When SA’s vaccine push finally began in earnest, I was sure that demand would ultimately overwhelm supply.
The state, having stumbled straight out of the gate, would never get close to its target of vaccinating 40-million South Africans by the end of this year. As anxious citizens waited in immense queues, I was certain, logistical screwups and administrative blunders would keep the life-saving drugs heartbreakingly out of reach for millions.
If you’d told me than that SA had halted the delivery of more consignments of the vaccine, as Reuters reported on Wednesday, I would have rolled my eyes and told you that this was almost certainly because the state had cocked up somehow, perhaps by taking us off some important lists, or bouncing a cheque.
As it turns out, I was wrong.
Yes, there was an unforgivable false start which no doubt cost many lives. Yes, the state’s information campaign around the vaccine could have been better. And yes, the July insurrection disrupted the rollout in KwaZulu-Natal. But it is now becoming clear that the reason only a third of South Africans have been vaccinated is mainly because of the choices of private citizens and not the actions or failures of the state.
Covid 19 is not the flu. It kills unprotected people. Lots and lots and lots of unprotected people.
According to Wednesday’s report, there are currently 16.8-million doses of the vaccine kicking their heels in freezers around the country — enough, at the current rate at which jabs are being administered, to last until the end of April.
Which brings me to you.
I know that opinion columns have a self-selecting audience. I know that my readers are not a cross-section of SA.
But vaccine hesitance seems to be fairly evenly distributed across our society, which means that, at least in purely statical terms, you are more likely to belong to that 65% of the country that hasn’t been vaccinated than the 35% that has.
If you haven’t been vaccinated because you believe that Covid is a hoax, or no worse than flu, or that ivermectin works and just hasn’t turned into a trillion-dollar pharmaceutical empire because of a conspiracy between Big Pharma rivals, or that the vaccine alters your DNA, or is manufactured by Satan, or will cause sudden, mass death two years after it is injected, and you are somehow still reading this column (which, given the topic, is unlikely), then this is the point that you and I must part ways. All I can do is wish you good luck, and hope that we bump into each other again once the fourth wave subsides.
If, however, you haven’t been vaccinated because you’re anxious or scared of physical harm, or confused by what seems like conflicting arguments from apparently equally legitimate sources, or you’re counter-suggestible, and refuse as a matter of principle to do what everyone is telling you to do (I must confess that I have this instinct when people thrust their favourite books at me), then I would ask that you linger for just a moment, and allow me to tell briefly about three numbers.
The first number is 271,000, which is the number of excess deaths reported by the South African Medical Research Council since the start of the Covid pandemic in SA. (“Excess deaths” are deaths that happen above and beyond the “normal” number that we can expect every year.)
The SAMRC has never claimed that all of those deaths are due to Covid, but since we’re not seeing a huge and unprecedented spike in other diseases, or road accidents, or murders (excluding the July violence), we have to assume that the majority of those 271,000 deaths are due to Covid.
Even if it’s half that many, it still means that an average of 5,600 South Africans are being killed by the virus every month. To put this in context, murder, commonly agreed to be out of control in SA, claims about 1,700 victims a month.
In other words, Covid 19 is not the flu. It kills unprotected people. Lots and lots and lots of unprotected people.
Which brings me to the other two numbers.
A year ago, Germany was being swamped by its second Covid wave.
At its peak, the seven-day average of new cases was around 25,000 per day.
As has been the case throughout the pandemic, deaths followed by about a fortnight: at the peak of its second wave, Germany was seeing an average of just under 900 deaths a day.
This week, Germany is in the news again as it faces a new and much larger wave of infections. On Tuesday, the seven-day average for new cases was around 53,000 per day.
The death toll, however, is drastically lower this time. Even if we allow some leeway for the fact that deaths will only match this week’s figures in a fortnight, it is still important to note that the current seven-day average is 213 deaths per day.
Look at those figures again.
A year ago, Germany peaked at 25,000 new cases and almost 900 deaths per day.
Now, with the peak not yet in sight, they’re at 53,000 new cases a day, but just 213 deaths per day.
So what has made that crucial difference, the literal difference between life and death?
The answer is that 68% of Germans are now fully vaccinated.
Our fourth wave is coming. In a few weeks, our numbers will be spiking and the deaths will start ticking up again. And once again we’ll hear loud and angry objections to the vaccine.
Some of them might even have a veneer of truth. Are many drug companies immoral, price-gouging super-villains? Of course. Can shadowy vested interests control and warp the information you’re getting? Of course.
But the bottom line is that the Covid-19 vaccine works. It is a life-saving medication that radically reduces your chances of severe infection and death.
And there are still 16.8-million doses out there, waiting for you to make the right decision and rejoin the world.
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