By Choekyi Lhamo
DHARAMSHALA, Apr. 27: The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama has received his second dose of the Covishied vaccine at his residence on Monday, according to CTA run Tibet.net. He received the first jab on March 6 at Zonal hospital in Dharamshala.
“The vaccine was administered by a medical team of Delek hospital led by Dr Tseten Dorjee, personal physician to His Holiness,” Tibet.net reported. The entire staff and security details of His Holiness, including those living in the residence, were also vaccinated, the report further stated.
Following the second dose, the Dalai Lama’s office on Tuesday announced that it has donated to the PM-CARES Fund “as a token of our solidarity with fellow Indian brothers and sisters.”
The Nobel laureate wrote that he has been following the alarming news of the pandemic across the world, especially including in India. “May I take this opportunity to express my deep appreciation for all the efforts that are being made to tackle this devastating pandemic, especially by those courageously working on the frontline. I pray that the pandemic threat will end soon,” he wrote.
In March 2020, the revered spiritual leader also donated to the PM-CARES fund and the Himachal Pradesh government as India observed its first nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
The Dalai Lama cancelled all his public engagements since February last year and engaged with the pubic through virtual platform for teachings and other interactive dialogues with students, Buddhist followers, and various organizations from all across the world. The Buddhist leader’s only public appearance since the lockdown was during his first Covishied jab at the local hospital last month, where he urged others to take the injection, “I want to share that more people should have the courage to take this injection.”
India has been breaking daily infection records with 3, 23,144 people testing positive for Covid-19, which makes India’s total tally of positive cases spike up to 1,76,36,307, according to Indian Union Health Ministry data as of Tuesday.
One Response
Pandemic threat will always be there with drastic changes in climate and an increasing mobile population. It has been postulated that thawing of permafrost can result in transmission of pathogens that have been inert for many thousand of years. Something certainly of concern in places where permafrost exist including the roof of the world. The interconnection of human existence with planet earth.
Hopefully, unlike 1918, the immediate death toll on the Indian subcontinent will not be in the 10s of millions. Perhaps a century of medical advancement has yielded that. However if those with the means and ability to make change turn a blind eye, that is not very helpful.