Author: Howard Feldman

There needs to be some reward for South African scientists having identified the new COVID-19 variant. Besides the recognition that we are pretty much on top of our game, the only tangible result seems to have been that countries have locked their doors to us, labelled us “red” and returned us to our place of origin without too much ceremony. The knee-jerk reaction to the identification of Omicron was swift. Countries around the world shut their borders to South Africa and other Southern African countries, quarantined us at the tip of Africa without even understanding what the new variant is,…

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News that the Astra Zeneca vaccine is not effective against the “South African” variant, came as a terrible blow. The first consignment had already arrived in the country amidst much pomp and circumstance, the President had lauded the work done in procuring the batch and eager medical teams had their sleeves rolled up in anticipation of receiving the first shot. Unfortunately, everything came to a grinding halt when it became clear that the virus was one step ahead and that it had no intention of being curtailed by this vaccine. In fairness to the government, they could not have predicted…

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