Erastus Haindongo
Two-and-half million globally and 439 in Namibia (ca. 09/03/2021) - these aren’t just fancy Covid-19 numbers, these are counts of actual humans that have succumbed to the novel coronavirus.
Our emotive side declares that one life lost is one too many! The havoc wreaked is indisputable, but the same cannot be said for the origins of Covid and the intent of the anti-Covid vaccine.
Many theories abound as to what could have caused the outbreak and whether the vaccine has been fitted to save or bring about the destruction of the African populace.
Pandemics aren’t new! In the year 1350, the Black Death (Bubonic plague) wiped out a third of the world population. In 1918, the notorious Spanish Flu struck and resulted in 50 million deaths.
The 8 098 deaths due to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2003 when compared to the Covid-19 deaths was a friendly warning for health systems to prepare for the worst.
Zoonotic events have previously occurred with both wild (Ebola, 2019-nCoV) and farm animals (Swine flu).
Scientific data indicates that the 2019-nCoV has evolved from a ß-coronavirus group that is known to infect bats and pangolins in Asia. Contrary to this, there are also scientific reports exonerating the pangolin.
Other suspicions were centred around a laboratory accidental escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In the absence of data that supports the origins conclusively, this could mean that coronavirus has occurred naturally or through a series of recombination events.
Other outlandish claims reported that the coronavirus is an “artificially created bioweapon” for Bill Gates Global Depopulation Agenda. Therefore, all information pertaining to the origins remain a shot in the dark.
So, what is the fuss with the origins? Understanding the origins allows scientist to study the virus in its natural host. Ultimately, the natural host is expected to provide important insights into the development of disease interruption strategies (eg. antisera, vaccines etc).
Under SDG3 there is a call for ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services.
Subsequently, the government has availed access to birth control pills and safe deliveries. The former has been dubbed “The Global Depopulation Agenda”.
Infertility rates have increased over the years and the exposures causing that are rather intricate and crosscutting across the psycho-social (eg. diets, stress), physical (fitness, weight) and environmental (radiation, pesticides) domains. Africans are using this scenario to give vaccine hesitancy traction.
Forgetting the plethora of medication that we receive from outside Africa, this seemingly makes us blind to the fact that if there was a legitimate depopulation agenda that anyone of the vaccines/hypertensives would be the perfect delivery route for an agent aimed at inducing infertility.
Propaganda is used to drive an agenda, devoid of objectivity in a manner that it evokes an emotional rather than a rational response from the public through ethically suspect means.
To-date, social media platforms have been weaponized and are being used as efficient tools in the spread of dis-/misinformation. Propaganda-mongers are bringing about an extensive disregard for interventions that are backed by sound scientific principles.
Therefore, the appraisal of material that calls for an untoward public action to Covid-19 becomes increasingly more important than ever before.
The effectiveness of a vaccine is determined by its ability to protect every vaccinated person and the real power of vaccines lies in the concept of herd immunity.
Simply put, vaccines only work when a high percentage of the population is vaccinated.
Herd immunity as a matter of practicality translates to “No one is safe until we are ALL SAFE!” In Namibia, vaccines are administered right after birth to age 10. These vaccines are the reason we have rarely seen polio, tetanus, measles etc. Polio immunization alone has reduced the number of paralytic cases by 99.99%.
Since humans are diversely similar, there is nothing sinister about an insignificant fraction that will suffer mild-severe anaphylactic reactions to vaccines.
Government failure, scientific misfires and public indifference cannot be allowed to take centre stage in the fight against Covid-19.
“Trust MoHSS with any other vaccine except Covid” - there isn’t a plausible explanation for this travesty except willful ignorance and being irrationally misinformed.
Public health systems have a moral imperative to ensure that human lives are preserved at all cost – through the delivery of a vaccine that is aimed at protecting human lives. Malaria, HIV, TB etc have not gone on holiday during these times, thus toy-toying with Covid-19 carries the risk of sending health systems into a tailspin and bringing about universal health failure.