Let’s face it: South Africa has very good genomic sequencing capacity and capability – within a year, twice it made the world aware of a mutation of concern – and twice the world thanked it with shutting down air traffic and simply ignored the fact, that discovery does not mean it originated in the country of discovery; and also take into account that livelihoods and lives are destroyed.
Countries of the EU, a community of values, as they proudly proclaim, hoard medical resources, make sure that vaccines come first in high volumes to their citizens – even knowing, that a pandemic can only be beaten or influenced if and when all human beings have the chance to be protected. There is no protection for one country.
They also set the rules – switching economies of countries on and off – in this case tourism in South Africa, as they see fit. But what can you expect from a community of values, which let refugees drown while fighting amongst each other what to do and how to solve the problem.
Covid-19 has in so many ways changed the perspective: human mankind is not that advanced as we thought, ethical behaviour or concern for the next or the society one lives in does not matter for quite a portion of humans, “Querdenker” and those believing in all the fantastic myths when it comes to vaccinations show clearly that stupidity has no ceiling and irrationality no limitations. Listening to one of this “Querdenker” proclaiming that every vaccination is an injection to kill the person leaves every decent person wondering.
Of course, governments have their share in contributing to confuse people.
In Germany, for example, trying to be political correct and avoiding clear statements and rules gave oxygen to those militant vaccine opposition forces. Having ignored the pandemic during the last phase of national elections brought the country to where it is currently.
In South Africa, the president himself welcomed the first 1.2 million AstraZeneca vaccines, only to kick them out of the country and entertain the certainly weaker alternative of J&J as a trial phase. This did not create trust in a society which anyhow does not trust government in general. Also here, during local election time all rules were relaxed for the sake of political events.
Where from here?
Firstly, we have to acknowledge that we are all in it together – tribes or countries can not do it alone.
Secondly, we cannot continue to punish excellence, and we have to balance risk and livelihood. Knee-jerked reactions are not helping. We have to learn to live with the virus – and it is the nature of the beast that mutations happen every day.
Thirdly – vaccinations are the only real way forward – the longer governments wait and entertain all the anti-vax nonsense, the longer the drama continues.
Fourthly, a comment regarding churches: there is a lot of space still to be occupied in taking a stance pro vaccinations.
Fifth, let’s face it: our systems are not holding for the challenges we partly created ourselves in overpopulating the planet and thinking, we are the masters of the universe. The advances in IT, social media and AI have changed dramatically the way, people feel and feel connected. The ways democracy works are partly not equipped to face modern times challenges. Our path of living outruns our ability to understand and react. The interconnectivity of matters is partly so complicated, that we lose oversight.
It is time to reflect and come to senses: be it Covid-19, be it climate change, be it the relationship between Africa and Europe. Because if not, there is one certainty: this world and the universe can easily exist without the human race.
Filed under: Africa, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Uncategorized, Covid-19, EU, Querdenker, south africa, tourism, vaccination
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