Yesterday, one of our readers, giving his age as 74, expressed his amazement that, while he waits for the Covid-19 vaccination here in South Africa, relatives of his in Zimbabwe, who are in their 40s, have already had the jab.
That Zimbabwe – the country we love to ridicule as a Third World basket case – can apparently be much further along with its vaccination programme, is a sad commentary on the inept way our government has handled the issue.
Indeed, if we had a jab for every one of the grandiose promises made by the government, then we would probably have long since achieved herd immunity through inoculation.
This week, President Cyril Ramaphosa promised that we might soon be inundated with millions of doses being filled and packaged in the Eastern Cape. There was also a commitment from the health department, in terms of the national vaccine roll-out programme, that 5.4 million people aged over 60 will the receive the jab in winter.
That means that 72 666 people need to be vaccinated every day between 17 May and 31 July if that target is to be met. Or, looked at another way, as many people will get the jab in three days as have already been vaccinated in total in South Africa.
The programme also envisages that a further 12.4 million people over the age of 40, but who have comorbidities, will be inoculated by the end of October.
We hope those predictions are not merely more pie in the sky from a government which has already set back the process by rejecting AstraZeneca’s vaccine as not good enough, in the face of objections from some experts.
The drive needs to get into top gear urgently if we are to all be protected. And, if the government needs advice, it can always ask Zimbabwe.
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