#TwoBits: Lining up for a jab

When I read at the weekend that coronavirus vaccination registration for ancient people, i.e. those over 60, had started I immediately clicked on the link and registered.

I have been telling everyone that I am not particularly nervous about catching Covid, but the speed at which I provided all my details betrayed the lie.

The constant reminders to wear masks and the way other shoppers dance out of my way in the supermarket have their effect, no matter how casual one might pretend to be.

Rose had Covid last year and I didn’t catch it. Because I went to hospital for an eye op in February I had to be tested, so I know I haven’t had it.

But that does not mean I am immune, or that Rose couldn’t catch it again and infect me.

The government talks about a rollout for oldies from next month, but I suppose we will have to wait and see.

There has been some worry about the effectiveness of various vaccines, but it seems to be part of the general fear about the coronavirus.

There’s a lot of fear about!

The history of vaccinations, going way back a hundred or more years, is that they have been of enormous benefit.

Smallpox, once a huge killer, has been wiped off the face of the earth.

The last known victim of smallpox died in 1978. Whooping cough and German measles (rubella) have been reduced from widespread killers to localised outbreaks.

As a child in the 50s I remember being told at school we’d all be inoculated that day, and were terrified of being jabbed with needles. But when the moment came the nurses inoculated against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) with a 3-in-1 airgun ‘injection’ that left a little round area of puckered skin on our shoulders.

For anti-polio we all lined up to receive a sugar cube with a little pink dose of muti.

I do remember catching measles at some later stage, though only mildly.

Then when we South Africans travelled overseas in the early 70s, we had to carry a little yellow booklet showing that we’d been vaccinated against yellow fever and smallpox.

There was no big outcry then that the jabs would cause harm, alter our DNA or deliver us into the hands of the Devil.

The world has changed a lot, of course, and today every second Karen on social media is a medical expert with dire warnings about what might happen.

Interestingly, we attended a 70th birthday party at the Pretoria Club – very swanky place! – on Saturday night.

The wait staff all wore masks, but all but two of the 50 guests abandoned their masks for the evening.

Many of them were doctors and probably had had their shots, but the crowd just seemed intent in getting on with their lives.

The question on everyone’s lips is: “Will you get the jab?” My answer is “Of course I will.” Even if I try not to outwardly worry and let fear rule my life, I’d rather have the jab than not. It’s the sensible thing to do.

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Isn’t it hilarious that Tokyo Sexwale, the big shot rich boy and one-time presidential hopeful, seems to have fallen for a most basic scam?

He went on TV to complain that billions of rands had been stolen after being donated by ‘a prominent family’ to provide for the poor and for free education.

Despite the tycoon’s experience in financial matters, the Reserve Bank says he had fallen for a “common scam”.

Letters written by the “White Spiritual Boy Trust”, the so-called donors of the billions, show that it was a very elaborate version of the old Nigerian 419 scam.

Where has Sexwale been for the past 20 years? Not reading his emails, obviously.