KOCHI: The High Court on Friday directed the Centre to inform it when there would be a meaningful solution to the current vaccine scarcity and also how and when the vaccines requested by the state government can be made available. The court pointed out that people are flocking to vaccination centres even if there is no spot registration.
“There is a huge fear that there is no vaccine. That is the problem we are facing. Crowding at vaccination centres should be avoided at any cost as this could turn into super-spreading occasions,” observed the bench comprising Justice Devan Ramachandran and Justice Kauser Edappagath. The court issued a directive to the state police chief to prevent crowding in centres.
The bench issued the order on a petition seeking a directive to the Centre to bring the Covid vaccines under the ambit of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order and allocate sufficient funds to the state government for procuring vaccines.
The Central government counsel told the court that vaccines are being released incrementally as and when doses are available. It is not possible to distribute vaccines exclusively to any state. There are well thought-out plans to distribute vaccines as per need and demographic numbers.The bench said a proactive plan has to be chalked out to make available vaccines to the states equally. People are scared they will not get vaccinated due to scarcity.
The court noted that there were some isolated incidents of crowding in some centres in Palakkad and that it understands that it had happened because of the communication gap between the officials of the vaccination centre and the police. The court directed the authorities of all vaccination centres to inform the local police well in advance on vaccination dates and, in that case, sufficient police force should be deployed to avoid crowding of people.