberty to choose. Some speculated a share holding of a senior leader in Bharat Biotech, which are yet to be answered.
“Those, administered Covid Shield could travel and face no quarantine while those administered Covaxin needed to quarantine upon travelling and entering countries”
While some street smart citizens, found a way to visit the centre in advance and inquire as to which vaccine is being administered, others left it to destiny at the time of booking, believing in the word of the government. Regrets started coming in for travellers, when most of Europe and many other countries lifted the mandatory quarantine restriction when entering the country upon proof of vaccination, Covaxin did not make it to the approved World Health Organisation (WHO) vaccines list. Those, administered Covid Shield could travel and face no quarantine while those administered Covaxin needed to quarantine upon travelling and entering countries. That makes one question as to the efficacy of Covaxin itself and the government being a strong advocate of it.
“Only three vaccines passed all the scientific evaluations -- Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca -- and that while the others were safe, ‘safe like water’”
Adar Poonawalla, in an interview with NDTV on January 3, said that “Only three vaccines passed all the scientific evaluations -- Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca -- and that while the others were safe, “safe like water”, their effectiveness had not yet been evaluated.
On January 5, Adar Poonawalla was allegedly coerced to issue a joint statement with Bharat Biotech International Chairman and Managing Director Krishna Ella, “Both companies respect the great work being carried out by each other and put behind us the miscommunication and misunderstanding caused during the past week. We are fully aware of the importance of vaccines for people and countries alike, we hereby communicate our joint pledge to provide global access for our covid-19 vaccines”.
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