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While the third wave of Covid-19 infections continues to drain away, allowing President Mnangagwa early last week to reduce the lockdown from level four to level two, Zimbabwe needs to brace itself for a fourth wave, and the severity of that wave will depend on one major factor: How many of us have been vaccinated.
Public health experts have made it clear, and the message has been amplified by everyone from the President down, that the only way we can minimise the effects of Covid-19 and the only way we can avoid or, at the very least, severely limit the effect, of a fourth wave is for most people to get their free vaccination.
In the third week of August we hit 517 933 jabs. Last week, after three weeks of decline, we hit 286 134 jabs. In those three weeks about 500 000 extra people who could have stood in line and been vaccinated did not turn up.
We are talking about a big gap between our capacity, which the Government has built right up, and the actual numbers getting their jabs.
If a lot of us are protected by vaccination when the next wave hits, it will be a minor blip on the infection charts. If too few of us are vaccinated then we will have those rising infection and death rates we saw in both the second and third waves, along with severe lockdown restrictions as the Government has to impose a lot of restrictions on our freedom of movement and freedom of assembly to limit the damage and deaths.
Vaccination is not perfect. Vaccinated people can still fall sick and can still die. But the levels of protection are very high. The latest American figures, where vaccination rates are high enough to make the data meaningful, experts now reckon a vaccinated person has 11 percent the chance of an unvaccinated person of dying.
That is vaccination boosts your protection nine-fold. And throw in mask wearing and social distancing and suddenly, for negligible effort, your chances are 50 to 100 times better.
Vaccination gives even more protection when everyone around you is vaccinated, since the chances they are infected are so much lower. This is one reason why a growing number of Zimbabwean companies want staff to present a vaccination card or a recent test result, something that the United States, interestingly, is now making a legal requirement.
As the World Health Organisation stresses, none of us are safe until all of us are safe.
The Government has done almost everything that it can do. It has set up a supply chain that ensures that we have enough doses of vaccine, these days well in advance of when these need to be distributed to the vaccination points.
It has mobilised the entire public health sector, with its significant extra staffing and major improvements over the last 18 months, to distribute the vaccines.
The Government set up even more priority programmes in the third wave to get a lot of people in vulnerable points, or people who could pass on an infection to a lot of others, to jump the queues and get their jabs.
So everyone from tobacco industry employees, through market stallholders to customs and immigration staff were brought to the front of the line. Even the private sector has been brought aboard. Companies have been encouraged to make arrangements to have their staff vaccinated, and many have responded.
Some with their own medical facilities went all the way and brought in vaccination teams while others at the very least laid on transport and gave staff time off for the part of the two days they have to stand in line.
And the Government has taken a lot of steps not to leave people behind. While a special effort was made in border towns because of the risks from neighbours with higher infection rates, generally the number of jabs in each province follows the population.
While Harare Metropolitan, might have seen four times as many people jabbed as Matabeleland South, the least populous, the vaccination rate per 100 people is roughly the same. You can use the number of constituencies in each province to get a rough estimate.
Now a number of private clinics and the like can administer doses for modest approved fees; the vaccine remains free, but the private operator can charge around $400 for what amounts to a service without queues while the Government service does have queues, although these are limited.
Major campaigns have been launched to get the message across and an increasing number of national and community leaders have been publicising the need and advantages of vaccination.
What is needed to complete the process is for Zimbabweans to line up, roll up a sleeve and get their jabs, a very simple process that costs absolutely nothing. There are only two reasons why so many might be hanging back.
Laziness is one. This appear to be a major reason. People know they need to be vaccinated and intend to be vaccinated, but they will wait until “tomorrow”.
Evidence for this comes from the record vaccination rate of almost 518 000 doses in the third week of last month. That was the week following the peaking of our infection rates and people were obviously scared and rushed out to get their jabs.
As the infection rate started falling so, regrettably, did the vaccination rate. People were less scared. But they should be. The Chief Co-ordinator to the national response to Covid-19 in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Dr Agnes Mahomva is quite clear.
There will be a fourth wave if enough of us do not get our jabs.
She is backed by the president of the Medical and Dental Private Practitioners Association of Zimbabwe, Dr Johannes Marisa, who is concerned by falling vaccination rates and wants an all-out effort in the breathing space now created to get a lot of people jabbed.
So both the Government and the private medical sector are singing from the same hymn book.
The second reason people avoid vaccination is the massive social media campaign driven largely by extreme right-wing American conspiracy theorists who for reasons no one can understand equate Covid-19 vaccination with how you voted in the last election. The only result is fewer right-wing American voters.
Zimbabweans should be more sensible and at least check the internet for a reputable news source when they get one of the weird social media messages that are floating around. And then prepare for a fourth wave by making sure they and their family and friends are vaccinated so there isn’t one.
Online Reporter