COVID-19: Vistara offers to fly government doctors, nurses for free

Vistara's first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft (Image - Twitter-@Boeing_In)

Vistara has offered to fly doctors and nurses representing government organisations for free within the country, amid a harsh second wave of COVID-19 cases.

In a letter to Usha Padhee, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), Vistara also said it wants to help government organisations and hospitals who have an immediate need fir air logistics.

"We are also happy to fly doctors and nurses representing government organisations, free of cost, across our domestic network, and also fly them back on the conclusion of their service. The personnel who avail this service will have to mandatorily follow all the travel related SOPs and present relevant identification and documentation," the airline said.

Also read: Explained | Why airlines want government to lower capacity cap

Wish to commend generous offer by @airvistara to Govt Organisations and Hospitals in immediate need of air logistics. They’ve also offered to fly Doctors & Nurses representing Govt organisations, free of cost, across the domestic network. Let’s fight the pandemic together! pic.twitter.com/Vok9LFmrGR

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COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

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How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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— MoCA_GoI (@MoCA_GoI) April 25, 2021

In a tweet, the ministry said, "Wish to commend generous offer by Vistara to Govt Organisations and Hospitals in immediate need of air logistics. They've also offered to fly Doctors & Nurses representing Govt organisations, free of cost, across the domestic network. Let's fight the pandemic together".

India has been reporting more than 3 lakh new COVID-19 cases a day since April 21, the highest single-day spikes recorded by any country.