Outside a train station in rural India, wiry men in flip-flops rake rotting coconuts and soiled plastic wrappers onto burlap tarps, then sling them into the back of an idling truck. They start toiling at dawn, sometimes scooping trash with bare hands, for a monthly full-time wage of about $95.
But there’s at least one thing these men say they feel lucky about: As sanitation workers, they’re among the first Indians eligible to get the coronavirus vaccine.
Last month, India launched what Prime Minister Narendra Modi calls the biggest vaccination drive in the world. It aims to inoculate 300 million by mid-summer, though it’ll take at least two more years to vaccinate all of the nearly 1.4 billion people in India.
The first phase, now underway, covers all health and frontline workers – about 30 million people – including doctors, nurses, police officers and trash collectors.
“I never felt scared of the virus,” says sanitation worker Ramesh Solanki, who wears a tidy teal uniform with orange trim and a Hindu talisman on a string around his neck. “I’ve been out working the whole time, even during the lockdown. The government is making decisions with our well-being in mind.”
Solanki, 45, is just waiting for his supervisor to tell him when his vaccine appointment will be. He’ll get his shots without hesitation. “I feel proud,” he says.
India has the second-highest coronavirus caseload in the world, behind the United States, though daily case counts have plummeted in recent months. Many frontline workers have been around COVID-19, especially the health workers among them, and have seen what it’s wrought. Last May, a video went viral of dead bodies laid out alongside live patients in a Mumbai COVID ward. In Delhi, hospitals were so overwhelmed, there were reports of people dying in parking lots while waiting to be admitted.
In this first stage of the vaccine campaign, all inoculations are being administered at government hospitals. They’re voluntary and free of charge. Later, possibly this summer, Indians may be able to pay for vaccines at private hospitals and clinics. Eventually, the government plans to dispatch mobile vaccination teams to the country’s most remote corners.
The goal of vaccinating 300 million Indians by later this year is entirely doable, says Akhil Bery, a South Asia analyst at the Eurasia Group, a global think tank.
“More than 20% of the population will be vaccinated [by July or August]. That’s not an insignificant number,” Bery says. “It will help reduce the burden on India’s health-care infrastructure.”
The mission is modeled on Indian elections, the biggest exercise of democracy in the world.
Elections stretch out for several weeks and involve poll workers carrying electronic voting machines to hilltop monasteries and villages in the jungle.
“The Election Commission of India has a mandate to ensure that no voter has to travel more than two kilometers [1.25 miles] to be able to vote. The same logic will apply here,” Bery says. The government will rely on the same state infrastructure – including those workers who carry the electronic voting machines — to this time, haul vaccines on ice.
And there’s another election tie-in. India is using voter rolls to identify people by age to see who’s eligible for the vaccines
