PM Modi Addresses Nation: PM argues against lockdown, pitches micro-containment zones

Concluding his address to the nation, he requested the people to never forget the mantra- 'Dawai bhi, Kadai bhi'. To "save" the country from lockdown, he appealed to everyone to leave home only when it is necesaary and follow COVID-19 appropriate behaviour. 

Arguing against the need for a lockdown, he urged states to focus on micro-containment zones instead. He appealed to the youth to ensure that people in their house do not leave the house without a valid reason. The PM stressed, We have to improve economic health and take care of countrymen's health". 

According to the PM, opening vaccination for all will reach vaccine to urban youth, labourers. He urged the state governments to urge migrants to stay where they are. He observed, "Migrants will be vaccinated in the city they live at and their work also won't stop. Last years situation was different, we did not have medical infra then to fight against COVID".
 

Appreciating the fact that vaccine was developed in very less time, he said that the team effort in vaccine production led to two made in India vaccines and started world biggest vaccination campaign. He added, "During vaccination process we focussed on speedy and vaccine to reach the needy. Healthcare workers, frontline workers are big population of senior citizens have got vaccinated. This gives us hope in fight with COVID. Government hospitals will continue to provide free vaccine, which will benefit por and middle class. Our effort is to save life, effort is to ensure economic activities and livelihood remains least affected

At present, there are 20,31,977 active novel coronavirus cases in India while 1,31,08,582 patients have been discharged and 1,80,530 deaths have been reported. With a huge spurt in COVID-19 cases in the last few weeks, many states have opted for a night curfew, weekend lockdown and lockdown. Apart from COVISHIELD and COVAXIN, the DCGI accepted the recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, paving way for the approval of Sputnik V on April 12.

Moreover, the Union government declared that those vaccines that have been granted emergency approval for restricted use by USFDA, EMA, UK MHRA, PMDA Japan, or which are listed in WHO (Emergency Use Listing) will be granted emergency use approval in India. In place of the local clinical trial requirement, the post-approval bridging clinical trial shall be mandated. The first 100 beneficiaries of such foreign vaccines shall be assessed for 7 days for safety outcomes before it is rolled out for further immunization programme within India. In a huge announcement on Monday, the Centre relaxed the age bar for vaccination from May 1 onwards and mentioned that vaccine manufacturers can supply 50 per cent of its doses to state governments and in the open market.

The private hospitals shall have to procure their supplies of the COVID-19 vaccines exclusively from this quota. The private vaccination providers shall transparently declare their self-set vaccination price. However, they will have to follow all protocols such as being captured on the CoWIN platform and linked to AEFI reporting. At the same time, vaccination shall continue at Government of India vaccination centres for healthcare and frontline workers and those above 45 years. Additionally, the Centre stated that it will allocate vaccine doses to the states from the remaining 50% quota based on factors such as the number of active cases, speed of administration and vaccine wastage. 

In a massive boost to up vaccine production, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday, approved an advance payment of Rs 4,567.50 crores to Serum Institute of India (SII) & Bharat Biotech (BBL), as per ANI sources. SII has been approved Rs 3,000 crores while BBL has been approved Rs 1567.50 crores by the Finance Ministry to ramp up COVID-19 vaccine production. This move comes after the Centre's grant to BBl and three other PSUs to enhance COVAXIN production. 

Earlier this month, SII CEO Adar Poonawalla had asked the government for a financial grant of Rs 3000 crores to ramp up production from the current 5-6 crore doses/month to beyond 10 crore doses/month. Several vaccine manufacturers like Biological E, Gennova and SII, have sought support from the Department of Biotechnology to avail from the Rs 900-crore Covid Suraksha fund. Centre has already provided a grant of Rs 65 crores to COVAXIN manufacturer - Bharat Biotech to enhance their production capacity at their new Bengaluru plant - touching 6-7 crore vaccine doses/month by July.

Commencing his address to the nation, PM Modi paid condolences to the kin of people who lost their lives to COVID-19. He also lauded the frontline workers at the forefront of saving lives amid the second wave of COVID-19

PM Modi stressed that the decisions taken in the past few days will improve the situation rapidly. While conceding that the oxygen demand has increased rapidly, he assured that the Centre is making all efforts to provide oxygen to the needy. He reiterated that the oxygen production is being ramped up. 

Speaking about his meeting with pharmaceutical companies on Monday, he observed that the production of medicines has been ramped up. He said, "We are lucky that our country has strong pharma sector which can make quality medicine rapidly. Our beds capacity is being increased. Big COVID hospitals are being built considering the need of the hour". 

While BJP has scaled down public meetings in West Bengal, PM Modi has engaged with multiple stakeholders to address the COVID-19 situation. For instance, he has interacted with leading doctors, medical experts and vaccine manufacturers in the last two days. In the meeting with vaccine manufacturers, the PM said that the health infrastructure of our private sector has played a big role in the country’s fight against COVID-19 and in the coming days, the private sector will play an even more active role in the vaccination drive. He stressed that this will require better coordination between hospitals and industry.