Mandatory COVID certificate amidst vaccine shortage? Something is wrong

The South Sudanese people were astonished last week when the government said it would embark on a forceful vaccination campaign in a desperate attempt to compel citizens to show up for the jab.

Citizens without prove of COVID-19 vaccination will not be allowed access public services. Reports from some media outlets also had it that the government could force private companies and aid agencies to implement the order internally and dismiss any employee that will not comply.

“We will not accept if you come to the public places like hotels and government’s guarded places (institutions) without something to prove that you have been vaccinated against COVID-19 because there’s a new variant which is spreading very fast in one of the neighboring countries,” Hussein Abdelbagi, the Chairperson of the National Taskforce on COVID-19 Pandemic told City Review last week.

He did not end there. He also threatened the imposition of another lockdown, shutting all places of public gathering, including schools.

“I want to take opportunity to inform all school’s administration that any pupil or student must wear facemask and we as the Taskforce will be forced to shut down the school which does not comply with the rule. If we realize that people are not complying, we will impose lockdown,” he was further quoted by The City Review.

The Vice President is concerned about the well-being of the citizens, that’s certain. However, citizens are still left wondering about where to get vaccinated after the government returned 72000 of the 132000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine donated by COVAX.

People familiar with this development say the government only has 12,000 doses of vaccine left in the store for a population above 12 million people.

Even someone who’s poor at mathematics can calculate this and find out the obvious impossibility of mass vaccination. Of course the government can authoritatively make vaccination mandatory if has an alternative at public disposal.

Vaccine privatization

The call for all citizens to get vaccinated amid vaccine shortage has also raised questions on whether the 72,000 doses of the vaccine were returned or privatized by individuals. This sounds speculative, yeah, but unprecedented decisions call for unprecedented reasoning.

Another confidential source also told this publication that plans were underway to roll the vaccination campaign in the ten states. It is unclear where all the doses have been procured or the government is banking on the leftover in the store, which will not be enough even for the population of Juba.

Vaccine education

Dr. Angelo Guop, the Director of Emergency Preparedness at the Ministry of Health was brutally honest when he said the citizens lack education and were overtaken by misinformation in the fast-paced social media world.

“One of the major challenges that is raised by the citizens are these negative videos on social media. We have assembled those videos whereby some people say those vaccines are not vaccines, but simply some materials for the virus, they don’t protect people,” Dr. Angelo told VOA earlier.

In May, South Sudan sent back 72, 000 doses of coronavirus vaccine due to its incapacity to use up the doses while all the priority groups were yet to get the jabs. The vaccine doses were reportedly ‘taken to Kenya’.

“We don’t want to run the risk of expiring here in our hands. It will be accounted for so we are committing back an amount of 72, 000 doses so that they are used by someone who can deploy these doses in one week and then once we finish with our 60, 000,” said Dr. Mayen Machuot, Undersecretary in the Ministry of Health.

If all these doses were really taken and the government insists citizens get the vaccination certificate, it will come at a cost, which most ordinary citizens struggling to put food on the table may not afford.