Let experts decide if frontline workers need booster jabs

Pic/Ashish Raje

Repeated warnings about caution and COVID norms compliance should have had some effect as the city races into Diwali. While that is one aspect of the festive season, a report says that there has been an uptick in COVID infections amongst doctors and healthcare workers.

Those on the front line of fighting this disease want boosters to stave off the chances of getting infected or re-infected. The government must conduct an investigation and form a panel to listen to some of these very senior doctors, their valid fears and see if claims do merit that they are administered a booster dose.
It is not enough simply to make congratulatory noises about medical staff and give them an award or two. If we have to show our appreciation and gratitude to all healthcare workers, so many of whom have sacrificed their lives working in this pandemic, we have to ensure as safe a working environment as possible. If booster shots can give some modicum of added safety, then, these must be considered and given to the healthcare professionals. The booster scene must not be wrapped up in rigmarole, debate and endless political slugfests between the Centre and State.

We are judged by our actions not by words. If we truly care for these workers who are still selflessly giving it their all, then we must look at the booster issue and if convinced it works, roll it out for them immediately.

Though this is not about Covishield or Covaxin, simply to give the booster subject some perspective, a third shot of the Pfizer Coronavirus vaccine reduces the chances of hospitalisation by 93 per cent, serious illness by 92 per cent and mortality by 81 per cent, according to an Israeli-American study published recently in the Lancet, one report has cited.

If there is evidence it works, more power to the booster for our courageous healthcare personnel.