Home | Feature | UNCHARTED TERRITORY

UNCHARTED TERRITORY

04/02/2021 09:44:00 By Chris Morgan

Font size:

When COVID-19 comes to an end there’s going to be some very interesting reflections on what was uncharted territory. Some good, some not so good.

There’ll be national honours across the globe for health workers who have devoted time and risked their lives to help others. And Nobel Prize awards that recognise the amazing speed with which the vaccines have been produced and tested. But not many prizes for the purchasing programmes of the wealthy nations of the world.

From a political perspective it is entirely logical that their leaders put their own people first – because it’s instinctive, and in the democracies those people will vote them either in or out at the next general election. But from a humanitarian point of view it doesn’t impress, as terms like ‘vaccine nationalism’ and ‘vaccine hoarding’ creep into global-speak.

In fact 95 per cent of all vaccination has been done in only 10 out of the 192 countries in the world. One country has ‘pre-ordered’ (whatever that means)enough to vaccinate each citizen five times. When challenged, a political leader of that country replied ‘Oh, but we haven’t had it all yet’. Some excuse.

There’s an old expression that captures the explanation – ‘rich people and countries can simply throw money at problems to get them to go away’. Or words to that effect. The ‘pre-ordering’ of the wealthy countries was done largely before the vaccines were finally tried and tested. In other words, if the vaccination programme failed, those countries could comfortably absorb the waste of resources. One big advantage of being a first world country.

It is clear by now that the only way to knock COVID-19 on the head is by vaccination. Getting it to everyone in Eswatini is a massive priority. For one very good reason – alternative forms of attack won’t work unless you have a total lockdown with full tracing. And that has proved successful only in the countries of the world that are financially and economically self-contained, with substantially compliant populations. Like China and China.

Attached

That’s not a misprint, just a quip. Mainland China wants a one-China policy among all the countries of the world. Eswatini has a two-China approach. We mean no offence towards mainland China but we are rather attached to our good friends in the other China which is Taiwan. Only a handful of countries are with us there and that’s because mainland China is now a very big boy on the block.

One hopes that its massive global influence does not affect the outcome of the WHO report on the origin of this latest coronavirus. We need to know, not least to avoid the appearance of another virus. Nobody’s pointing fingers, though it is rather sad to see people in that part of the world howling about the virus having been brought into China by the Americans.

There is no evidence of that. Equally, there is no evidence of its emergence in China being anything other than a tragic accident, with the virus making the transition from bat to human.

Getting back to the vaccine, one hopes that political, church and traditional leaders encourage people very positively to get vaccinated and ignore fake negative news about vaccines. And vaccine assistance to developing countries like ours must progress much further and faster. Promises are announced daily. Let’s keep up the pressure to see those promises are fulfilled. WHO has criticised the first world’s morality regarding its omission of effective vaccine assistance to poor nations but perhaps WHO were a little slow themselves in raising the issue.

Always better to prevent, than to later lament.

Vaccine producers are now having production and supply problems themselves. Unless something dramatic happens in the purchase, supply, distribution and implementation process we will still have unvaccinated citizens in 2022.

Contain

Let’s hope not, but without a total lockdown in the meantime – and we don’t have the resources for one - we cannot fully contain the virus. So the infection will go jumping from infected to uninfected in direct proportion to the degree of non-masking and non-social distancing.

Mortality and infection figures released in the past few days show a dramatic improvement. Wonderful if this is sustained, though at least another week’s figures are needed for a safe conclusion to be drawn. The curfew is being enforced but are penalties for “gatherings” and non-mask wearing in public places being implemented?

There is certainly some evidence of action against illegal alcohol distribution. Countries operating effectively ban all but essential personal movement; with strict monitoring. We should also be aiming for this in our urban areas. But our capital city is crowded every day. Observed from a motor car, I hasten to add. That congestion doesn’t reflect an all-inclusive commitment to minimising personal movement and contact. Employers have a responsibility to see that those, who are paid to stay at home, do so and very strictly. There has to be strict implementation of penalties to ensure fully responsible behaviour.