We can’t say we didn’t see vaccine hesitancy coming
The advantage of not being the first at something is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Some challenges you can see from a distance. If you’re caught napping, then you’re truly hopeless. The US did the unthinkable this week. President Joe Biden started bribing — well, he called it incentivising — reluctant citizens to be vaccinated against Covid. He urged local governments to pay them $100 (about R1,500) for the jab.
Americans and the rest of the global North hogged vaccines early, depriving poorer sections of the globe, including Africa, of the life-saving jabs. Biden is credited with unleashing a war-like rollout programme that, at its peak, saw 3-million Americans being vaccinated a day. We, meanwhile, are still hoping to eventually get to 300,000 some time in the future. But that’s a story for some other day!
But the rollout in the US has tapered to an average of 615,000 shots a day in the past seven days. The problem for Biden is that the lack of interest in vaccines, informed by hesitancy, local politics (some red states don’t embrace the programme simply because it’s seen as the Democrats’ success) and other factors mean the rollout has not been able to reach 70% of the population — a target he had set for Independence Day, July 4.
This vaccine hesitancy and uninterest, and not benevolence, have forced the US and some Western countries to start donating vaccines to countries whose citizens want to take them.
Biden told Americans, in their own version of a family meeting on Thursday evening, that he regularly gets calls from leaders from around the world asking for donations for their people who really need these vaccines.
“It’s an American blessing that we have vaccines for each and every American. It’s such a shame to squander that blessing,” he said in a sombre but stern address.
Looking at how Biden was able to turn the US’s fortunes around after his predecessor’s scorched earth tactics, marshalling the nation behind his vision to vaccinate as many people as possible so that the economy could reopen, there are instructive lessons for SA. More so given the announcement that vaccine supply is, for us, a problem of the past, one that seems as gone as Zweli Mkhize.
But what Biden is battling today is something we may also have to contend with in the months ahead. Part of leadership is an ability to anticipate our challenges and come up with solutions before these challenges escalate to crises. If, as I say, you’re not part of the first movers, then you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, because you will have seen these coming and addressed by others.
As our vaccination drive gathers pace, with the 18 to 34 age group starting next month, we should expect our rollout to experience a spike — just as happened in the US — which will be followed by a sharp decline in uptake. It’s a trend the world over. Every nation has its hesitants, so to speak. Some may, like our soon-to-beformer chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, believe there are vaccines that alter people’s DNA. Others may believe the quackery about links to 5G signals, or even depopulation.
Changing people’s beliefs, especially beliefs not rooted in scientific evidence, is one of the hardest jobs in the world. It got Jesus killed. In the end, the dogma is like a thicket in the brain. The beliefs are steadfast. This is why Biden didn’t exactly know what to do — to rebuke or encourage Americans to take vaccines.
He told employers he would give them tax breaks for allowing their employees time off to take not only their children and immediate families to be vaccinated, but their extended families and friends as well.
He sounded like a president pleading and disappointed. “I know this is hard to hear. I know it’s frustrating. I know it’s exhausting to think we are still in this fight. I know we hoped this would be a simple, straightforward line, without problems or new challenges. But that isn’t real life,” he said, before telling them Covid has taken more American lives (613,031 by yesterday) than the two world wars, Vietnam, September 11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
Biden was beyond appealing to reason — his focus was the hearts. Throwing money at the problem was indicative of the White House’s desperation. Here was a president whose country did its best to get a vaccine for every American. But the people aren’t getting with the programme. It is poetic justice, of sorts. The rich nations bought all the vaccine supplies. We, the poor of the world, needed to wait for the rich to be fully vaccinated before vaccines would be available to us. They didn’t bank on some of their people exhibiting the worst ignorance and backward mentality, threatening the healthy functioning of the US economy. Now the ignorant lot are threatening everyone’s health.
Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, said this week: “This pandemic continues to pose a serious threat to the health of all Americans.” Biden spoke of the “rising yet preventable deaths” as the Delta variant starts a new surge in the land of the free. It’s a levelling of sorts. It’s a case of a vaccine bully being given a kick in the face by those the bully is trying to please and protect. “Everywhere man is free,” they say in the classics, “yet he remains in chains.”
Bruce Aylward, senior adviser at the World Health Organisation, said this week that if all lives were equal, why was Africa not aiming for a 70% vaccination rate in coming weeks like the US and other countries in the West? The same point President Cyril Ramaphosa makes about vaccine apartheid.
As South Africans, we have the benefit of time. Our vaccination programme is only getting off the ground. The uptake is good.
But, knowing what we know now about Biden’s $100 dilemma, we can see this coming. If we are caught napping, then we are truly hopeless.
Changing people’s beliefs, especially beliefs not rooted in scientific evidence, is one of the hardest jobs in the world