Why panic, you say? ... Because at the current rate of vaccination, it will take seven years to immunise 75per cent of the world’s population, aka achieving herd immunity.
Covid-19, it seems, has managed to smash a gigantic global mirror.
Seven years of lockdowns, curfews and mad rushes home after dark, Zoom calls and building virtual ‘relationships’, semi-closed borders and welcome to forced quarantine and hotel stays at your own expense, that is if you can get a bank loan to fly.
Despite several calls and texts to friends of friends who might have distant cousins in high places, I have been unsuccessful. Imagine, not even one has made the offer that one or two elusive doses might be available with the help of kitu kidogo (bribe).
Internationally, no luck either, regardless of rumours of the UAE encouraging vaccine tourism and reports of China having injectables available in supermarkets.
There was a harbinger of optimism at the start of the new year that we could scrap the 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not approach thy neighbour. It seems instead there is a new dictum, this one applying to countries, which states: Thou shalt not covet the vaccines of thy fellow nation-state.
Yes, “The Vaccine Games” have begun and this is no teenage saga. It’s a game for adults. The mature, pension-saving, glass-ceiling-promoting, voting variety, who are at most risk of the disease. And the politicians know it.
The UK became the first country in the world to start vaccinating its citizens and says that it aims to safely free the population from lockdown by April. Israel appears to be topping the leaderboard though, with 35 per cent of its population having received the preventive serum. Whereas the United States, which has led the world in lessons on how not to handle a pandemic, is rapidly catching up now that He-Who-Shall-Not -Be Named (pro tip, it’s not Voldemort) is no longer in power.
Now I put the question to you – if you have printed millions, maybe billions of some hard currency to keep your population safe, along the way sacrificing such holophrases as internationalism and multi-lateralism – would you put this at risk?
So in 2021 do expect: geo-political divisions in the world along the lines of Those-Who-Have-Been-Vaccinated and Those-Who-Are-Still-Waiting i.e. developed countries against developing world immigration – not a new theme; or old versus young, even manifesting as school teachers and school children – depending on the schedule of vaccination; or animals versus humans – remember the mass slaughter of suspect minks in Denmark?
Indeed, the mild-mannered Canada has the dubious distinction of being the only First World country to draw from Covax – the pool for vaccine buying primarily to support the least developed and third-world countries. And the EU, triggered by sensitivities over its recent Brexit divorce, questioned whether AstraZeneca was playing favourites in its supply of shots to the EU vs. Britain.
Despite French President Emmanuel Macron’s pleas to help Africa, there is nary a preventive serum in sight on the continent, except for South Africa, which has the luxury of rejecting certain manufacturers, and Ghana, which received 600,000 d0ses on Wednesday.
Having said that, there is hope for ‘vial diplomacy’ – as the Spectator calls it. India is enjoying playing Mother Teresa. As the world’s largest producer of vaccines, it is happily donating a few million here and there (take that China!). Whereas the on-and-off pariah Mother Russia is also dangling its Sputnik V vaccine as a peace offering (or another attempt at world domination?).
And let’s not forget there are more than 80 vaccines still in credible phases of development. The same way we avoided the Malthusian predictions of mass starvation, we may yet manage to evade the corona curse.
The online joke was that 2020 was a do-over and 2021 seems on course for another downward spiral – unless we arrest it by adopting and everybody-deserves-a-shot – literally. In other words: Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself.
