Need to ensure that our teens get the vaccine dose soon

This picture has been used for representational purpose

It is time to put a foot on the accelerator when it comes to the Covid vaccination drive for teenagers across the city.

Approximately 16 per cent of 9.22 lakh adolescents have been given jabs so far. While the daily vaccination target was 35,000 but we see an average of 12,000, falling far short of the target, a report said in this paper.

We want to see adolescents coming forward to take the jab. The Omicron wave is upon us, and, like the experts have repeatedly stressed, vaccines may not be able to stop the virus from infecting you but they are doing the job they are supposed to by cutting infection severity and even mortality.

Like everybody else, young people, all students in this age group, have had their lives turned upside down due to the Coronavirus as well. Since we are back to study at home, two jabs mean that schools and colleges can reopen faster. Consequently, all the uncertainty about exams, too, dissipates, and students are no longer in a grey and confused zone.

Parents or guardians must ensure that these girls and boys go to the centres and get their vaccine doses. While it may be true that the infection is currently afflicting older persons, it is not that younger ones are not affected.

Doctors have also spoken about some concerns about more children getting afflicted with the virus. This proves that we are still dealing with a very unpredictable enemy and one does not know, even the experts do not, what tomorrow may bring.

With authorities stating that they may hold camps at educational institutes in the hope that students, though they may currently study from home, arrive at their school or college to take jabs is a step in the right direction.