I would really love to be part of the herd right about now. And I’m not talking about herd mentality. I’m talking about herd immunity, or ‘population immunity’ as our beloved president, Cyril Ramaphosa, prefers to call it.
I imagine how I will hear or read the announcement, "The Covid-19 vaccine is now available at a health centre near you!".
I can visualise how I will stand in line with other eager fellow compatriots in neatly winding queues. No pushing. No shouting. No rudeness. Only faces exuding gratefulness for this long-awaited gift from our gracious government.
The experience of the citizen in Mamelodi will mirror that of the citizen in Pretoria East, where I’m based. We’ll all be feeling blessed at having a chance at becoming invincible to a virus that has intermittently placed our country and the world on standstill.
Oh what an amazing and wonderful day that will be, when we finally embrace the pharmaceutical miracle that might just enable us to go back to what normal life used to be.
Now that I've woken up from my beautiful dream, I have to consider the very real possibility that the vaccine rollout could actually be more like a nightmare than a dream.
I am now imagining that the Covid-19 vaccine rollout could make the PPE (personal protective equipment) corruption pale in comparison.
What would keep people who have friends in high places from swindling the public of this much needed biological bulwark against the deadly Covid-19, if they could do so with PPE contracts?
I can already see the headlines. ‘Vaccines for votes scandal uncovered’. Or, ‘Vaccine roll-out corruption shines the light on inadequate governance”.
Corruption is a dangerous toxin. It contaminates anything and everything it touches. Like poison when it has entered the blood stream, it moves through the system causing damage.
It doesn’t matter the policy, the regulation, the legislation, the agenda, the entity. Corruption doesn’t have holy cows. Nothing is sacred. Everything is violable.
Just like the pandemic itself has spotlighted those things about our society that have driven millions to a despair induced state of disillusionment, the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out will do no less than demonstrate the depth of the disparities in our society, and the inequality among states, globally.
We should already brace ourselves for the very devastating reality of how those who hold positions of responsibility, who should be working to promote the common good, may give in to the propensity to betray the citizenry’s trust. This is not pessimism. It is the art of preempting.
When we preempt the possibility of disappointment, we will not be crushed by the weight of despondency. Preempting will keep us from too easily sliding into a pit of depression, because we countenanced the possibility of the bad that we fear.
As we look forward to partake in herd immunity, we should beware of being duped into a herd mentality that wills us to accept uncritically the promises and commitments made to us by leaders that have proven themselves unworthy of our confidence in the past.
Vigilance. That is a quality all equality, freedom and justice loving people should possess.
The arrival of the Covid-19 vaccine will require as much by way of activism and judiciousness that is not afraid to expose any unfairness and all abuse of power in the distribution of the shot that is a lifeline for a generation that is reeling from an unrelenting pandemic. We cannot now expect that the world will finally be the egalitarian paradise of equal access and equal opportunity.
While we should be grateful for this medical breakthrough, we should be alive to the reality that it will not be immune to the corrupt minds that may turn a blessing into a curse.
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