TWO things work in our country and both of them had me madder’n a spitting snake last week.
Not necessarily the fact that they work ‒ heaven knows we need something to work ‒ but the effects they have.
First, our science. It works so well, the world just freaked out on us. In spite of two years of dealing with Covid, much of the globe jerked its knee and put it more firmly on our collective necks.
These are the “First World” countries which holler the odds at Africa. Do this. You can’t do that. Darkest Africa. Many of the countries which bear “First World” status have been built on the back and blood of Africa. Thievery, connivery and unspeakable greed. Of course, there have been countless people of Africa happy to desert honour and integrity to fill their treasure trunks.
Before it was christened omicron by the World Health Organization, it was “the South African variant”. International media jumped on it like a cobra on a rat, with a toxin just as deadly. Within hours of South Africa announcing on November 25 that it had found a new mutation, the bloody world shut us down.
An (edited) editorial in The Washington Post had this to say:
“The new variant was detected and its genome sequenced rapidly in South Africa, which then alerted the rest of the world that it carried a large number of mutations and might be more transmissible, virulent and immune evasive than previous variants. For this stellar and generous performance, South Africa was met with the sound of doors slamming shut.
“What scientists did in South Africa is deliver a glimpse of the future we need: a global early-warning system, using genomic surveillance, to spot and track the changes and spread of pathogens. The data can be shared rapidly and used to develop therapies and vaccines.”
It praised President Cyril Ramaphosa and Professor Tulio de Oliveira, founding director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation: “When omicron began showing up in new cases on November 11, South Africa was ready ‒ in June 2020, it had set up the Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa, linking laboratories and their associated academic institutions. The South African network quickly compared the genome of the new variant with others – discovering the large number of mutations ‒ and then shared it with the WHO and scientists around the globe.
“Ideally, such networks should be on guard everywhere and at all times”, a “robust global radar”.
It said the need for global co-operation in public health has often been “hampered by nations’ refusal to share samples and data, by patchwork funding for surveillance, and by scattered epidemiological and clinical information that is disconnected from genomics, making it harder to connect the dots”.
If you thinks the lady doth protest too much, it’s possible. We get lambasted for everything else, at least acknowledge best practice when it happens ‒ and be grateful.
The other thing? The damn taxman. I O Him. An administrative error by another party. So for the next 12 months, I Will Pay Him. But every single EFT will be a dagger in my heart over the crooked, thieving punks who aren’t.
- Lindsay Slogrove is the news editor
The Independent on Saturday