Let’s just get jabbing, please SA
Someone I know manages a safari camp deep in the heart of Africa. When he was away in South Africa tending to a family crisis, a miracle occurred: his entire staff were vaccinated against coronavirus.
A team from the Covax initiative arrived in the area and approached my friend’s second-in-command, who duly informed workers that if they wanted to keep their lodge upand-running, to keep their families fed, they must all get vaccinated at once.
And they did. Easy-peasy. So what’s the problem, South Africa?
It’s not often I find myself agreeing with Julius Malema, but right now I do. Why aren’t vaccines happening faster, to more people? Why are the public exhorted to wait for “due process” or whatever, for bureaucratic approval, for this glacial, top-heavy roll-out, when both lives and livelihoods are at risk?
No, South Africa doesn’t need to test the vaccines for ourselves first; no, we don’t need our own scientists to give them the thumbs up.
The World Health Organisation has done the work, having now approved the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use, alongside Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson (J&J and AstraZeneca, so what do we have to prove, besides some redundant point that SA operates independently, even while still filling in colonial-era paperwork in triplicate and all tangled up in red tape?
And why do we have such a tech-dependent registration process when so many are illiterate, or lack access to the internet?
Let’s just get jabbing, please, faster and better.
Let’s get teams going to outlying areas, Covax-style, both registering and vaccinating at the same time, preferably with the one-dose J&J vaccine.
In the Dublin mass vaccination centre where I volunteer, this includes physiotherapists, opticians, paramedics and pharmacists, amongst others. Some have come out of retirement to help.
We have one doctor on duty; St John’s Ambulance are on hand in case of emergency.
And now Irish pharmacies are administering the single-jab vaccine too, by appointment.
So come on, let’s get on with it, South Africa!
As for my friend, his only staff member still waiting for a vaccine is himself.