EDITORIAL COMMENT: We must get our jabs when called in The leadership shown by President Mnangagwa and the main opposition leaders on the first day of the second phase, when Parliamentary and Government officers were called in, certainly helped dispel doubts, as did the overwhelming acceptance by religious leaders who stood in line when they were called in.

Zimbabwe notched up its 200 000th first vaccination jab on Monday, just 10 days after reaching 100 000, and that milestone took almost six weeks, proof that we have been accelerating the national vaccination programme.

Now President Mnangagwa wants the foot even harder on the pedal as we build on our progress towards a safer Zimbabwe, one that has a zero infection rate for Covid-19. 

Government has done its part, procuring vaccines, some by gift, but with substantial commercial orders already delivered and is confident of meeting its minimum target of 1 million doses, enough for 500 000 people, to be bought each month. 

Besides our own bilateral efforts to procure vaccines we are also going to be tapping into Covax, a major programme by the World Health Organisation and its partners to ensure that vaccines are distributed equitably around the world and that all countries are ready, willing and able to run vaccination programmes. 

As WHO puts it pithily, no one is safe until everyone is safe. So the largest ever vaccination programme in history has to be inclusive and has to include all countries.

WHO has never been fussed about politics; when it was organising the eradication of smallpox in the 1970s it even organised a ceasefire during the Ethiopia-Somalia war to get vaccination teams into the last area of the world with infections.

That eradication of smallpox, and the imminent eradication of polio, shows that global vaccination efforts can work, so Covid-19 can be eradicated from the face of the world so long as every country, and every person, plays their part. 

Zimbabwe has already passed the tests for preparatory work.

We have a good vaccine chain in place, the one that we have used for decades to immunise almost all our children against a swathe of childhood diseases that used to cause avoidable suffering and deaths.

So we have the internal logistics, the cold stores, the fridges in most hospitals and clinics. 

And with the expansion of staff levels by the Ministry of Health and Child Care last year and early this year, and the general upgrade of our public health systems, we have the vaccination teams. 

Acceptability of vaccination in the groups already called in has been high and has been growing, a point the President made on Monday.

Drivel on social media and stupid statements by some opposition politicians did create some initial hesitancy, although the highest-risk group of all, the medical professions, responded rapidly.

They deal with sick people every day, so wanted to avoid infection, and their professional training allowed them to look at fact, rather than conspiracy fancies.

The leadership shown by President Mnangagwa and the main opposition leaders on the first day of the second phase, when Parliamentary and Government officers were called in, certainly helped dispel doubts, as did the overwhelming acceptance by religious leaders who stood in line when they were called in.

With more than 200 000 people now having had their first jab, 205 275 when the nurses packed up for the day on Monday afternoon, most people must know someone who has been vaccinated so it is now very largely a case of finding time to go to a centre and queue for a short while once your group is called in. 

At least half of those targeted in the second phase, since that phase includes the teachers and lecturers, have still to make this modest effort. As the President said, the quicker they stand in line the quicker the process will move.

The Health Ministry has already had a lot more vaccination centres opened, and will be opening many more to cut travel time and queues.

Government has, quite rightly, made it clear that all vaccinations must be free.

This is how the other vaccination programmes are run and the same policy makes sense. It does not matter how rich or poor you are, your child has been vaccinated for free for decades.

The alternative would be a slower vaccination rate, poorer people being reluctant to see if they could be vaccinated, the rich jumping the queues, and some sort of complex means test at the vaccination centres to separate out those who could not pay and so needed free vaccines in the first place.

But if it would help accelerate the vaccination drive even further we do not see why there could not be an appeal for donations.

So long as there was a wall between the donations and the vaccinations, the people procuring and administering vaccines had no idea who might or might not have donated, then this should work.

We could even say people should only donate after they have had their two jabs.

This would simply require accounts where donations could be sent.

There might be a lot of widows’ mites, small gifts from ordinary people who feel they should contribute something, even just a few dollars, to the jab they have just had, but those can add up.

The mobile money providers put in those systems when we needed to mobilise help for Cyclone Idai and it could be done again. 

There could even be a system as we call in workers from the mining, industrial and commercial sectors for large companies to contribute so long as it was clearly understood that the workers were vaccinated for free and payment did not get a higher place in the queue.

Big mines, in any case, might want to make the necessary transport and accommodation arrangements for a vaccination team to come to the isolated mine and use the mine clinic rather than transport all their workers to the nearest centre.

But basically for all Zimbabweans the best way we can get that minimum of 10 million people vaccinated to achieve herd immunity is for everyone to stand in line when their group is called in.

The faster each group is vaccinated, the sooner the next group can have their turn.

Details of the third phase, when mass vaccination starts, have yet to be announced, but obviously the third-phasers will need to be called by groups.

And when we are called, we must go. WHO had it right. We are not safe until we are all safe.

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