The COVID pandemic has understandably grabbed most of the Government’s attention, becoming the single largest health focus in the country currently, but as India moves ahead to deal with this challenge, it would do well to simultaneously focus on the health of its most precious human resource, its children.

The establishment of a national expert group for Covid-19 vaccine distribution and Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) to track and manage vaccine stocks and storage is welcome. However, little attention has been directed towards the last-mile challenges in vaccine distribution. Three challenges deserve particular attention.

The more academic American Association for Public Opinion Research’s (AAPOR) postmortem report on the 2016 election polls recognised that state polls ‘clearly underestimated Trump’s support in the Upper Midwest’.

Aadhaar linkages of individuals and bank accounts already exist. If residential information in the Aadhaar database can be efficiently structured, this would allow for geographic targeting.

The urban poor is still finding it difficult to return to work. Targeting social safety nets towards them is necessary as the economy struggles to recover.