The Vaccine Conundrum

India must not have a significant funding issue this year, with a budget allocation of 14 billion USD, however with committed export contracts and the limitations in production capacity India is likely to struggle with supply for the next 6 months. Beyond 6 months the constraint may not be supply as manufacturers will be able to expand capacity, but will be the cold storage, transportation and manpower. Unless significant investments are made in expanding cold storage facilities and training up an effective labor force, administering the vaccine will be bottlenecked and India will struggle to administer more than 3 million doses a day. What all of this tells us with some near perfect execution and some optimistic modelling India may be able to vaccinate their target age group of 18 and above with a single shot by mid 2022, they may be able vaccinate the total population with the second dose by Mar 2023. Will India’s creaking healthcare infrastructure hold up for so long? How many people are likely to die in this time, as the death toll mounts? How much more can the economy take before it breaks? India has more questions than answers in this rather grim crisis.More