2021 was a difficult year, nay, a hard hitting one! I lost a number of people I personally knew to COVID during the year. In a space of one week we lost Maria Chidzanja Nkhoma, Wambali Mkandawire, Patrick Semphere, Steven Lungu and, perhaps a less known personality to the public, character called Goli Mwanza.
Those who have not lost any close associates can hardly relate to COVID 19. They discuss the subject, but do so in terms other than concrete. Some of them actually express doubt as to whether COVID 19 is a real disease, supposing it to be a gimmick by those in power to hoodwink the citizenry into believing that there is a crisis when in fact they, the authorities, get money from reporting the so called COVID cases.
My son is medical doctor working at a semi rural health facility. Each time a patient came to the facility and tested positive to COVID, the guardians went wild, often threatening to beat him up. On one occasion he had to call the police to come and restore order. Implicitly, these people were demanding that the medical personnel should “manufacture” other causes of the patient’s ailment, perhaps malaria or diabetes or pneumonia. In the event of death, it was considered sacrilegious to ascribe the death to COVID 19.
When it comes to vaccines, many people propagate all manner of stories about them. Most of the stories are based on untruths or half truths. People who know so little about viruses or about DNA will give you full lectures on these subjects. They will say, for example, that the COVID vaccine is designed to alter people’s DNA make up, imparting to them a new personality which can easily be manipulated by the ‘masters’. That DNA can so easily be altered is laughable, to say the least.
Then there is the question of whether COVID vaccines should be made mandatory to some sections of the population. The vast majority of the people seem to be against mandatory vaccination. I have no problem with this position for reason I will explain in a little while. It is the reasons people give that bother me.
Some people say that there is no difference between those that are vaccinated and those that are not because even after getting the jab, you can contract COVID. While it is true that vaccinated people can contract COVID, the disease will, almost in all cases, not make them so sick as to require hospitalisation or ICU treatment. Now, that is a great difference. My own sister and her husband, both sexagenerians and with morbidities, tested positive to COVID but this was after they had each received the jab. They had mild symptoms and only required 12 days of self quarantine. I hate to imagine what would have happened if they had not gotten vaccinated.
Other reasons given are even more devoid of proper logic. Some, for example, say vaccines should not be mandatory because they are satanic. My foot! Some of the people who say these things are doing things that are really diabolical and yet they do not see them as such. Instead, they are quick to point out that COVID vaccines are satanic. It is infinitely more satanic, to me, to take a passenger on a motor bike without a helmet than to get a COVID jab.
Governments, including our own, contemplate some interventions, like mandatory vaccinations, out of desperation. COVID is a menace to the public and its solutions, to a large part, lie in the handling of the public. That may mean mandatory instructions to be followed by sections of a society. As I was typing this article, there was a news item on BBC to the effect that the French Government had declared that it was mandatory for French citizens to work remotely.
It is a basic human right that people should take any type of medication voluntarily. That would be a proper reason for rejecting mandatory vaccinations. Every person has the right to accept or reject any medical advice, not just COVID vaccines.
A certain gentleman who had worked for many years at Nkhoma Mission got sick and was hospitalised at the Mission hospital. One morning, the doctor, a South African missionary, broke the news to him that he had tested positive to diabetes and advised him to abstain from sugar to avoid undesirable consequences.
“Odokotala,” responded the patient, “Nasankha kufa. Koma zoti ine n’kusiya sugar iwalani. Ngati m’magwira ntchito, m’mafuna ndizigulako sugar yo. (I will not stop taking sugar, doc. If I die let me die. I work so that I can buy sugar). Choice!