By Dr Oscar Rebelo
India looks to be back on her feet. We seem to have put the worst of the pandemic behind us.
Since December, the case load has dropped remarkably and our death rates have certainly crashed across the country.
So by and large, for a giant-sized population such as ours, and notoriously disobedient and carefree, we seemed to have pulled off a minor miracle.
So far so good!!
But there is a mighty shark out there in the waters, far away from shore, with the lethal possibility and capability to strike.
And that is the mutant UK, Brazilian and South African strains which are infinitely more contagious and lethal than the original mother-shark COVID 19 from Wuhan.
So if a sudden surge over the last few days, emanating from Mumbai, is anything to go by, we need to be very very vigilant and alert.
Err on the side of caution, but please err.
The mutant virus must be assumed to be here.
And these are the two contrasting scenarios.
In Brazil, close to the Amazon rain forest, there is a place called Manaus. Sometime in the middle of last year, it was ravaged by the Pandemic”with mortuaries overflowing, oxygen running out and Death stalking the streets unrelentingly. Then it was over or so it seemed.
One went by the usual postulates that the population had developed herd immunity and life was Bonita again. No such luck! In January this year, the mutant came back like a Tyrannosaurus Rex and ravaged Manaus all over again.
Death, Despair, Devastation and Jair Bolsonaro fiddling on his viola.
The flip side of this horrendous story is Israel. Typical for the efficiency of the Jewish state, they went into a 24/7 overdrive and have vaccinated an overwhelming part of their population with the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. The drive was conducted at such a breakneck speed, it would give Usain Bolt a complex. And Presto! The number of serious cases and hospitalisations in Israel have dropped by a jaw-dropping 95%.
Those are hard-core statistics. No sugar or salt coating. Even the mutant seemed to be tamed.
The moral of the story then is: If you want to beat Tyrannosaurus Rex, you need Tyrannosaurus Vax.
And that's why the vaccination drive in our country has been so disappointing.
Worried about minor side-effects, or just because everything is so laissez-faire here, even thousands of our doctors and nurses and HCW are simply refusing vaccination, or worse, skipping their second dose. Even when conveniently dispensed to them free of cost.
The commonest argument is that the pandemic is behind us, so why bother?
Or some adverse events are so hyped that everyone is gambling that is better to get the infection rather than the injection.
And somehow we now need to deploy the vaccine to the general population at warp speed not just as state hand-outs, but let everyone who can afford buy it OTC.
The trick is get everyone inoculated in the fastest time possible.
So if a Toolkit or Twitter storm is really required, it is to have a mass movement for folk to take their jabs diligently and fearlessly. That is paramount and mandatory.
And while we are on the subject of Toolkits, why is it perfectly legal to print pamphlets and disseminate information in a democracy, but completely criminal to do so using cyber tools??
We are treading dangerous and terrifying paths if we now seek to incarcerate and destroy the spirit of our youth involved in climate change conversations, even if we may disagree with many of their prescriptions.
It is democracies that create the right tools to innovate and create.
Look at the evidence: treatment and vaccines have come from democratic countries, including ours.
An authoritarian, undemocratic, repressive regime like China gave us ... well let me think ... Oh yes, it only gave us the virus!
