Shutting down the economy to cover for vaccine failures adds insult to injury

Please find attached a soundbite by the Leader of the Democratic Alliance, John Steenhuisen MP.

South Africa’s vaccine programme has been a disgraceful, unforgivable failure so far. Secretive. Slow. Disorganised. Fatal.

A full 15 months into the pandemic less than 1% of South Africans have been fully vaccinated, according to statistics shared by the Presidency’s head of digital communications.

This puts us far behind not just our upper-middle-income peer countries but also lower-middle-income and many poor countries.

It means we have the same Covid response toolkit available to us in the third wave as we had 15 months ago in the first wave, with almost no progress made in preparing hospitals or building track and trace capacity.

The Ramaphosa administration has botched the vaccine programme from beginning to end. They failed to pay the Covax deposits. They failed to contact vaccine suppliers last year when peer countries were getting in the queue. They failed to respond to suppliers when suppliers contacted them. They failed to rollout the AstraZeneca vaccines we finally took delivery of in February, which could have offered protection to those in the high-risk group. They failed to plan an efficient rollout. They failed to communicate clearly. They failed to admit to any of their failures.

All of which means we are back of the queue, picking up the dregs of other country’s soon-to-expire vaccines, contemplating the prospect of more lives being avoidably lost, more businesses avoidably closing, more jobs being avoidably destroyed, more families going avoidably hungry, more children avoidably missing school.

Of course, none of the individuals who have been entrusted to roll out an efficient vaccine programme and none of those around the table deciding whether to shut down the economy face losing their own lives or livelihoods.

They remain on full salary no matter what, and most of them have probably been vaccinated.

None of them will need to face their hungry families and explain why they cannot put food on the table. Even Zweli Mkhize who benefitted from the Digital Vibes scam is assured a full salary at the end of the month.

They will wheel out excuses about bad luck, but that is exactly the point.

They should not have expected the vaccine programme to be without challenges. That’s why smarter countries ordered excess vaccines and from a variety of sources.

The only tool government seems able to wield is the blunt instrument of blanket restrictions.

We should reject these with contempt, since they will do more harm than good.

There is plenty that can and must be done to mitigate the third wave crisis unfolding in Gauteng.

The situation there is dire indeed. It is going to get a lot worse over the next 7 to 10 days as more infections develop into full-blown illness. And there is no sign yet of a decline in the spike, meaning we should expect and plan for thousands more people still to be infected.

The appropriate response is for President Ramaphosa to crack the whip and jolt the National and Gauteng Departments of Health from their lethargy.

Targeted, coordinated action is required now, to mitigate losses.

Here are the instructions he needs to issue to the National and Gauteng Departments of Health.

  • The 500-bed Covid-19 facility at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital (CHBAH) needs to be put to full use urgently. Redeploy unutilised staff from the 1000-bed Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, which is still closed due to the April fire, to CHBAH. Charlotte Maxeke has spare staff but no beds, while CHBAH has beds but insufficient staff, which is why only 100 of CHBAH’s 500 available beds are currently operational.
  • Urgently get other Covid-19 facilities fully operational. This includes the 183-bed facility in Carletonville, 300-bed facility in George Mukhari Hospital, the 300-bed facility at Jubilee Mall, and the 150-bed facility at Bronkhorstspruit. Do this by ensuring that currently employed healthcare workers are being used efficiently. The Department of Health needs to find the budget to pay overtime. It is absolutely unacceptable that residents should suffer and die because “there is no budget for overtime”. It makes sense for national government to provide top-up funding if there are financial constraints. There should be no financial barriers to treatment. Enlist private sector doctors and nurses, including agency nurses and unemployed nurses and doctors, if necessary. If Ramaphosa hadn’t shut the economy down for nine full weeks last year, there would be far more tax revenue to spend on healthcare now.
  • Get the 1000-bed Charlotte Maxeke Hospital operational as soon as possible. It is just not acceptable that this facility is still closed two months after the fire. If the Western Cape Government could get a fully functional 850-bed CTICC field hospital, the Hospital of Hope, up and running in just four weeks, there is no excuse for the Gauteng Government taking over two months to get Charlotte Maxeke back up and running.
  • Properly enforce restrictions on indoor gatherings and taxis. Properly enforce mask, sanitation and social-distancing protocols and ventilation requirements. Ensure all taxis travel with all windows open. Enforce an open windows rule at high schools. It is far cheaper and easier to prevent infection than to treat it. Government needs to be prepared to take a differentiated approach in the country if losses are to be minimised.

At the same time, Ramaphosa needs to face the reality that his administration is failing on vaccines, and outsource the vaccine programme to the private sector. He needs to empower provinces to make their own decisions about restrictions, based on their individual situations. The only thing that should shut down entirely is the National Coronavirus Command Council.

Local Government Elections are coming up in 2021! Visit check.da.org.za to check your voter registration status.