Conversation

Eve Fairbanks
@evefairbanks
Hi from South Africa, birthplace of your newest Covid variant! I see hot takes that SA’s problem is we don’t have enough nice American vaccines. WE DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH VACCINE SUPPLY!!! We’re TURNING AWAY vax shipments. Our problem is FEAR of vaccines. Same as you.
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L Graves
@LGSentinel
Replying to @snolen
If this newest variant doesn't prompt us to see the light and push for world-wide vaccination against COVID, what then? World-wide vaccination worked with polio, smallpox. John Donne was right. No one is an island.
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Eve Fairbanks
@evefairbanks
South Africa’s vaccine problem is not, currently, the West’s unwillingness to export its vaccines. Our problem is what the West IS exporting.
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Eve Fairbanks
@evefairbanks
Tucker Carlson, Bret Weinstein, Dr. Robert Malone, all your British celebrity vax skeptics—they’re all popular. The biggest South African vax-skeptic celebrity, Nick Hudson? 3/4 of his tweets are just retweets of Westerners. I went thru a week of them and counted.
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Eve Fairbanks
@evefairbanks
South Africa has long been more vax-hesitant—only ~70% of its children receive the MMR—and for comprehensible reasons. To be frank—just thirty years ago, medical science was being used here to “prove” black people were inferior. “Trust the science” can be problematic.
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Eve Fairbanks
@evefairbanks
However: 70% of South African families vaccinate their kids. Less than 40% of South African adults have gotten the full Covid vaccine. This is a LOT of extra hesitation.
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Eve Fairbanks
@evefairbanks
You can go to any vax site in Johannesburg and get a jab. VACCINE SUPPLY IS NOT SOUTH AFRICA’S BIG PROBLEM. The other day, an acquaintance declared he’d rather listen to America’s biggest anti-vax MD than any South African authority. I see this on my socials all the time.
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Eve Fairbanks
@evefairbanks
The thing that makes me angriest? Dr Robert Malone—the American celebrity anti-vaxxer I see pop up most on South African socials—TOOK THE COVID-19 VACCINE. He’s preaching South Africans a devastating vax austerity from the comfort of a vaccine Learjet, figuratively speaking.
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XenoLlama
@XenoLlamas
Replying to
@evefairbanks
Honest question here, is it possible that the issue is still vaccine distribution but in other areas of Africa? Is it possible that due to SA's investments in medical technology they were merely the first to detect it? Are we sure SA is the birthplace?
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