‘Govt Passing Blame On Scientists, Medical Experts’: Cong Slams Centre Over Gap Between Covishield Doses

New Delhi: Questioning the decision to increase the gap between the first and the second dose of the Covishield vaccine to 12-16 weeks, former union minister and Congress veteran P. Chidambaram on Saturday cited the example of the UK where the interval between the doses have been reduced from 12 weeks to 8 week and alleged Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government is laying a trap in which it will pass the blame on the scientists and medical experts.

“When the government has increased gap between the first and second dose of the Covishield vaccine to 12-16 weeks, the UK is announcing that they are going back to the gap of 8 weeks, at least for people over the age of 50. I am not competent to second guess the scientists and medical experts but my humble appeal to them is please don’t play the game of the government,” ANI quoted Chidambaram as saying.

“The government is laying a trap in which the scientists and medical experts will fall and the government will pass the blame on them. Please make up your mind and speak the truth irrespective of the government what’s from you to say or the government says independently,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Chidambaram launched a blistering attack on the government over the issuance of 1.23 lakh death certificates between March 1 to May 10 in Gujarat this year and alleged the ruling dispensation at the Centre is suppressing the actual numbers of new infections and Covid-related deaths in conjunction with some state governments.

“On May 14, Divya Bhaskar, a Gujarati language newspaper, published a news story that sent shock waves throughout Gujarat and the country,” Chidambaram told a press conference virtually and added the thrust of the story was that during the period March 1 to May 10 of this year, Gujarat issued about 1,23,000 death certificates as against about 58,000 death certificates issued during the same period last year.

The Congress leader said “the increase was an alarming number of about 65,000 death certificates”.

“This increase cannot be explained as a natural annual increase in the number of deaths. It can only be attributed to a pandemic or any other natural disaster,” he added.

Asserting that the Congress had independently verified the two numbers referred to for the period of 71 days, Chidambaram said: “We have collected the numbers from 33 districts (including the cities), the sum of the number of the death certificates nearly tallies with the numbers published by Divya Bhaskar — 1,23,873 in 2021 versus 58,068 in 2020.”

“During the period March 1, 2021 to May 10, 2021, the government of Gujarat has officially admitted to only 4,218 Covid-related deaths,” he added.

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Chidambaram sought an explanation from the government with regard to the “difference between the increase in the number of death certificates (65,805) and the official Covid-related deaths (4,218)”.

“It cannot be explained as natural annual increase or due to other causes. We have a strong suspicion that the bulk of the increased number of deaths is due to Covid and the state government is suppressing the true number of 18 Covid-related deaths,” he said.

Escalating his stack on the Centre, Chidambaram said that his party’s suspicions were confirmed by the fact that hundreds of unidentified bodies have been found floating on the river Ganga and nearly 2,000 unidentified bodies have been found buried on the sands along the river Ganga.

“If our suspicions are true, this is a grave misdeed apart from being a national shame and a national tragedy,” IANS quoted Chidambaram as saying.

“We demand answers and an explanation,” he added while cornering the Centre and BJP-ruled Gujarat Government.

The former union finance minister further said the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) should collect the true numbers from each state about the death certificate issued in 2020 and this year.