Vaccine Experts!!
I was super eager to get vaccinated. So, as soon as I got registered I walked into the nearest hospital I knew too well. At the time of jab, the nurse remarked “Sir, I want to tell you that you are getting Covaxin shot”. Well, something moved inside me. I had ‘heard’ that Covishield (the Oxford and AstraZeneca one) was better than the sole Indian made by Bharat Biotech under the guidance of ICMR. The quality of trials was questionable in my own country.
Well, in seconds I rebuffed these thoughts and took the first Jab. As soon as I got the first call, everyone in this world wanted to know which vaccine did I take and each one of them was getting sympathetic towards me as they got to know that I took the Indian one.
I got so irritated that beyond a point I was not even sharing which vaccine did I take. In a group of doctors who had taken Covishield, I was told that not to worry as no one knew, till what time will the antibodies even last for the best vaccine.
But slowly and slowly my confidence was growing in the dose I had taken. I was confident of owning what I had been shot with and was proud of ‘choosing’ the Indian version Then the world changed. AIIMS director, Member Health Niti Ayog, Prime minister, Health Minister, and Finance Minister, all took Covaxin and proudly so. I was suddenly catapulted into the elite league after so many days of facing the fate of lesser haves In the third phase of vaccination, Covaxin was available to only one-tenth of the centers. And on the day of my second dose, I got to know that the trial results demonstrated an efficacy of 81%. My confidence was further boosted and reinforced.
The same day I got to know that one of my VVIP patient’s mom who chose a specific hospital for VVIP treatment to get vaccinated, denied being vaccinated by Covaxin. Somebody had told her that England-made vaccine was better than Indian-made…. !! Didn’t know that she was an expert in vaccine science…!!!
