A veterinary officer vaccinates livestock against Anthrax at Mwakirunge Colorado area, Mombasa.
If there were a new wave of Covid-19, how many people would get vaccinated? In Kenya, by late July 2022, around 8.8 million adults had been fully vaccinated against the virus.
Today, it would be a miracle if even 50 per cent of that number voluntarily got vaccinated in the face of another pandemic. In some countries like the United States, the percentage would be lower. This is because, as in a large part of the world, the backlash against the Covid-19 vaccines has been massive.
It is taken as given now that: (1) the Covid-19 virus was manufactured by evil people, (2) the world’s giant pharmaceuticals, who might have been part of the plot, used it to make a fortune, (3) to Africans and other people of colour, the vaccines weren’t meant to deal with a virus, but are a surreptitious sterilisation concoction by white rich people like Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates to stop their men and women from procreating, and (4) some in the west believe it is a devious plan to kill off the poor and the God-fearing so that the planet can be taken over by atheists, devil worshippers, homosexuals, and other libertines.
The fallout is on full display in Kenya, over plans to vaccinate 22 million cattle and 50 million sheep and goats across the country. The aim is to control foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in cattle and peste des petits ruminants (PPR) in sheep and goats.
Biological malformations
Opponents are slamming it as aimed at vaccinating livestock with gene-modifying drugs, leading to reproductive issues and biological malformations in future generations. And because humans will eat the meat from the animals and drink their milk, they argue they will be adversely affected; die, develop strange illnesses, and their eggs and sperm will wither. In that way, they are making the point that cattle vaccines and Covid and other vaccines are coming from the same bag of vile tricks by “globalists”. Ironically, the anti-globalists and conspiracy theorists have themselves become perhaps a more formidable global movement than the capitalist and tech-driven one they revile, which is in crisis.
One shudders to think how divisive and bitter a campaign to vaccinate people for Covid-19 2.0 would be today if another episode came along. Short of imprisoning people or even killing some to send fear among the vaccine opponents, it is hard to see even a modestly successful campaign happening in most countries.
How did we get here? In hindsight, it was a mistake to enforce strict Covid lockdowns and to position vaccines as the ticket out of pandemic “prison”. The social suffering, the isolation, and the destruction of people’s livelihoods in lockdown spawned too much resentment.
A large part of the conspiracy theories about the virus and against the vaccines — and their acceptance by so many — were born out of that, and the distrust of politicians, governments, and rich corporations.
We are likely at a point where future acceptance of vaccines and quarantine will come voluntarily only after bodies have piled up and blocked streets, and people run to get jabs out of terror.
Likewise, for many farmers in Kenya, a similar toll on their livestock is what it might take for them to embrace the latest vaccination. In both cases, we are headed for a disaster of epic proportions.
The moment requires us to think deeply and in fresh ways about what has happened. One of the places to begin is to think differently about conspiracy theories. The scientific purists and rationalists might revile them, but if one looks at conspiracy theories as a questioning of the knowledge status quo and the scientific consensus of the day, they could have value.
Conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories could be a wonderful opportunity to retest, rethink and better current science, scholarship and techniques. Conspiracy theories are also a demand for greater all-round transparency in the way governments act and reach policy and big businesses and organisations operate.
It is hard to do, but it might also be helpful not to push back against conspiracy theorists like they were all brainless idiots.
In Africa, part of the backlash has been a return to the roots, to the knowledge and practice of the ancestors, how they ate, and how they cured their diseases. Some of it is dodgy, but some have turned out to be quite good. In December 2019, the combined wisdom of African men and women who are passionate about the fate of the continent would not have figured that the great cultural awakening they had been praying for would come from a virus.
And, for my life, I would never have imagined that we would be here. At a personal level, even someone like me, who is a vaccine fundamentalist, I now look around quite a bit before making a case for the jab. We are the hunters who have become the hunted. It is unnerving that in the next pandemic, it’s I who will be considered the loony one for getting vaccinated.
The author is a journalist, writer, and curator of the "Wall of Great Africans." X(Twitter) @cobbo3.
