Youth to get priority in Vaccination Policy, tells Delhi HC

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday said that the youth generation of this country should get priority in the Centre’s vaccination policy.

The Centre’s policy did not prioritize youth in the Covid vaccination drive. The younger generation which has lost so many lives to COVID-19 should have been vaccinated first as it is the nation’s future but the jabs were prioritized for the elderly who have lived their lives, the Delhi High Court said on Tuesday.

The court, however, made it clear that it was not saying at all that the lives of older people are not important as the emotional support which the elderly persons provide to a family cannot be discounted.

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Justice Sanghi, speaking for himself, said,“ In the second wave of Covid-19, it was the younger generation that was more affected and they are not getting vaccines and added that I don’t understand this vaccination policy at all”.

Sanghi also said, “I can speak for myself… You have announced the vaccination policy for 18 to 44 years old persons now but you don’t have vaccines. Then why you have to announce and make a declaration when you don’t have the vaccines? We have to invest in the future and we are sidelining them”.

Again he added, “We have to secure our future for that we need to vaccinate our younger generation and here we are giving priority to 60 plus who have lived their lives. It is the younger lot which is the future; we are on our way out”.

He added that in this time of crisis if a choice has to be made, “we have to choose the younger one” because an 80-years-old person has lived his life and he will not take the country forward.

When the Centre’s counsel said only God can help us now, the judge said this is the area where even God cannot help us if we do not act ourselves, nothing the facts and figures.