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Hard to make that argument when SA is one of (the?) wealthiest country in all of Africa, and they only have something like 35% vaccine uptake even though it's b

by xxpor 5y ago

Hard to make that argument when SA is one of (the?) wealthiest country in all of Africa, and they only have something like 35% vaccine uptake even though it's broadly available. Granted, SA has enormous wealth inequality issues for well known reasons, but blaming everything on the west for the situation there seems short sighted at best. One of the recent presidents was an AIDS denialist!

_djo_ 5y ago
It’s not quite as simple as that. First, it’s not certain that Omicron emerged in South Africa, but in another nearby sub-Saharan African country without the same resources. All of South Africa’s neighbours with the exception of Botswana (which Moderna was making pay an eye-watering $30 per shot) are reliant on external aid for vaccination. So South Africa’s relative wealth is probably irrelevant here, and the argument about how insane the rich world’s refusal to help mass vaccinate the rest of the world is still applies. Second, South Africa only hit uptake constraints in the past month or so, until then it was affected by serious supply constraints like those other developing countries experienced, with the rich world getting production priority. Price, too, was a factor with pharmaceutical companies refusing to provide doses at anywhere close to their estimated actual cost. As a result money that the South African government could have spent on more vaccination outreach and infrastructure, especially in more rural and poor areas, was instead spent on buying doses. The long-standing supply constraints also meant that during a crucial time when public sentiment was more in favour of vaccination South Africa could not get enough doses to meet the demand and the delay allowed misinformation campaigns to wreak havoc. Had it been able to source enough supply in those crucial months, South Africa might have overcome a substantial portion of that hesitancy as people saw their friends, families, and colleagues get safely vaccinated. Third, there’s also a point to be made about the effect of predominantly American anti-vaccine misinformation on social networks, especially Facebook and YouTube, that has had a massive impact on South African society and the willingness of people to get vaccinated. Researchers have seen the same in other African countries. Not sure how that in particular can be solved or dealt with, but it needs to be taken into account when trying to understand global vaccine hesitancy.
mschuster91 5y ago
> Hard to make that argument when SA is one of (the?) wealthiest country in all of Africa South Africa has about 20% of their population infected with HIV [1], given a total population of 60M people that's 12M people! We can argue about Western responsibility all day, but at the end of the day the facts are clear: large parts of not-the-Western-countries have issues with getting vaccines and/or with antivaxxers, there is no way that all these 12M people are on proper antiviral treatment, large parts of the population have already experienced COVID [2] (which is likely why the Omicron variant didn't hit South Africa hard with deaths despite the variant being discovered there), and we're sitting by doing nothing while the combination of insufficiently treated HIV positive people contributes to whatever comes after Omicron. And for what it's worth, it's not just South Africa that's a problem in that regard - poor living conditions in slums will also be a problem for the future. India was the likely origin of the Delta variant, and Brazil is suspected to be the breeding ground of P1/P2 (that were IIRC out-competed by Delta). If humanity wants to prevent yet another deadly round of an immuno-evasive SARS-CoV-2 variant, we all have to contribute to eliminate poverty and inequality regarding access to vaccinations and medical care. Worldwide. [1]: https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&series=SH.DYN.AIDS.ZS&country=ZAF# https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&series=... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/south-africa-says-vaccines-and-natural-immunity-are-limiting-latest-covid-wave https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/south-africa-s...

by xxpor 5y ago

_djo_ 5y ago

It’s not quite as simple as that. First, it’s not certain that Omicron emerged in South Africa, but in another nearby sub-Saharan African country without the same resources. All of South Africa’s neighbours with the exception of Botswana (which Moderna was making pay an eye-watering $30 per shot) are reliant on external aid for vaccination. So South Africa’s relative wealth is probably irrelevant here, and the argument about how insane the rich world’s refusal to help mass vaccinate the rest of the world is still applies. Second, South Africa only hit uptake constraints in the past month or so, until then it was affected by serious supply constraints like those other developing countries experienced, with the rich world getting production priority. Price, too, was a factor with pharmaceutical companies refusing to provide doses at anywhere close to their estimated actual cost. As a result money that the South African government could have spent on more vaccination outreach and infrastructure, especially in more rural and poor areas, was instead spent on buying doses. The long-standing supply constraints also meant that during a crucial time when public sentiment was more in favour of vaccination South Africa could not get enough doses to meet the demand and the delay allowed misinformation campaigns to wreak havoc. Had it been able to source enough supply in those crucial months, South Africa might have overcome a substantial portion of that hesitancy as people saw their friends, families, and colleagues get safely vaccinated. Third, there’s also a point to be made about the effect of predominantly American anti-vaccine misinformation on social networks, especially Facebook and YouTube, that has had a massive impact on South African society and the willingness of people to get vaccinated. Researchers have seen the same in other African countries. Not sure how that in particular can be solved or dealt with, but it needs to be taken into account when trying to understand global vaccine hesitancy.

mschuster91 5y ago

> Hard to make that argument when SA is one of (the?) wealthiest country in all of Africa South Africa has about 20% of their population infected with HIV [1], given a total population of 60M people that's 12M people! We can argue about Western responsibility all day, but at the end of the day the facts are clear: large parts of not-the-Western-countries have issues with getting vaccines and/or with antivaxxers, there is no way that all these 12M people are on proper antiviral treatment, large parts of the population have already experienced COVID [2] (which is likely why the Omicron variant didn't hit South Africa hard with deaths despite the variant being discovered there), and we're sitting by doing nothing while the combination of insufficiently treated HIV positive people contributes to whatever comes after Omicron. And for what it's worth, it's not just South Africa that's a problem in that regard - poor living conditions in slums will also be a problem for the future. India was the likely origin of the Delta variant, and Brazil is suspected to be the breeding ground of P1/P2 (that were IIRC out-competed by Delta). If humanity wants to prevent yet another deadly round of an immuno-evasive SARS-CoV-2 variant, we all have to contribute to eliminate poverty and inequality regarding access to vaccinations and medical care. Worldwide. [1]: https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&series=SH.DYN.AIDS.ZS&country=ZAF# https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&series=... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/south-africa-says-vaccines-and-natural-immunity-are-limiting-latest-covid-wave https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/south-africa-s...