Don’t hold breath for Covid jab

It is time to face an unpleasant truth — you might not get vaccinated for a very long time; in fact, many South Africans might never receive the vaccine at all.

This brutal reality dawned on me when I interviewed the continent’s most famous vaccinologist earlier this week.

Prof Shabir Mahdi was being his cautious, scientific self as he dodged my questions about specific dates by which we could reasonably expect to receive our jabs.

So, I made it personal: If your grandmother came to you and said, “My boy, level with me, when will I get the vaccine? ”— what would you say?

Perhaps it was the metaphor he used, but his brutally honest response to a loved one sent shivers down my spine: “I would tell her not to hold her breath.”

How did we reach this deadly impasse?

If you have been paying attention, you would notice a singular lack of urgency about this pandemic on the part of your government.

Put straightforwardly, they simply do not care about you or your health.

There are no daily briefings or set timelines or urgent messaging on the vaccine.

Death in Mzansi is so commonplace that 55,000 Covid-19 victims hardly move us.

The minister of health might as well be giving a report on the state of potholes in the country, such is his lack of passion and urgency when talking about the one thing that could save thousands of precious lives — the vaccine.

Make no mistake, we put on a good show when it comes to policy pretensions.

As a person aged over 60, I registered twice (before and after the official start time) on the impressively named South African Covid-19 Vaccination Programmed Registration Portal.

I even got an SMS! There is just one problem. I am still not vaccinated and according to Mahdi, that might be my status for a long time to come.

As one of my favourite social media personalities, Karabo K Kgoleng, put it yesterday in response to yet another eloquent government invitation for over-60s to be registered: “You’re full of nonsense. We are a global joke. Our parents are registered. WHERE IS THE VACCINE?”

One reason for our shared scepticism is the constant missteps in the official management of the vaccine.

Remember how our government sent back one-million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the Serum Institute in India and was refunded for the 500,000 doses not delivered?

That was “a huge miscalculation”, Mahdi says, for while the vaccine had limited effects on mild to moderate illness, it does protect against severe disease — especially when your country does not have any other vaccine options.

And then, in a shameless lapse of ethics, we sold the vaccine to the AU, knowing full well that it would be distributed to other African countries.

Then there was that other puzzling misstep when the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was paused because of six blood clots in almost 7-million vaccinated cases.

It was a mistake to follow the pause in the US because they had other vaccine options; SA did not.

Once again, precious time was lost in the quest to get more people vaccinated.

So far nobody has been vaccinated apart from a percentage of health workers.

We are waiting, but here is the massive elephant in the room on which I pressed the famous vaccinologist.

Does SA have the infrastructure to deliver the jabs into every arm?

The answer is no. Planning is not our thing.

Advanced planning definitely does not register in the mind of officialdom, for if it did, we would have been in the early queue to negotiate access to vaccines more than a year ago.

The vaccine rollout will be a mess even if we have adequate supplies in hand.

The logistics of rollout is a nightmare even in nations with sophisticated cold storage facilities, efficient transport systems and proven operational capacities.

This coming task does not need famous scientists; it needs competent managers and as a glimpse of the SOEs will reveal, the cupboard is bare when it comes to comradely competence.

There is a way out of this impending disaster.

Detach any and all responsibility for vaccine rollout logistics from party deployees and other parasites waiting in the wings.

Contract reputable firms from the private sector to manage the rollout of the vaccines against a well-tested plan on behalf of long-suffering citizens.

The usual suspects come to mind, such as South African Breweries.

If we get the rollout right, it might just restore some trust in government’s handling of the pandemic.

If not, then the president’s mea culpas in his recent testimony before the Zondo commission will sound even more hollow.

Put straightforwardly, they simply do not care about you or your health