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Showing posts with the label Indian vaccine drive

Decision Making as Output and Bounded Rationality

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  The classical economics theories proceed on the assumption of rational agents. Rationality implies the economic agents undertake actions or exercise choices based on the cost-benefit analysis they undertake. The assumption further posits that there exists no information asymmetry and thus the agent is aware of all the costs and benefits associated with the choice he or she has exercised. The behavioral school contested the decision stating the decisions in practice are often irrational. Implied there is a continuous departure from rationality. Rationality in the views of the behavioral school is more an exception to the norm rather a rule. The past posts have discussed the limitations of this view by the behavioral school. Economics has often posited rationality in the context in which the choices are exercised rather than theoretical abstract view of rational action. Rational action in theory seems to be grounded in zero restraint situation yet in practice, there are numerous restra
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Indian Vaccination: What Next?

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  The second wave of the Chinese virus seem to be abating. India has recorded a daily positivity rate of under five percent over the last two weeks. The World Health Organization (WHO) points to this rate as the minimum eligibility for the economy to be unlocked. The unlocking process has begun in varying degrees. In the lockdown of 2020, the posts had repeatedly suggested of adopting a calibrated unlocking district by district based on the positivity rate. The idea had generally found low receptivity. There were arguments that the economy cannot function in an isolated environment and it had to be either opened fully or locked fully. Yet those same people who were so vociferously opposing it last year are now in the forefront of welcoming especially the strategy being adopted in Uttar Pradesh. Conceding the Rusi Karanjia theory of consistency being the virtue of donkeys, it might be seen as vindication of those critics of district wise unlocking are now slowly moving away from being d
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Indian Vaccine Story

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  The vaccination process in India continues to fumble on. The process had begun relatively smooth but soon encountered troubles partly due to the vaccine hesitancy thus certain wastage coupled with the second wave of the Wuhan pandemic which devastated urban and the rural alike. It was aggravated by the shortage of vaccines. India had approved two vaccines, yet their supply was limited and could not be scaled up. While the Covishield being marketed by Serum Institute, but developed by Oxford and Astra Zeneca, was also to be exported to meet its global commitments the Covaxin developed by the domestic vaccine producer Bharat Biotech could not be scaled up because of technical issues. The Sputnik, developed by Russian scientists and marketed by Dr. Reddy’s Labs too is facing issues of manufacturing, which is likely to start in a month or so.   There was no doubt as mentioned in the previous columns too that the government strategy on vaccines lacked homework. There has been a talk a
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the Great Indian Vaccine Drive

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  India has begun the vaccination drive against the Chinese virus induced COVID-19 pandemic. Given the population size of nearly 1.4 billion, it would perhaps be the largest vaccination drive ever undertaken. The fact that it has to be undertaken in a very short time say about less than a year, the ambitions would be sheer audacity given the logistics involved in such a mammoth effort. It is not just about production of vaccines, but going beyond into the quality control, the transport from the plants to the different storage centres further to be distributed to the states and the districts and then to the vaccination centres. To add, the supply must be continuous with little disruption. The conditions for transporting the vaccines would have to be adhered to. Furthermore, the preparations at the each of the centres in terms of administering the vaccine apart from training the vaccinators itself would be daunting. There is furthermore need to coordinate with the people in fixing their
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