Weeks after criticising the Narendra Modi-led government’s handling of the pandemic, senior virologist Shahid Jameel has resigned as the head of the Indian SARS-COV-2 Genomics Consortia (INSACOG), the scientific advisory group coordinating the country’s genome sequencing work.
The scientific advisory group of Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genome Sequencing Consortia (INSACOG) was set up last year for laboratory and epidemiological surveillance of mutating strains of Covid-19 in the country.
Resigning from his post on Friday, Jameel said it’s correct and shall have nothing more to say. He wrote in his resignation that he is not obliged to give a reason. Renu Swarup, the secretary of the Department of Biotechnology that oversees INSACOG, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shahid Jameel is one of the most prominent scientific voices of the pandemic and widely respected for his speaking and writing on the pandemic. He had been critical of the government’s efforts to contain the spread of the virus, particularly during the second wave. Recently, he had written a piece in The New York Times, where he highlighted how scientists in India were receiving a “stubborn response to evidence-based policymaking.”
Jameel said lower testing, slow pace of vaccination, vaccine shortage and the need for a bigger healthcare workforce were some of the biggest shortcomings in the government’s handling of the pandemic. He wrote in his piece that the decision-making based on data is yet another casualty, as the pandemic in India has spun out of control. But Jameel had also criticised the Supreme Court’s recent decision to appoint a task force to manage oxygen supplies.
Earlier this month, Reuters had reported that INSACOG had warned the government in early March of a new and more contagious variant of COVID-19 that could grip the country.
The B.1.617 variant is one of the reasons India is currently battling the world’s worst surge in Covid-19. Jameel had also told Reuters that authorities were not paying enough attention to the evidence as they set policy.
The government has been criticised for ignoring warnings about the Covid second wave, which led to death of thousands of people and a near collapse of the healthcare system. India is currently dealing with a shortage of hospital beds, oxygen, vaccines and medicines as the country reports more than 3 lakh infections per day over the past three weeks. Meanwhile, the second wave is wreaking havoc in rural areas, where a weak health infrastructure and a lack of access to technology has left people more vulnerable to effects of the pandemic.
Read Also: Delhi Police arrests absconding businessman Navneet Kalra in oxygen concentrators hoarding case
So far, India, despite being the world’s largest vaccine-producing nation, has only fully vaccinated over 4 crore people or 2.9 percent of its population. According to health ministry data, 14.16 crore people have received at least one vaccine dose, or roughly 10 percent of the population of 135 crore.
As per official numbers, on Sunday, India reported 3,11,170 new cases, 3,62,437 discharges and 4,077 deaths in the last 24 hours
