Goa’s ambitious target to have 100% of the eligible population vaccinated by July 31 has not been met and as of date only a little over 87% of the eligible population has been vaccinated, with progress over the last few days being slow.
The vaccine is available at all health centres and designated vaccination centres and as such the vaccination has not slowed down because of availability. Instead, among those remaining to be vaccinated are those who tested positive during the brutal second wave, who have to wait 84 days since the day they recovered before they can take a shot, those who aren’t aware or are too hesitant to walk into vaccination centres, like the migrant workforce, labourers, etc and the minuscule minority of people who simply refuse to take the vaccine.
While the first category of Covid recovered patients will eventually turn up for shots as and when they become eligible and the ‘anti-vaxxers’ will never turn up for a shot, it is those who live ‘outside’ of mainstream society that needs to be the government’s priority for now. These are people who are either homeless, who are among the migrant labourer community and are too hesitant to approach the health authorities worrying about documentation or other concerns they have with the health system or are living in exploitative environments where those in charge of them aren’t too concerned about ensuring that they are vaccinated.
It is this category of persons that the government needs to focus on now if it's serious about reaching its target of 100% vaccination. While the absolute 100% may well be too unrealistic, anything above 90-95% should not be considered a failure. Let’s not be mistaken. Ensuring a reported 87% coverage in itself isn’t a mean feat and ideally (once everyone gets both the doses) a complete vaccination coverage of 87% should be enough to prevent the worst effects like those seen earlier this year.
However, the temptation would be for the government to pat itself back and claim it has done a more than adequate job and begin to ease restrictions. This trap needs to be firmly avoided. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has been eager to say that tourism will reopen no sooner everyone is given the first dose. That’s not happened yet. However, if the government decides that 87% is good enough to ensure more relaxations, they are mistaken.
Instead of deciding to reopen anyway, the government should instead focus on having vaccination camps to target certain sections of society who may have missed out on getting vaccinated -- fish workers, domestic workers, shack workers, and others like them before thinking of reopening.
The focus needs to be on the percentage of the population vaccinated, not the target date to reopen the economy. As the High Court said, lessons need to be learned from the deadly second wave that ripped through Goa and the mistakes that led to the second wave should not be repeated.
