Playing mischief!

How NDTV's Sreenivasan Jain played mischief to create panic regarding Covaxin efficacy.

NDTV journalist Sreenivasan Jain on Monday took to Twitter to make a startling revelation that Dr NK Arora, Chairperson of National Vaccine Advisory Group said that the initial batches of India-made Chinese coronavirus vaccine Bharat Biotech's Covaxin 'were not of the right quality'.

This tweet went viral and by the time of writing this report, had about 2,000 retweets and over 5,000 likes. An hour and 30 minutes later, however, Jain 'clarified' that these batches were not administered. 

By then, however, the misleading tweet with partial information had already gone viral. The said doses which 'fell short' on quality were never sent out.

These tweets by Jain have about 100 - 150 retweets, showing how the tweet which has potential to create vaccine hesitancy against Bharat Biotech's Covaxin reached far and wide while the subsequent clarification did not get much traction.

Here's what Dr Arora had actually said. Jain questioned Dr Arora over lower number of doses manufactured by Bharat Biotech's Covaxin. Dr Arora said that the government was expecting a much sharper rise in manufacturing of Covaxin. "We expect anywhere between 10 - 12 crore doses by Bharat Biotech. Their Bangalore plant is one of the largest vaccine manufacturing plant globally. But initial couple of batches did not pass the quality....whatever....it was not of the right quality. Now third or fourth batch has come up which is much better. In next four or six weeks, the vaccine production will really ramp up from Bharat Biotech", he said.

Dr Arora added that Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech are two suppliers of vaccines in India.

Meanwhile, Twitter has not yet flagged Jain's tweet as misleading. Why let facts get into the way of mischief that has the potential to derail India's vaccination programme which is the largest in the world.

Courtesy. Opindia.com

My take.

Sreenivasan Jain, have you no shame to go against your country's interests by misreporting facts? Sad, I'd always thought you to be an ethical and hardworking journalist. You've let me down!

Tailpiece.

Got up a trifle past 6, the chores and was ready by a quarter to 10. Today, Lekha had ordered grocery on the National Supermarket, the ones that weren't there on the Harisree Supermarket and medicines from Medicare. 

Kittu's gash on his right shoulder shows no sign of healing. He continues to fight with the others and returns, oozing with blood, everyday!