[potamic]

Absolutely not. 90% of these doses were provided by Serum Institute, a private company, that wholly managed the relationship with AstraZeneca since the early days of the pandemic, even when the government was asking citizens to perform rituals to ward off the pandemic.

The government not only played a largely passive role, but they did not even assist where they could. Before the second wave, Serum Institute was appealing for financial help to boost production capacity. But the government completely neglected that, choosing to prop up covaxin, their homegrown vaccine instead.

Even as the government was petitioning WHO to open up vaccine IPs, they refused to open up the IP for their own covaxin to domestic manufacturers, instead ensuring exclusive access to a company that is very "close" to the party.

What saved India in the end was a strong pharma/health industry enabling local manufacturing and ready distribution network for the vaccine. Serum Institute was already the world's largest vaccine manufacturer and was in an amazing position to take up the Oxford vaccine. They jumped at it with all hands and today account for 90% of all doses administered. It's a shame that the rest of the industry doesn't have a bigger share, they certainly have the capability. India is like top 3 in the world in pharma manufacturing. Many companies were ready and willing to switch to vaccine manufacturing but were tied up in bureaucracy with no support from the government.

Political will was the need of the hour, the government had none and it certainly shows in the outcome. Bad leaders always seem to enjoy something of a stockholm syndrome where they are forgiven and admired for everything once the dust settles. People forget how bad the second wave was, and how bad the decisions of the government leading into it. If not for Serum Institute and the strength of the pharma industry, India would have easily gone down the path of Brazil for the kind of shithousery the government pulled.

[hiyer]

> Serum Institute was appealing for financial help to boost production capacity. But the government completely neglected that,

This is not true - the govt gave Rs. 3000 crore (the asked-for amount) in aid to SII.

> They jumped at it with all hands and today account for 90% of all doses administered.

True, but it's likely that the government's commitment to buy 100s of millions of vaccines played no small part in giving them the confidence to scale up the way they did.

> India is like top 3 in the world in pharma manufacturing

True, but SII is the big daddy of vaccines. Even before Covid, they were making 60% of the entire world's supply of vaccines.

> Many companies were ready and willing to switch to vaccine manufacturing but were tied up in bureaucracy with no support from the government.

SII had the capability and capacity, and committed to deliver the quantity as well. They had started manufacturing Covishield in the millions as early as November 2020 or so. Bharat (Covaxin) had a fully developed vaccine. Under the circumstances, why would the government (or any other buyer) risk spreading itself thin over many different suppliers instead of going with those which already had a product in hand?

[unmole]

> This is not true - the govt gave Rs. 3000 crore (the asked-for amount) in aid to SII.

The government gave SII and advace towards the end of April. This was not aid. What was the government doing until?

> True, but it's likely that the government's commitment to buy 100s of millions of vaccines played no small part in giving them the confidence to scale up the way they did.

Instead of ordering doses in bulk, the government went with piecemeal orders. The scaling up would have happened much earlier if we had actually seen decisiveness on part of the government.