Coming as a positive development to the upcoming COVID vaccination drive to be rolled out shortly across the country, the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday evening announced that the two-day dry run on December 28-29 to assess the readiness of the mechanism for the drive, unprecedented both in terms of scale and outreach has been without any hiccup. While this news along with the one that says that daily additions has touched a record low of around 16500 in last 187 days are certainly the rays of hope at the end of the tunnel, an unwarranted fear pertaining to a purported invasion of the new and deadlier Covid-19 strain originating from the UK has touched large sections of the common people. Besides this invasion theory, the other one doing the rounds claims that the vaccine(s) that have been painstakingly developed over the last 6 months and are just about to be administered are incapable of fighting this new strain! This can only be called as ridiculous as nowhere in the world it has been proved so. The Union Health Ministry must address this imaginary phobia without wasting time, even if it might be at the cost of a portion of its energy and time, both precious in the current contest. A vigil also needs to be cast on social media to block such rumours that can dissuade people from taking Covid vaccine.

It must be fresh in everybody’s memory of the UK arrival episode when five passengers managed to evade the health radar of airport authorities and ‘flee’ and the current fear among people can be attributed to this laxity. Under this backdrop, it’s easy for those who want to spread rumours. Thankfully however, the Health Ministry has announced that that all international passengers who have arrived in India during the last 14 days between December 9-22, if symptomatic and tested positive, will be subjected to genome sequencing to ascertain whether there are any carriers of the new UK strain at all. Although it was a belated decision, it was necessary to avoid misgivings and more vitally to weed out the gossips at their infancy. The Central health authorities have been steadfastly trying to convey the message that the vaccines are capable enough to take on the virus, including the new strain and it was once more repeated by the Principal Scientific Advisor on Tuesday that all Covid vaccines will work against the new variants and there are no evidences whatsoever that they will fail to protect against the SARS-CoV-2 mutants originating either from the UK or South Africa.  

Citizens must display the desired level of responsibility and go strictly by the ethos of science. For the new corona variant, facts and not fiction should be believed.