NEWS that AstraZeneca has withdrawn its Covid-19 vaccine worldwide, and admitting it can cause rare blood clots caught my attention this week.
This is critical, because Muck, like many Zimbabweans and millions of others globally, buried loved ones as a result of the pandemic.
As of last month, the official data showed that Zimbabwe had 266 359 infections, with 5 740 fatalities and 258 888 recoveries. But, conversations with several doctors shed light on other victims of the virus, whose fatalities are not included: those who died from complications resulting from the effects of Covid-19.
According to the medical fundis, most people, who suffered from severe cases of Covid-19 or long Covid, invariably suffered from blood clotting later, and many such victims did not survive.
Now, AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish drugmaker, has admitted in court documents that its vaccine, initially called Covishield, could cause rare side effects called Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS), which causes blood clots and low blood platelet count, reports from the United Kingdom media showed.
This is of interest to Muck because apart from losing loved ones to the virus, Muck also had to deal with the medical emergencies associated with blood clots that would have claimed even more family members if it was not for swift medical attention.
Many were not so lucky. But the questions remain. Were such effects only limited to the AstraZeneca vaccine, or this may be a problem with other vaccines? Who will give closure and possibly compensate the silent victims of blood clots?
In Zimbabwe, we do not keep statistics of long Covid sufferers but the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data shows that nearly 18 million people, about 6,8% of American adults could be living with long Covid. In the United Kingdom, the estimated long Covid sufferers are reportedly over two million.
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Some of the victims of blood clots may not have been inoculated but the case of AstraZeneca shows that there is something there. Last year, the drugmaker had insisted that it would “not accept that TTS is caused by the vaccine at a generic level”.
Now we know differently and Muck would like some answers.
The King and his wards of US$
An interesting video doing rounds during the week caught Muck’s eye.
The owner of the country, President Emmerson Mnangagwa gifted an 80-year man with US$800 for a captivating dance at the memorial service and tombstone unveiling in Bikita at the weekend for his grandson, who passed away in 2022.
Of concern to Muck, however, is that our owner never seems to have any local currency on him when it comes to handouts. His gifts are always in the form of United States dollars, and the rest of us are wondering why we have to suffer the local currency when its creators and champions have no public affinity with it.
As Muck has been yammering about since the Zimbabwe Gold was introduced at the start of last month, charity begins at home. And if ZiG is to be our money, then so be it. Let us live and die with it. And our leaders must be seen to be leading in that respect.
Zimbabwe is a strange country where confidence in its currency has to be enforced by the police through arrests of those playing the market forces of demand and supply.
Meanwhile, our leaders very publicly are seen espousing the greenback as the only viable store of value. The result is a convoluted mess. Only retailers seem to be taking the ZiG (well, after the generari threatened to shut them down, they do not seem to have much of a choice), while everyone else, including government departments, want nothing to do with this so-called money.
Even the police do not want fines paid out in ZiG!
When the ZiG was announced, it was as virtual money, with the notes only becoming available on April 30. So, for most of the time, the country has functioned just fine without the infernal inconvenience, and public transport operators prefer it so.
Despite the ZiG having been in circulation for the past two weeks, Muck has never seen any, including the coins.
Of John The Second and his ZiG
After trying unsuccessfully to disown the ZiG, the man overseeing our apex bank, John Mushayavanhu, has opted to own up on what is likely to be his lasting legacy.
Man did he try! First, he blamed the industry for recommending a new currency, then the World Bank for telling him about a ‘structured currency.’
But the stench would not go away, so finally he took responsibility for the mess he unleashed.
“No one told us to introduce the ZiG currency, of course, when doing something, one might seek for ideas and advice from others just to fine-tune but it does not mean that if you consult on something you want to do, it means you did not originate it,” he told a business meeting organised by the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) in Masvingo.
“We consulted widely yes, but ZiG is my product as the Governor of the Reserve Bank and if it fails it’s my fault; it’s my brainchild.” It was an idea that was long in his mind, he said, adding that he started mulling about introducing ZiG in September last year when the country’s owner told him that he would be the next political football, or the man to add his name to a short list that include GG and the John The First. We all know how it ended for both men.
Botswana and the Zec circus
How times change! Botswana has gone from being very critical of Zimbabwe’s electoral processes to copying them! The neighbouring country will hold its general election later this year, and officials from its Independent Electoral Commission visited our very own Zimbabwe Electoral Commission for a benchmarking exercise!
Someone in Botswana thought it was a good idea to copy an election that was widely panned out as not only undemocratic, but border fraud as some would argue?
Or someone over there knows their chances of winning a free and fair election are slim to none, and want to hedge against unpatriotic voters, who could kick them away from the feeding trough?
