#POST HASTE ONE WORD OR TWO TRIAL#

First published in 2005, ‘Syntax’ is about trying to find new and original ways to say ‘I love you’. Donaghy has often been called a modern metaphysical poet, the heir to John Donne and Andrew Marvell, and this tender poem, ideal for celebrating an engagement, shows plenty of, in the poem’s own words, ‘wantonness and wit’.Īt fourteen lines, this poem is a ‘sonnet’ of sorts – though its rhyme scheme and metre are unique to Duffy’s poem. The late, great Michael Donaghy (1954-2004) offers a sonnet (a blend of the English and Italian sonnet form) which plays on the double meaning of the word ‘present’ (both ‘here-and-now’ and ‘gift’), rejecting the former in favour of the latter. This wonderfully direct and touching poem by the contemporary American poet Lawrence Raab (born 1946) begins with a couple married before going back to that crucial moment in their courtship when he phoned her and she answered, knowing her life would be changed forever when she did so. This is one of the finest very short love poems in the language, and a firm favourite with many readers. And dreams are delicate and vulnerable – hence ‘Tread softly’. But I’m only a poor man, and obviously the idea of making the sky into a blanket is silly and out of the question, so all I have of any worth are my dreams. If I were a god, I could take the heavenly sky and make a blanket out of it for you. The gist of this poem, one of Yeats’s most popular poems, is straightforward: if I were a rich man, I’d give you the world and all its treasures.

Also, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s message on April 27, a day after the EUA, that every eligible child should be vaccinated at the earliest might prompt the Health Ministry to sidestep the NTAGI once more, thus departing even more from evidence-based policy making.Tread softly because you tread on my dreams … With NTAGI clearly against approving vaccines for children, there is every likelihood of the expert body being ignored again.

The Health Ministry had already set a precedent last month by clearing Corbevax for children 12-14 years without first seeking the approval of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), which clears vaccines for the national immunisation programme.

#POST HASTE ONE WORD OR TWO TRIAL#

Clinical trial data of Corbevax for children 5-12 years were posted as a preprint, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, on the day approval was granted trial data of Covaxin for children 2-18 years were posted as a preprint in December 2021. Hence, the regulator’s urgency to greenlight vaccines for children under the EUA route is highly questionable. Unlike in January 2021 when approving vaccines for adults as soon as possible was the highest priority, and hence the EUA based on fewer cases and short follow-ups was seen as a necessity, the situation is not the same now, especially in the case of children as young as five. But with natural infection found to offer protection across age groups, India could have waited for validation of the available evidence on the vaccines for children.

True, with schools reopening, children could be at greater risk of contracting infection.

Yet, the number of severe cases and deaths in children 5-11 years has been very low. The extremely infectious Omicron variant would have infected an even larger percentage of children. Since vaccination of adolescents began only in early January 2022, the antibodies detected in children in mid-2021 were only from infection by the virus. The ICMR’s fourth seroprevalence survey (June-July 2021) soon after the second wave peaked nationally found that 57.2% of children (6-9 years) and 61.6% of children (10-17 years) were infected by SARS-CoV-2 virus seroprevalence among adults was 66.7%. Evidence from across the world after the deadly Delta variant and the extremely transmissive Omicron variant has shown that unlike adults, children in general, and little children in particular, do not suffer from severe disease. Even if the EUA granted to Covaxin in January 2021 despite no safety and efficacy data of the phase-3 trial is condoned as a desperate measure in ensuring greater vaccine availability, the regulator clearly has no fig leaf to defend the greenlighting of the vaccines for children at this stage. The emergency use authorisation (EUA) granted on April 26 to two COVID-19 vaccines - Corbevax for children 5-11 years, and Covaxin for children 6-11 years - is one more instance where the Indian drug regulator has acted in haste.

Post haste one word or two