The current government has, for months, launched a national campaign for vaccination, which has later been discovered to be weak and inconsistent with reality, especially with regard to the stock of available vaccines or the spread of vaccination centers, as well as the readiness of Tunisians to engage in the EVAX system…
Today, after the availability of vaccine doses in relatively significant quantities, and the beginning of addressing the shortcomings of the weak spread of vaccination centers by relying on mobile medical teams supervised by military medicine in coordination with the Ministry of Health, in addition to the increase in the number of people registered in the EVAX system, it became necessary for the government to present to Tunisians an explanation of the situation and reveal to them its strategy. The silence of the prime minister and his contentment with making press statements, most of which were among the weaknesses recorded in the course of confronting the corona virus, a silence that was not broken by several obstacles, not the least of which was the confusion and suspicions of manipulation that affected the vaccination campaign at its beginning.
Hichem Mechichi avoided disclosing his government’s plan and strategy in relation to vaccination and stood behind the Ministry of Health, whose statements were fumbled in relation to the national vaccination campaign, or behind the Scientific Committee or the Pasteur Institute.
This hiding behind these people, and the insinuation that the entire file is being supervised, is not a justification for the prime minister’s failure to reveal his adopted strategy. He is required to announce one of two things: either preserving the old strategy despite its shortcomings, or modifying it, or revealing a new strategy. This is what Tunisians expect from him and his government: clarity of vision and a specific and effective strategy instead of ambiguity in the daily handling of the crisis.
The epidemiological situation necessitated two paths in the country, intensifying the vaccination process and raising its pace, not maintaining the same pattern. In the past two days, there was no change in the rate of vaccination operations, as it continued below 30,000 doses per day whereas the deployed teams and centers designated for vaccination are able to provide a daily schedule that exceeds 80 thousand doses per day.
The government should clarify how it will increase the rate of vaccination and how it will intensify it and through any mechanisms instead of looking for easy solutions with unsafe consequences, such as relying on the involvement of private pharmacies in the vaccination campaign.
What is expected – today – from the Mechichi government is to present its plan to raise the rate of vaccination, to explain it and present its stages. It should also explain how to achieve this and who will be included in the vaccination and whether the age group between 12 and 18 years will be included in the vaccination campaign, and whether work will be done to provide 100% vaccination to all Tunisians.
As for the other element that the government is required to provide, it is its plan to take care of patients and those infected with Covid-19, and how it will provide human capital and medical care for patients, from a medical and semi-medical framework, workers and others involved in providing care to patients.
To this day, we are faced with an absolute uncertainty that pervaded the vaccination file and the health care file, neither a clear picture nor a precise, detailed plan explaining to us how, when and by what means we will confront the danger.
How long will this danger extend? and does the government have the ability to anticipate the future and set a detailed protocol that defines how to move and act according to every possibility?
