Corona surge: Chickens come home to roost
Titus Mbuya | Friday March 5, 2021 15:20
The President further stated that as a result, the government is spending much money on private facilities which are being used for isolation. In the same post, he appealed to those members of the public who contract COVID-19 to self-isolate at home and comply with the disease’s public health protocols.
Under different circumstances, we would be saying the chickens have come home to roost. It is rather insensitive to say that now because we are in the middle of the worst public health crisis that this country has ever experienced.
When the novel coronavirus first hit our shores 12 months ago, the government did what many believed was the right thing, by imposing a lockdown. There were five cases and one death at the time, but the trajectory of the transmission of the disease in neighbouring countries was alarming.
At the time various commentators, including one of the country’s eminent AIDS experts, Dr Kgosidialwa Mompati, advised that testing be ramped up and intensive care unit facilities be expanded right around the country. To their credit, the government and the COVID-19 Task Team bumped up the rate of testing as it could be done at various health centres around the country.
This was a good move because it is now a fact that testing is an integral part of preventing the spread of COVID-19. That is so because through testing you can identify cases, then trace contacts, and either isolate or quarantine, and treat confirmed cases. What has not been done as well though is surveillance in the communities and that continues to be the missing link, and probably the strongest link regarding the present surge of the disease.
However, more importantly, the one thing that did not happen during the lockdown, or even the period between the lockdowns, was the upgrade of intensive care unit facilities, including the erection of makeshift hospitals fitted with such facilities. This was not done. And this is how the government dropped the ball. The government squandered the opportunity to put in place those provisions back then, and this is the reason why we are where we are right now.
If the number of active cases of just over 3, 000 is correct, the President should not be saying that the country’s health facilities are overwhelmed. Surely not all of them require hospitalisation. Actually, most of them, on the version of the Task Team itself, are either asymptomatic or showing mild illness.
COVID-19 has obviously put a strain on the economy, and already a lot of money has been diverted to fight the pandemic and deal with its ramifications, whether in the form of funds for personal protective equipment, wage subsidy, and others. Of course, that was necessary and justifiable. However, the Task Team, through their projections and their risk assessment exercises, should have known that if hospital beds, in general, and intensive care facilities, in particular, were not expanded, and spread around the country, the available health facilities would be overwhelmed.
This brings me to the next point, vaccine rollout. The country’s vaccination programme is off to a shambolic start. No one seems to know when the vaccination programme will start in Botswana. Some of the neighbouring countries are already inoculating their front-line staff and the vulnerable in their societies.
Needless to say, vaccination is the surest way to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and the sooner the government starts putting jabs in the people’s arms the better. Not only will vaccines benefit those who have been inoculated but others as well through herd immunity. But to achieve that at least 70% of the population would have to be vaccinated. The question is when will the country achieve that at the rate we are going?
Like the many things that COVID-19 has exposed, the apparent logjam regarding the sourcing of vaccines has laid bare the deficiencies of the country’s diplomatic capability. The acquisition of vaccines in the international market is not your conventional business deal or transaction where you put money on the table and you get the commodity or service you want. The establishment of COVAX was in recognition of that reality.
COVAX is one of the three pillars of the so-called Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, introduced by the World Health Organisation (WHO), European Commission and France last April. It focuses on the equitable access of COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines to help less wealthy countries.
A minority of wealthy countries – particularly in North America and Europe - are undercutting COVAX right now by hoarding vaccines. They have pre-purchased the majority of vaccine doses currently under order. In reference to this situation, the director-general of WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus, said recently, “The world is on the brink of a moral failure”.
Countries like Botswana which are relying on COVAX to secure vaccines for their people may have to wait until the third quarter of 2021 to start their vaccine rollouts in earnest. What Botswana should have done is to engage in a serious diplomatic offensive by negotiating directly with vaccine manufacturing companies instead of putting all its eggs in the COVAX basket.
This is what many countries are doing. South Korea, for instance, secured deals to inoculate 50 million of its 54 million population as early as July last year before the vaccines were authorised for use.
It is no wonder that Botswana finds itself being a beneficiary of Chinese largesse. Yesterday, the President announced that “the dossier for Sinovac has been received from China”. Russia and China donations have provided access to countries as yet unable to start their own vaccination programmes. The two countries have outclassed the West in leveraging COVID-19 related products to gain geopolitical sway in many regions of the world.
And hence they would not hesitate to come to the assistance of Botswana in this regard.