https://time.com/6052370/modi-didnt-buy-enough-covid-19-vaccin | India Covid-19 News

https://time.com/6052370/modi-didnt-buy-enough-covid-19-vaccine/

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s empty showboating—that not only plunged India into an unexpected vaccine shortage, but also put countries banking on vaccines from India at great risk.

The vaccine crisis that stares at the world’s most vulnerable countries today is rooted in Modi’s mind-boggling reluctance to buy enough vaccines in time. As early as August 2020, Modi grandly declared that India had already worked out a vaccine distribution plan. Yet, he placed the first vaccine order as late as January 2021. And, even then, bought little. The result: by the time the second wave hit India with full intensity in April, just 0.5% of Indians had been fully vaccinated. The figure currently stands at a measly 3.1%. No national leader has talked so much about vaccines and done so little about it, and Indians are not the only ones paying the price for it.

Modi first put the lives of his own people at risk by not putting money where his mouth was. Then, when it all went horribly wrong, he forced Indian companies to break their word on vaccine deliveries, endangering millions of others the world over by depriving them of vaccines. No amount of disingenuous fluff on “global good” now will hide that fact.