Vaccination needs reality infusion

I’m generally enthusiastic about whatever it is that I do. I’m either putting on weight or losing it. I’m never maintaining it. I’m either building up in order to run 10km or I’m at risk of suffering from bed sores. I either read two books a week, or I finish Netflix. A balanced, measured, healthy approach might be an aspiration, in theory.

But I’m as unlikely to achieve balance as I am to become an astronaut.

Which makes my current approach to events in South Africa challenging for me. I’m inherently positive. I prefer to live surrounded by joy and humour, and actively remove negativity from my universe. So much so, that I wrote a book called Smile Dammit!, which is a personal exploration into learned optimism.

And yet, repeatedly over the past few weeks, I have been accused of being “too negative” and “unhelpful” as a result of my predictions regarding the COVID-19 vaccine roll out.

In early February, I wrote an article, “Doomed to failure”, in which I explained why the strategy was unlikely to succeed. In essence, my concern was:

• Few trust the process or the government. We tried to trust. When COVID-19 hit South Africa, we believed the president when he said that there would be no stealing and looting of funds. Because he looked sincere and tired, it meant that he meant it. Only he didn’t. We bought into it for a while. But not anymore.
• Lack of successful examples. Try as we might, it’s impossible to find an example to use. Eskom, South African Airways, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the post office, are some failures. Try as they might, it’s virtually impossible to find an African National Congress success story.
• Simply too big a job. It’s not all about the money. It’s a massive job that requires significant planning, logistics, and buy in.

The answer, I suggested, was simple. Get everyone involved. Open up negotiation and acquisition of the vaccines to those who know the business. The private hospital groups, the pharmacies, doctors, and medical aids. Share the load, ease the burden, and let South Africans receive the vaccine through whichever channel they can get it. Regulate it, and demand a one-for-one or even one-for-two rule, in which for each vaccine gained by the private sector, one or two are required for the more vulnerable.

Since I wrote that article, less than 300 000 people have received the jab.

It’s not that I’m attracted to negativity. On the contrary, I believe in seeing the positive in a situation. I believe in the joy of the moment, of the magnificence in minutiae. Of the celebration of each day that brings with the dawn infinite possibility and opportunity.

But delusion optimism can be dangerous if it means not holding government to account and pretending that its version of events is acceptable.

Less than 300 000 South Africans vaccinated is nothing to be proud of. And we cannot pretend that it is.

I haven’t turned towards negativity. I haven’t embraced pessimism. Not by any means. But I also cannot pretend that the vaccine vial is half full when there isn’t one.