I received a recent, surprising call from a close relative in Northern Europe, telling me that she is being offered the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, but was too afraid to take it.
We quietly discussed the vast odds of her getting an unusual blood clot even as bandwidths fluctuated and our internet connection came and went.
Despite the very low risks to her above-60 age group and my citing of research that the benefits outweigh potential dangers, she still concluded her fear of getting COVID-19 is less than that of showing a rare reaction to the world’s most widespread vaccine against the mutating virus. At that point, the family linkage was also in mortal danger of fraying, much like my favourite double mask and my depleting patience for science and poll deniers.
“I would accept it, if I had the chance,” I firmly advised, musing we could swap places, but her mind was irrationally made up. On this side of the planet, by an accident of geography, I and many millions of others in developing countries with little or no hope of fully inoculating their populations quickly, enjoy no such luxury, as the right of refusal, or as my mother would have observed, “to pick and choose,” then decline.
Just seven people have died from blood clots after receiving the vaccine in the United Kingdom (UK). In total, only 30 people out of the 18 million vaccinated by the review date, March 24 last, showed the side effect, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported. Based on the UK data alone, if a million people are vaccinated, then you could expect less than two to have a blood clot, with one death in every 2.6M vaccinations. If a million 60-year-olds caught the virus then around 20,000 would die of COVID-19.
These rare globs in the brain, termed “cerebral venous sinus thromboses” or CVSTs have prompted some rich nations, including Germany, France, the Netherlands and Canada, to halt, and later resume restricted use of the AstraZeneca concoction, although the condition was found in a mere handful of patients.
Yesterday, the European Medicines Agency continued to stress the advantages of the vaccine, in a study looking at 86 continental cases, reflecting information on 25 million Europeans treated with the shot. Chiming in, the World Health Organisation’s added that although a blood clot link was “plausible” it was “not confirmed” with “very rare” instances among the 200 million people vaccinated with AstraZeneca globally. The European Union (EU) has applied vaccine export controls in a nationalistic bid to safeguard its own supplies and vulnerable populations.
Contrast that to the stark gap between vaccination programmes in different countries, with many, primarily in Africa, yet to report a single dose. More than 132 million Covid-19 infections have been recorded across the world, along with more than 2.8 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University research. Over 693 million vaccine doses were given, equal to 9 doses for every 100 people, but about 84 percent of shots have gone into arms in high-and upper-middle-income states, with only 0.1 percent of doses administered in low-income countries, the New York Times said, referring to findings compiled from government sources by the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.
The conversations left me saddened and perplexed, and set me thinking about vaccine inequities, inadequacies and injustices. Here in the Caribbean, where we have few precious vaccines to go round, I am resigned to my far greater risk of getting fatally shot by a gunman in a crime-rife country of 1.4M, than I have of securing a single shot of the initial 34 000 doses just sent to Trinidad and Tobago through the COVAX facility.
Ironically, had I remained a permanent resident in Guyana, I would have qualified as a middle-aged and over 40 national for the present round of AstraZeneca that has come from COVAX with other shipments due from India and China. Then again, given the ongoing obsession with money and keeping the country and its airports, bars and clubs open for big business, instead of sensible tighter national lockdowns from a tone deaf administration, I could very well have ended up worse off than the at least three careful relatives of my immediate Guyana branch who caught and luckily survived the virus late last year, minus their scent and taste glands. Three others in the same household were completely unaffected.
We may have already reached a terrible turning point, with a current surge, including almost 200 new cases in just two days, even as the limited local vaccination campaign is underway. Last month featured the highest number of new infections, with the death toll reaching 250 by yesterday. Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony warned that dozens of persons are in state hospitals because of the virus and many of them require breathing assistance. COVID-19 cases rose within the past two months in Regions Four, Three and Seven and more infected persons now require hospitalization.
“Make no mistake, COVID-19 transmission is very active in Guyana right now. Every time one leaves home, you are at risk. Like in other countries, COVID-19 is also showing, during this new surge, that it spreads faster and it has become deadlier. Most worrisome, COVID-19 is now affecting younger people, and causing severe illnesses in persons, not only younger, but with no comorbidities. COVID-19 is more dangerous now than at any time before”, the Ministry cautioned in a statement Friday.
The pace of inoculation will be too slow to stem the latest wave of infection, so we can expect the figures to soar in the deadly days and weeks to come, given the willingness of too many to flout regulations and advice, and the Government’s puzzling reluctance to take decisive action. Other nations are rushing to re-impose restrictions on movement and businesses, ordering people to stay home, but we stagger on drunk, mask-less and waiting in gatherings for the spike that could see our few hospitals filled and our fragile health system on the verge of collapsing one year after the outbreak.
I am beginning to feel like the sick patient that went to a doctor, who mistakenly prescribed a powerful laxative instead of cough drops. At the end of the week, the patient came back for a check-up. The doctor asked: “So how’s it going, do you still cough a lot?”
The patient, sitting there rigidly, looked at him with wide eyes, admitted, “No. I’m afraid to.”
ID looks back to 1961 when astronomer Frank Drake developed a simple equation, consisting of seven variables, to estimate the probability of finding extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way. Fluid mechanics experts have developed a similar formula to answer what determines someone’s chances of catching COVID-19.
