NATIONAL CHARACTER AND THE COVID 19 VACCINE
By: Rambir Mann
Tags: Governance, Public Health, Covid 19, Corruption, Vaccines

NATIONAL CHARACTER AND THE COVID 19 VACCINE

On 10th December 2020, The Times of India, Chandigarh edition had two reports on rape related FIRs at Yamunanagar and Rothak, one on flesh trade at Amritsar, one for opium recovery at Karnal, one for an illegal liquor factory at Rajpura, a chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate for kickbacks received in the Embraer deal and six officials arrested by CBI for a wheat scam. This was in addition to the news coverage of the ongoing farmers’ agitation and the stoning of the BJP President’s motorcade during his visit to Kolkata. Doubtlessly, crime statistics for 2020 when compiled will show an exponential increase owing to the unemployed and impoverished having taken to crime due to the impact of the pandemic, the lockdown, and entire sectors of the informal economy having been wrecked. Similarly, greatly enhanced discretionary powers to officials due to the pandemic will also find enhanced white-collar corruption emerging. And crime statistics lie — in an Indian Express article of 12 Jan 2016, it clearly emerged that Indian crime statistics were much lower than the first world and were trending more towards the banana republics as evident from the tables below. First World crime statistics were much higher mainly due to stringent registering of complaints. Non-registration of FIRs is repeatedly reflected as a chronic problem of policing at the conference of DGPs of Indian State and Central police forces held annually. In one presentation, a UP cadre IPS officer claimed that only 9–21 per cent of all crimes in India get registered by police. Having arrived at the figures by applying International Crime Survey Data to Indian scenario, it emerged that 30 per cent people never report a crime to the authorities, while over 50 per cent are turned away by the police. A 2003 crime victimisation survey conducted in Tamil Nadu by noted criminologist K Chockalingam found that only 4 per cent of sexual offence victims report the crime. One can visualise the actual state of national crime thus.

Early stemming of the pandemic is central to early economic recovery which in turn will provide succour to the impoverished Covid-19 hit Indian masses. This will be based on efficient and effective administration of the Covid-19 vaccine with a reported outlay of Rs 45,000/- to Rs 50,000/-crore. Most Indian citizens regularly confront corruption in daily life and the health sector provides extremely fertile grounds, being a matter of life and death. We have adequate examples of how the pandemic has already been exploited by the corrupt through generation of fake Covid test reports, sale of spurious Covid-19 prevention gear, excessive and false billing by hospitals etc. An article in the BMC Public Health, Springer Nature dated 08 June 2020, established that corruption in the health sector is pervasive in the South and South-east Asia region including India. The particular susceptibility of the health sector to corruption arises from being a large informal sector with poor regulation, the asymmetry of information that characterises the patient-provider relationship, the uncertainty that surrounds the illness experience, the multiplicity of actors and services involved in illness care, and the challenges of ensuring accountability in complex health systems. Corruption and lack of good governance in these countries undermine the delivery of quality essential health care services in an equitable manner, make it costly for the poor and disadvantaged, and results in poor health outcomes. Another important consequence of corruption is the erosion of ‘trust’ in the system which reduces utilization and undermines actions to ‘prevent, detect and respond’ to major health crisis such as seen in case of the Ebola epidemic. The countries studied in the BMC article have low levels of GDP, low levels of education, low levels of democratic values (e.g., freedom of press, speech and congregation etc.) in the political system with societies organized along strong patriarchal norms all of which act as barriers to reduce corruption in these countries. A Transperancy International (TI) report on Covid-19 and corruption identified 19 cases worldwide worth US $ 1.1 B. The report does not include India as the TI India office has since been closed.

There is a lot that can go wrong in this mammoth national exercise — perhaps the biggest vaccination programme globally, and the government must employ its most effective and reliable resource in this national campaign. There will be public desperation for the vaccine which will result in a ‘black market’. The sheer logistics of the exercise will challenge the best administrators who will need to ensure reliable cold chains, effective transportation and distribution, and regulation. The UN International Anti-Corruption Day 2020 recently observed on 09 Dec, most appropriately focused on mitigating corruption and enhancing accountability in the public health sector and, emergency and economic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a most apt catchline ‘Recover with Integrity’. The question remains whether we can..