Opinion: Need for free insurance scheme for those administered with Covid-19 vaccine

Several governments including the USA, the United Kingdom have given approval for administering Covid-19 vaccine on the basis of claims made by the medical research companies, even when the clinical trials have been carried out for a very short duration and certainly not exhaustively. In such circumstances, a widespread view amongst the cross-section of people around the world that administering COVID vaccine could be a calculated risk that needs to be recognised.

However, the governments cannot be blamed for giving clearance to Covid-19 vaccine at the present stage as they seem to have no alternative in today’s desperate conditions when people need hope that humanity would be saved from the coronavirus and governments to have a responsibility to keep the morale of the people high and ensure that people would not suffer from the feeling of helplessness.

While some scientists have supported the new vaccines, there are almost equal numbers of scientists who have pointed out the risk factors involved and have criticised the haste with which the vaccines have been approved.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

What is even more disturbing is that not one type of vaccine has been prescribed but several types of vaccines, developed by different companies with a different composition which can have different reactivity. Layman wonders how there can be different types of vaccines for the same virus. Scientists who have developed vaccines are yet to explain this convincingly.

The British government has started administering vaccines, with the choice of a 90-year-old woman as the first person to be administered the vaccine. This too has caused scepticism with people wondering as to why a woman in the vulnerable age of 90 years has been chosen as the first person to be administered the vaccine. People wonder as to whether this could be due to the thinking that a 90-year-old woman is “dispensable”.

Meanwhile, when a vaccine was administered to a person during a clinical trial in India and the person was declared to be virus-positive after being administered the vaccine, the medical researchers have said that the vaccine should be administered two times to be effective. This was not said before by the researchers, thereby causing more doubt amongst the people about the efficacy of the vaccine.

The overall scene is one of lack of clarity and misgivings even amidst hope and prayer that such vaccines should work with positive results.

Several governments have placed orders for millions of doses of different kinds of vaccines from different companies and are actively discussing plans and are developing procedures for administering the vaccine and prioritising the group of people to be given preference in administering the vaccine.

Some governments have said that the health care workers should be given the priority and some other governments have alternate priority lists.

Medical teams broadly come under two categories, namely medical researchers and medical doctors who actually treat the patients.

There are enormous and visible confusion and lack of clarity amongst the medical doctors about the choice of people to be administered the vaccine. Certainly, apprehensions amongst the doctors are justifiable as people interact only with medical doctors and not with the medical researchers and medical doctors would incur the wrath of people if anything would go wrong.

While the governments are going with full speed to accept the recommendations of the medical researchers and are taking steps to buy and introduce vaccines in a massive way, the ground reality is that medical doctors have not been adequately taken into confidence at different levels all over the world. It is known that doctors use medicines as per the recommendation of the researchers and derive their own lessons by trial and practice. Sometimes, this has proved to be too costly. It should be kept in view that in the past, several drugs which have been approved have been withdrawn later by the regulatory authorities due to adverse effects found later on causing confusion amongst the doctors.

There is confusion galore.

All said and done, the governments across the world should have the policy to protect the interests of the medical doctors and the people (patients) in the event of results of vaccine administration going wrong, with serious consequences to the health of the people and even loss of lives.

In such events, the medical researchers may explain away the problem or even withdraw the claims and the governments cannot undo the damage.

In such a situation, governments have two options.

The governments should not compel the patients or doctors in any way to use the Covid-19 vaccine if they are not convinced.

If the vaccines are used, then free insurance schemes (without insistence on premium payment) should be introduced to protect the financial interests of the affected people and their families in the short and long run in the event of bad results.

It appears that so far no government has thought about such “precautionary measures”, which certainly would not be adequate but however, represents minimum measures in the present grave situation.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer)