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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced, in another unexpected national address late evening yesterday perhaps as a Christmas gift like he did recently on the occasion of Prakash Parv   (an annual festival of the Sikhs in Punjab and Haryana) to repeal the Three Farm Laws, booster doses or precautionary doses for the healthcare and frontline workers and all citizens above 60 years of age with comorbidities, to start from the 10th of January 2022, amid the rising Omicron scare in India. In a bid to make the parents confident enough to send their children to the schools the Prime Minister further announced vaccines jabs for children between 15 and 18 years of age to start from January 3, 2022. He also appealed to the people to not panic and follow COVID appropriate behavior strictly while cautioning them against rumors, fear mongering and misinformation. This announcement of the PM has been hailed all over as the most welcome move considering the global Omicron crisis—by the medical fr

Schools have reopened in several states of India, namely Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa and most of the north-western states, last month or earlier; in the capital of the nation—Delhi, Kerala and in Tamil Nadu schools are being started from today; and most other states including West Bengal have preferred to reopen after the Diwali festival at different dates. The decisions of the reopening have been taken at various times in various states in the last few months, but the state governments concerned were hesitant due to mostly the objections of parents, the lack of vaccines for kids and the fluctuating numbers of daily infections. However, with the capital Delhi schools operating from today, we are witnessing scenes of kids going back to schools after nearly 19 months. Of course, with various conditions and restrictions attached. Many of  the parents are still not convinced which gets accentuated by the fact vaccination for kids is yet to start despite ZyCov-D, the first ever DNA-based ne

The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 of the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has today approved Bharat Biotech’s India-made Covaxin for emergency use for kids in the age group of 2 to 18 years. This comes as a big positive breakthrough in light of the reopening of schools across India and the urgent need of vaccinating the children so that they do not become carriers of the virus and bring it home to jeopardize the elders of the families. Further, in the much feared Third Wave of the pandemic in India that can actually break out after the festival season there has been a concern that the kids would be the worst affected section of the population. The final approval of the DCGI may come any time soon as it is being considered as just a formality. It is to be noted that the DCGI had already approved Zydus Cadila’s 3-dose Zycov-D, the first DNA-based non-injectable vaccine of the world, for emergency use in children of 12 years of age upwards in August this year. Thus, In