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- India on Wednesday reported 161,386 new cases and 1,733 fatalities. The cumulative caseload is 41,630,885 (1,621,603 active cases) and 497,975 fatalities.
- Worldwide: Over 377.97 million cases and over 5.69 million fatalities.
- Vaccination in India: Over 1.67 billion doses. Worldwide: Over 10.08 billion doses.
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| TODAY’S TAKE |
| Vaccine budget slashed |
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- The Union Budget presented by the finance minister on Tuesday has slashed the Covid-19 vaccination budget for the financial year 2022-23 by as much as 85% compared to last year, suggesting a limited expansion of the booster dose programme.
- Rs 5,000 crore has been set aside for the Covid-19 vaccination programme for the financial year 2023, as compared to Rs 39,000 crore expected to be spent on vaccines up to March 31 this year.
- The budget document has attributed this reduction to a “lower requirement for vaccines”. India has thus far administered 1.67 billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, with 75% of the adult population fully vaccinated. The government has also recently rolled out booster dose — or “precaution dose” — to healthcare workers and vulnerable populations. Vaccinations for children was also rolled out recently.
- A lower budget for vaccines suggests the booster dose programme if expanded to the entire population would have to be financed from other outlays or would be at a cost to the recipients.
- “The budget doesn’t reflect intent to provide vaccines free to all,” said R. Ramakumar, professor of developmental economics at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, told The Telegraph. “But that doesn’t mean they won’t do it. For the Centre, the amount required, around Rs 25,000 crore or Rs 30,000 crore, is small enough to be pulled in from somewhere later. But it’ll upset the budget math, it’ll have to be pulled from some other scheme.”
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| TELL ME ONE THING |
| Early data suggest impact of BA.2 ‘unlikely to be substantial’: WHO |
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- The emerging BA.2 version of the Omicron coronavirus variant is rapidly replacing the original strain in many parts of the world, but early data suggests its impact is “unlikely to be substantial” said Boris Pavlin, lead field epidemiologist on the WHO’s Covid-19 response team.
- Tell me more: Pavlin said BA.2 had already become the leading cause of Covid-19 infections in Denmark, the Philippines, Qatar and India and was poised to become dominant in several other countries soon.
- He added that based on direct clinical comparisons in countries like Denmark, BA.2 infections did not seem to be any more severe than those caused by BA.1. Though greater numbers of infections can translate into more hospitalisations simply because so many more people are getting sick, Pavlin said that in countries where BA.2 has become dominant, “we haven’t seen any higher bumps in hospitalisation than expected”.
- Hospitalisations and deaths are lagging indicators, however, and it may be too early in the lifecycle of BA.2 to observe these kinds of increases.
- And vaccination? Data from the UK and Denmark show that vaccines are about as effective against BA.2 as they are against BA.1.
- Omicron is very effective at breaking through vaccine protection and causing illness, though boosters increase that protection substantially. Vaccine effectiveness against symptoms rises from about 13% to about 70% from two to three doses for BA.2 and the original Omicron strain.
- Vaccination is more powerful for preventing severe outcomes like hospitalization and death, Pavlin noted. “Vaccination is not doing a good job preventing infection against Omicron, but it does continue to prevent severe disease almost as well as it did with Delta, so vaccination remains crucial,” he said.
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Written by: Rakesh Rai, Judhajit Basu, Sumil Sudhakaran, Tejeesh Nippun Singh
Research: Rajesh Sharma
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