Healthcare workers at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital stage an industrial action, calling on the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health to provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) during the Covid-19 pandemic. The writer argues that South Africa must apply the lessons learnt from the coronavirus crisis to better prepare for future pandemics.
Five years after Covid-19 upended life as we knew it, South Africans should be careful not to confuse today's political arguments with genuine debates about medical science.
The pandemic divided society in ways few events have in recent history. Vaccination became one of the most contentious issues, with those opposed to the vaccines often labelled "anti-vaxxers", while those who supported vaccination were accused by critics of blindly following government and scientific institutions.
There is no denying that some people experienced adverse reactions after receiving Covid-19 vaccines, while others who died after vaccination were later found to have underlying medical conditions. Like any medical intervention, vaccines carry risks, but they also underwent extensive evaluation and were introduced because public health authorities concluded that, on balance, their benefits outweighed those risks.
