More than a year since Covid-19 arrived on SA’s shores, it’s still not uncommon to hear people downplaying it. There are still those claiming it’s no more serious than the common flu, something that was popularised in the early days by leaders such as former US president Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.
Add to that list the UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, who is caught up in a storm of controversy over allegation that in 2020 he expressed a preference for seeing “bodies pile high in their thousands” rather than have another lockdown. Needless to say, in a country that has had one of the worst death rates, blamed on government blunders, this has caused great anger, not least among the relatives of the more than 120,000 people who have perished.
In his defence, it may well be pointed out that Johnson did introduce further lockdowns, so perhaps the reports should not be taken at face value, coming during a public falling out and counter briefings between his team and his former chief strategist.
While Covid sceptics are going to be with us as long as the pandemic is ongoing, tragic events in India should be a reminder of the dangers of complacency. And the need to get the vaccination programme going, not just in individual countries but across the world to prevent the emergence of more dangerous variants.
One cannot help but be horrified by reports of patients on the grounds of Indian hospitals gasping for air or pictures of bodies that have piled up because crematoriums cannot cope. It wasn’t that long ago that India was getting worldwide praise for not only managing the disease but also setting itself up for one of the fastest economic recoveries anywhere in the world, with GDP set to expand in 2021 by more than 12%.
Tragically, the picture has changed and the country now accounts for close to 40% of recorded cases worldwide. Like SA, India is a developing nation, if a relatively rich and influential one, and testing is therefore patchy, with large parts of the population in densely populated urban settlements and rural areas where health services are not readily available. It is likely that the situation is much worse than what’s reflected in official numbers.
While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the crisis as having hit the country like “a storm”, others have criticised the government for complacency and a failure to prepare the health system. That complacency was evident earlier this month. As recently as just less than two weeks ago, Johnson was still planning to travel to that country, something that may seem ironic to South Africans who have found themselves isolated from international travel for most of 2021 despite the country’s relatively low numbers.
The lesson from India should be that this is no time for SA to let its guard down. Thankfully the anticipated third wave didn’t materialise after Easter, but this doesn’t mean another storm isn’t on the way. India has also paid the price for not vaccinating enough people quickly enough. Data from countries such as the UK show irrefutable evidence that jabs have made a difference.
A key driver of the surge in India has been state elections, with Modi himself drawing criticism for holding rallies with thousands of people in attendance. The country has also hosted religious festivals, and we have watched with envy as fans returned to India’s cricket stadiums.
With SA having local elections in October, it clearly needs to be well advanced with its vaccination programme long before then. The performance so far has been dire with not a single vaccination outside the Sisonke study for health workers, which is set to resume on Wednesday after a two-week pause that could have seen at least another 100,000 people vaccinated by now.
After all the false starts, there’s no room for error for the government. For the wider population, we can only reiterate health minister Zweli Mkhize’s reminder that the danger has not passed and we need to keep taking precautions such as wearing masks and avoiding gatherings.
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