'If you don't have a strong political leadership, however much expertise a country may have, in pandemic preparedness or infectious disease, will not matter.' 'It's really about having strong political leadership, that is proactive, that prioritises taking the right action.' 'And if you don't have that, then you will have a much worse pandemic experience.'

'The government had a vaccine from January.' 'The government should have given the vaccine to all population above the age of 45, right from the start.' 'Each state has its own problems, but as far as vaccine coverage in India is concerned, there have been mistakes.'

'We are already exhausted, but we can't give up.' 'The battle is still on.' 'We will see some respite by December 2021.'

'In spite of all the sermonising from the political class, when they come in public, the ministers don't follow their own rules.' 'They don't mask.' 'If you look at the West Bengal election campaigning, if you look at the Assam election campaigning or if you look at Kerala election campaigning, they are not setting an example.'

'There are only two bottlenecks for universal vaccination.' 'One, is availability of the vaccine.' 'Two, is the logistics for administering the vaccine.'

'People are just putting the mask below their nose.' 'They are only protecting the mouth, but not the nose.' 'People need to understand that it is the nose which has to be protected.'

'This year, we know the virus. Last year we didn't know anything about it.' 'The best part is that for the Indian population there has been some amount of cross protection.'

'SARS-CoV-2 is going to change to avoid/overcome any thing thrown at it.'

'We really need to look seriously to see if there are any local variants.'

'You can still acquire the COVID-19 virus even if you are vaccinated.' 'But if you develop the disease, (after being vaccinated) the likelihood is that it will be mild.' 'It just makes sense to continue to take precautions, because you may be around a lot of unvaccinated people.'

'But to see the effects of that, it will take a week or two more.'

'The pandemic basically started with Maharashtra.' 'And then it spread across to the rest of India.' 'Now it is again Maharashtra.'

'If you delay the diagnosis even by 24 hours, in that 24 hours individuals would have affected more people.' 'So, contact tracing, testing, isolation, quarantine needs to continue.'

'If people are not cooperating and do not follow policies laid down by the government or follow scientific infection control management, then all will be lost.'

'Prevention plus vaccination is what is going to take us into better territory by September or October.'

'At the stage where we are in today in the country, by the time mass vaccination becomes available, it would be around the middle of next year.' 'Most of those people, who got infected this year, will be next year back to level zero -- once again susceptible.'

'It is absolutely important for us to continue to message to people that they must wear masks, keep physical distancing, as much as is practically possible, at work or at home.'

'But we still have to be very careful.'

'Whenever you roll out: effectiveness is important, operational logistics are important, side effects are important and vaccine hesitancy is important.'

On a visit to India in 2013, writer Ved Mehta -- who passed into the ages on Sunday January 10, 2021 - gave Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel a rare glimpse into his state of mind and what he thinks of the changes he encounters in his motherland.