Are we heading towards 'One Nation, One Vaccine, One Shot'?

This refers to "Center State quagmire over Vaccination"(29 May) by Ramu Sarma which has exposed the politics. Confusion over gaps apart, it's turning from serious to comical one way or another.

It should not surprise us when we got to read and hear a report about how some twenty villagers in UP near Lucknow were first administered Covishield and Covaxin to complete their second shot. Whether it is a lapse on the part of health officials or trial done by government, if one goes by what the head of Covid Task Force has claimed that there is no harm as such as only standard protocol has been broken, I don't think even the health worker who administered two different should be punished.

To support his claim few doctors have said that the mixture of two available vaccines in India would better enhancement and that even shot is enough. Does this mean, India would soon follow "One Nation, One Vaccine, One Shot instead more than a vaccine that is leading to people waiting in two or more lines depending on the number of vaccines that may land in India in near future. If the mix is normal and no adverse effect would happen to those who got it, why enforce on the same vaccine for the first and second shot and also different gaps for two vaccines. If and when one shot mix of Covishield and Covaxin are made available, I suggest following names : Covixin, Covimix and maybe in Hindi "Teeka milavati".

On vaccine mix fiasco, we should remember that our politicians for the sake of votes and power, would mix religion, language, caste etc so vaccine mix probably a boon for our country where at the moment one vaccine or another will not be available. As for shortages, those of us who have grown up in the 1970s have always faced shortages and also found what is called "juggad".

Those days, with no LPG, our household depended on cooking coal which was always rationed and whenever it arrived in winter months, we have to stand in the long queue. When we faced, shortage of sugar, like vaccines we were forced to mix sugar and jaggery or even only jaggery for tea/coffee. As for a shortage of rice, we used Wheat to go along with south Indian accompaniment like sambar, rasam, etc. Kerosine was another item on the shortage list and we had to depend on firewood.

Now we are living in an era, when life-saving medical support is not only facing a shortage, and like in the past people are again standing in the queue without remembering the promise of our PM who said, the demonetisation queue would end all the queues created by the previous regime since 1947.

So, it seems, the village health staff probably by default have found a way to end shortage by attempting to administer two different vaccines between the first and second dose, and thankfully all has ended well. Long live Jugaad in the land of Atmanirbhar Bharat.

N Nagarajan, Secunderabad