Dear District Leaders
Today’s Times of India newspaper reports that to stop wastage, the Public Health Centres (PHCs) in Chennai have started giving vaccines to anyone over the age of 18. This has been advocated by health experts for the past several days as this could prevent the spike in Covid cases.
The new advisory from the Health Ministry that the revised interval between two doses of Covishield vaccine will be 4 to 8 weeks may result in covering more people and protection could be enhanced.
Covid cases are inching towards the 50,000 per day mark in India and situations in USA, Brazil, Russia, UK, France and some more countries are also causing concern. Experts have warned that if the trend of rising cases continues it will confirm India’s second wave of the pandemic.
The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad has said that there is a likelihood of virus mutating and new variants coming up and the reason is due to people not wearing the mask and ‘taking it easy.’
Rotary Clubs must immediately take the permission of the local authorities and hold campaigns to motivate people to wear masks.and maintain social distance. The population density in India is the highest per sq.km and for example the Dharavi slum in Mumbai has a population density of 2 lakh persons per sq.km. Compare this with Australia which has a population density of less than 4 persons per sq.km.
Governments in developed countries spend millions of dollars to support the people and most of the jobs are being done remotely. In India, everyone cannot work from home or study remotely. Another lockdown, the experts say, will not make us any more prepared and the virus will still be waiting for us when we open up. We are not helpless against the virus since we have emerged as the world’s largest vaccine maker. Government needs our help in mass vaccination and making people take that jab.
Knowing something is not the same as doing something. Rotarians, like others in the community, may be fed up with Covid and pandemic fatigue might have set in and this is a psychological condition in which they feel demotivated about practices that protect themselves and others. We know what to do to stop this pandemic. Let us do it and support the Government and save lives.