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There is a concerted, calculated & coordinated effort underway currently in South Africa to deride government regarding vaccines, from previous members of the advisory committee, to academic & the media itself. There is a lot to criticize government for, but this is suspicious.
Yes, we should have a detailed timeline on the vaccine rollout, with specific details about who has priority access to the vaccines (healthcare workers, incarcerated people, etc), but there is a deliberate misrepresentation and twisting about what the health minister & team said.
That letter from scientists (which contains no Black person as a signatory in a country with a majority Black population
) makes no mention of the intellectual property rights being held onto by big pharma nor SA asking WTO to intervene in this matter. It is wholly disingenuous. https://twitter.com/baymath/status/1343805938160062464
) makes no mention of the intellectual property rights being held onto by big pharma nor SA asking WTO to intervene in this matter. It is wholly disingenuous. https://twitter.com/baymath/status/1343805938160062464
Government may be playing its cards close to its chest for now (and we can critique this for what it’s worth), but deriding them for emphasizing non-pharmaceutical interventions now when a high vaccine rollout and herd immunity are not imminent, is really unfair and dangerous.
How difficult is this to understand?? When we do not even know whether the current global vaccine strategy is going to be successful, when there’s still uncertainty, when there’s new variants; saying the vaccine is not a silver bullet is the most sensible thing to say right now. https://twitter.com/drzwelimkhize/status/1344579686643474432
This is especially pertinent when you look at the US and UK, where there is current confusion within the general public regarding the one or double dose issue, the possibility of doses going to waste, and the slow and uneven rollout.
We have world-renowned epidemiologists within the ministerial advisory committee. I am in no way suggesting that they are beyond criticism or above reproach, but merely pointing out that they may be taking a measured and conservative approach in the face of uncertainty.
As I have also said before, trying to downplay the all-encompassing nature of capitalism is purposeful. We cannot not understand that the access to vaccines is inequitable, for a myriad of reasons. And the profit machine is working overtime to drain every last penny they can.
