Hyderabad:The Opposition parties have acted responsibly in this COVID19 crisis. About ten days ago, leaders of various Opposition parties had pleaded with the Center to ensure uninterrupted provision of oxygen to all the medical centers and free universal vaccination in the entire country. Condemning the lack of proper response to the joint request, four chief ministers and 12 Opposition parties have jointly written to the Prime Minister yet again, seeking immediate action.
Apart from calling for immediate release of the budgetary allocation of Rs 35,000 crore for free vaccination to all the countrymen, the Opposition parties have also called upon the government to focus on containing the virus. A truly deep and gloomy situation in the background has prompted the Opposition to make the joint appeal to the Center.
Scarcity of vaccine faced by the country, renowned as a major vaccine manufacturer, is clearly a result of lack of planning. Since the past several decades the country has been implementing national free vaccination programme. The Supreme Court has recently posed a candid question to the Center as to why the free vaccination mechanism of the country was not utilized for the delivery of covid vaccine?
The court has also questioned as to the fate of the poorer sections of the country in the backdrop of the large scale economic devastation caused by the pandemic. In this background, the Opposition call for the protection of the right to life deserves 100 percent support.
In the backdrop of the estimates that vaccine scarcity will continue to haunt the country till July on the one hand and the scarcity of oxygen and other life protection drugs on the other, the Center should act briskly to ameliorate the situation with the support from States.
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For the first time after about 14 months, England has registered zero covid deaths a few days ago. The number of new cases too has fallen considerably in that country.