Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday sought to clarify his controversial comment on coronavirus vaccines, by suggesting that he did not raise doubts on the scientists who developed the shot, reported PTI. On Saturday, Yadav had said that he would not get inoculated against the coronavirus as the “BJP’s [Bharatiya Janata Party] vaccine cannot be trusted”.
“I have never raised any questions on any scientist developing the vaccine or any person helping in making the vaccine,” he claimed on Monday, while speaking to reporters. “I only raised questions on the BJP as people do not have faith in the party because of the decisions taken by it.”
He, however, mentioned the incident of Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij testing positive for coronavirus in December, after participating in a human trial for Bharat Biotech’s coronavirus shot Covaxin, and said that the government should clarify all such doubts, PTI reported. Bharat Biotech had, however, clarified that the efficacy of the vaccine could only be determined 14 days after its second dose and that Vij had participated in a double-blinded trial, where he might have been administered a placebo – a similar-looking injection having no medical effect.
On Sunday also, Yadav repeated his attacks on the BJP-led Union government over the coronavirus vaccine, reported the Hindustan Times. “We do not trust the BJP’s decisions,” he said. “The BJP government is in the habit of turning everything into an event. I questioned the preparedness for vaccination. The government is doing a dry run, but where are the priority lists, charts and protocol for the vaccination drive?”
His comments came despite the fact that the Centre and various states have prepared the list of front line workers, health workers and elderly people who will be vaccinated in the first phase. Officials involved in the dry run of the vaccination process were also trained and provided with Standard Operating Procedure guidelines.
On Sunday, the Drug Controller General of India approved Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Serum Institute of India’s Covishield vaccines for restricted emergency use in the country. Meanwhile, India registered 16,375 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, taking its overall count to 1,03,56,844. This was the lowest single-day spike in cases in over six months.
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