Manmohan Singh writes to PM on COVID crisis; stresses vaccination key to battling pandemic

New Delhi, April 18: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the COVID-19 crisis, stressing that ramping up vaccination was the key to battling the pandemic.

In a letter to the prime minister, the veteran Congress leader said one must not look at absolute numbers but the total percentage of population vaccinated.

"The key to our fight against COVID-19 must be ramping up the vaccination effort. We must resist the temptation to look at the absolute numbers being vaccinated, and focus instead on the percentage of the population vaccinated," he said in his letter.

Noting that India currently has vaccinated only a small fraction of its population, Singh said he is certain that with the right policy design, "we can do much better and very quickly".

"There are many things we must do to fight the epidemic but a big part of this effort must be ramping up the vaccination programme," he said while making several suggestions.

Singh said he is forwarding his suggestions for consideration in a spirit of constructive cooperation in which he has always believed and acted upon.

The suggestions come a day after the Congress Working Committee met and discussed the efforts required to fight the COVID pandemic.

Singh said the Centre should publicise vaccine dose orders placed and accepted for delivery over the next six months.  He said the government should indicate how vaccine supplies are to be distributed to states.

India has seen a massive surge of COVID-19 cases with over two lakh cases being reported every day in the past four days. - PTI