Hours after the state government raised an alarm over a short of covid 19 vaccines, union health minister Dr Harshvardhan said that the allegations of a shortage are baseless. He also labelled them an attempt to hide how the state failed at curbing a surge in covid 19 cases in Maharashtra.
“I have seen statements made by public representatives in Maharashtra about shortage of vaccines. This is nothing but an attempt to divert attention from Maharashtra government’s repeated failures to control the spread of pandemic. Inability of Maharashtra govt to act responsibly is beyond comprehension. To spread panic among the people is to compound the folly further. Vaccine supplies are being monitored on a real-time basis, and state governments are being apprised regularly about it.”
He added, “Allegations of vaccine shortage utterly baseless. Throughout last yr as Union Health Min I’ve been witness to misgovernance&casual approach of Maharashtra Govt in battling virus. Their lackadaisical attitude singularly bogged down country’s efforts to fight virus.”
He also said, “Performance of Maharashtra govt in terms of vaccinating healthcare & frontline workers isn’t great. Shocking to see how state Govt is putting Maharashtrians in danger by letting people escape institutional quarantine mandate for the sake of their personal Vasuli.”
Earlier,CM Uddhav Thackeray urged the centre to allow 25 plus people to be vaccinated but the centre replied those above 45 need to immunised first as they are more vulnerable to the effects of covid 19.