No person can be forced to get vaccinated against COVID-19: Supreme Court

The court also said that till numbers are low, restrictions must not be imposed on unvaccinated individuals for accessing public areas.
A crowd of people wearing masks waiting for COVID tests
A crowd of people wearing masks waiting for COVID tests
Written by:

The Supreme Court on Monday, May 2, said that no person can be forced to get vaccinated  against COVID-19 and asked the Union government to make public the effect of such an immunisation. A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and B R Gavai said bodily autonomy and integrity are protected under Article 21 of the Constitution. The top court said the current COVID-19 vaccine policy cannot be said to be manifestly arbitrary and unreasonable.

"Till numbers are low, we suggest that relevant orders are followed and no restriction is imposed on unvaccinated individuals on access to public areas or recall the same if already not done," the bench said.

Regarding segregation of vaccine trial data, subject to privacy of individuals, all trials conducted and to be subsequently conducted, all data must be made available to the public without further delay, it said. The apex court also directed the Union of India to publish reports on adverse events of vaccines from the public and doctors on a publicly accessible system without compromising data of individuals.

The court delivered the judgement on a plea filed by Jacob Puliyel seeking directions for disclosure of data on clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines and post-jab cases.

India's COVID case positivity rate went past 1% again after over two months as the country witnessed a single-day rise of 3,157 infections and 26 fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday. The rise reported on Monday pushed the country's overall Covid tally to 4,30,82,345 cases and 5,23,869 deaths, the data said.

The number of active cases rose by 408 in a 24-hour span to reach 19,500, the data updated at 8 am showed.

Prior to this, the positivity rate was 1.11% on February 27. The weekly positivity rate was 0.70%, according to the health ministry. Positivity rate refers to percentage of all coronavirus tests performed that return positive result. A higher positive rate means higher transmission rate for the virus.

The death toll has now climbed to 5,23,869 with the latest 26 fatalities being reported, 21 of them from Kerala alone. 

The active cases constitute 0.05% of the total infections. The country's COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.74%, the health ministry said.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease rose to 4,25,38,976, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.22%. The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 189.23 crore.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.

India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23. The 26 new fatalities include 21 from Kerala, two from Odisha and one each from Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

A total of 5,23,869 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,47,843 from Maharashtra, 69,068 from Kerala, 40,102 from Karnataka, 38,025 from Tamil Nadu, 26,175 from Delhi, 23,508 from Uttar Pradesh and 21,202 from West Bengal.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70% of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

Our figures are being reconciled with (those of) the Indian Council of Medical Research, the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The News Minute
www.thenewsminute.com