Western vaccine myths are thriving in Africa
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Mexico is battling an increase in delta variant cases — and a collective sense of pandemic amnesia. This week, the country recorded its biggest rise in Covid-19 infections since February, according to health ministry data, bringing the country’s total number of cases to 2,604,711 and its deaths to 235,277. The government’s pandemic response has been defined by inaction and denial. It has undercounted coronavirus deaths (some estimates place the real figure at nearly double that recorded), resisted ordering shutdowns during a second wave at the end of 2020 and kept its borders open to foreign visitors, without requesting testing or quarantines. Now, beaches and boulevards are packed with summer revelers. “But the forgetting doesn’t mean it didn’t happen — or can’t happen again, soon,” reads a recent Bloomberg piece. “Variants of the virus are devastating parts of Latin America, and indications are that Mexico might not escape another wave.”
In China, a new disaster blockbuster, based on the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan, is topping the box office charts. So far “Chinese Doctors” has made 548 million yuan ($84 million). Made to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, the movie makes no mention of Li Wenliang, the whistleblower doctor who died of Covid-19 — and the omission hasn’t escaped Chinese social media users. “Thank you to all the Chinese doctors for working hard for Wuhan and Hubei,’” wrote one reviewer on the Douban social networking site on Monday. “And thank you to those doctors with surnames that are not convenient to mention in the movie.”
In Almaty, Kazakhstan, the police detained doctors and nurses from three medical centers for falsifying PCR tests and vaccine certificates this week. It’s not an isolated incident. Earlier this month, authorities apprehended physicians in three different regions for handing out fake vaccine certificates. This comes as the country grapples with a third wave of coronavirus infections, with daily cases topping 4,000. Yet, vaccine uptake remains low: only around 2.5 million of the country’s 18.7 population million have received a full course of two shots.