Everyone for himself and God for us all: A story of the individualism in the #COVID-19 Vaccine Access

In desperate times it has been proven that human beings naturally return to their innate rigidities. We give up on our current modern methods and go back to our primitive selves, of methods that worked for our forefathers and their fathers before them.

In 2020 at the height of the #COVID-19 Pandemic in the US, Europe and China, Africa was not suffering the same fatalities as those countries were suffering, in fact Africa was dealing with much less cases and fatalities compared to the West. 

To explain the less cases of virus infection, People in Africa started making assumptions about the inherent power in their melanin and the curing powers of the sun heat, which they assumed was a preventive measure against the coronavirus.

However this did not stop African governments from locking up their economies, from the get-go, African leaders immediately instituted lockdowns in their countries to control and prevent the spread of the virus. The measures helped a great deal and the fatalities were minimal.

In 2021, the height of the pandemic is in Africa, the deaths are everywhere and it is not uncommon to see an ambulance wailing and speeding through the street or a motorcycle rider with an oxygen cylinder taking it for a refill. This has become an absurd reality.

In 2020 various companies in the US, Europe, India and China started working on vaccines to help in minimizing the fatalities of the virus and possibly cure the virus.

In the US alone various vaccines were being developed and these included Pfizer vaccine, Johnson & Johnson Vaccine, Moderna Vaccine and many others.

Europe was also working on another version of AstraZeneca for their populations.

For Low-Income countries whose health system did not have the capability to develop a vaccine, the World Health Organization (WHO) partnered with a new initiative called COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX), a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and its partner COVAX were funding the production of the AstraZeneca vaccine that was being developed in India.

This Partnership was indeed supposed to benefit majorly the Low-Income countries especially in Africa.

However even this vaccine was not free. Governments were supposed to pay to get it.

At a time of so much desperacy and panic, as expected, many countries booked their consignments to receive the Indian AstraZeneca vaccine once human trials were showing great promise in reducing the effects of the coronavirus COVID-19.

However, by early 2021, the virus had evolved and a new variant of the Virus called the Delta Variant attacked India. It was severe.

This variant would not show many of the symptoms of the first variant and would just strike the body dead if the few symptoms it showed were not taken seriously.

The Fatalities were so many that India suspended vaccine development for some countries and focused on developing a perfect vaccine for India first that would help in reducing the cases and fatalities.

However the Delta Variant was not about to be stopped, it spread into Africa, first South Africa and then Namibia and Uganda where most fatalities were recorded.

While India and these African countries were suffering the fatalities of the COVID-19 new variant, the US and Europe were vaccinating their people with their home developed vaccines and most countries in the West were opening up. To be exact, the Euro 2020 tournament was taking place  in Europe and the fans were back into stadiums in their thousands.
There was no social distancing, no masks required and everyone was enjoying.

African countries on the other hand were struggling to get the vaccine. Europe was still vaccinating its population and had not started exporting and India’s vaccine development was slow yet the cases and fatalities both in India and Africa were increasing by the hour. 

People were dying everyday.

Normally if you want to travel to Europe or the US, you need to have a passport, however, Europe was changing the rule a little. In order to travel to Europe you needed to be vaccinated, and most importantly you needed to be vaccinated by the AstraZeneca vaccine developed in Europe. Yes. Their vaccine.

Africans who were planning to travel to Europe were doomed.

-To Be Continued..