The Ministry of Health made a shocking revelation this past week. More than 800,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines have expired. Another one million could also die if Kenyans don’t turn up with their arms at their nearest mobile tent.
This kind of news is associated with developed countries, where there are more prisons than prisoners, recycling plants than garbage and medicine than citizens. We live in a country where the nearest school was a long trek past dangerous ravines, food was a diseased coconut bounced off a hard rock, and the local dispensary acted more as a bat urinal than a Malaria rescue centre.
Then Covid-19 came unannounced and found us arguing with mobile money lenders to reduce the bribe that would stop them from calling our ex-girlfriends. A few creaky beds were dusted off and lined up to scare Covid-19. It laughed and asked us to triple the bet, and when the first death was announced, we knew this wasn’t one of the diseases we always bribe to keep quiet whenever we visit our in-laws.
Covid-19 was the worst of times. The whole nation was thrown into a frenzy. We slapped the government and asked them why they were sleeping when other countries were buying off vaccines for their citizens. We judged them for bringing games at work, and asked God to infect their private parts with Leprosy.
Then the vaccines started coming and the narrative changed. We asked them to show us receipts as some broker could have packaged drinking water on River Road. We also needed to consult our pastors if those in heaven are also getting vaccinated as our ancestors had refused to send smoke signals from the grave. Even those who only saw blackboards inside carpentry workshops suddenly started visiting mogoka bases waving their PhD certificates in Vaccine Research. The government said fine.
They paraded foreign envoys at the airport receiving vaccine donations from their mother countries accompanied with love letters from their citizens confirming the authenticity of the vials. The President paraded his Cabinet taking their jabs from State House on live television. When we didn’t hear the President scream, we claimed he must have been given a placebo.
Kenyans claim to love nice things. We raid free beer when a lorry overturns, go for tattoos in backwater parlours, and would rather buy food with excess concentration of pesticides, but free vaccines that save lives is where they draw the line.
Many Kenyans are still living with the nightmares of Covid-19. They lost their jobs, got booted by loved ones when money left other glues to hold their relationships, and discovered alcohol is a solvent and not a solution.
You’ve heard the bad news out of China this week. They’ve just reported new Covid-19 deaths for the first time since January last year. The virus isn’t dead. It went to sleep, but unlike IEBC servers, someone finally managed to wake it up.
No one knows what intentions it has with mankind this time. As our clergy plead with Jesus to return sooner, let’s meet them halfway by watching over our health. Everyone wants to see Jesus with their own eyes. For you to do that you need to stay alive.
Our curative health system has been tested for Covid-19 before and returned a negative result. In most hospitals, the only oxygen tanks we have are the lungs God gave us. A majority of Kenyans can’t afford an ICU bed. Two years later we still aren’t ready for this thing.
It’s one thing not to trust your government, but it’s another to be careless with your own health and that of your loved ones. You can sell your mother’s land but it still won’t be enough when this thing comes swinging the sickle again. Don’t crack jokes with death, because it won’t be interested.
