Assumptions are the mother of all ...

Yet another gaffe in the tiresome vaccine saga [View this email in your browser]( July 7, 2021 [Mail & Guardian]( [Mail & Guardian]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [YouTube]( Hi there, Today we bring you a parable from the wonderful world of internet (read: amateur) psychology: the pot roast principle. It goes something like this. The day had come for a little girl to learn the famed family pot roast recipe from her mother. As they were prepping the chunk of beef, the mom took a carving knife to the edges and sliced them off. “Why did you do that?” the girl asked inquisitively. “I don’t know,” the mother shrugged, “it’s just how we’ve always done it.” Unsatisfied, the girl went to go see her grandmother. She found her sipping a gin and tonic near the pool and inquired why she had taught her own daughter this peculiar method. Nonplussed by the question, the grandmother shrugged: “I don’t know: it’s just how we’ve always done it.” Undeterred, the girl went to bother her poor great-grandma at her nursing home, where she was reclining in a chair, enjoying a game of Rummikub. The child savoured the scent of an imminent answer to her mystery: perhaps cutting the edges off allowed the fat to coalesce into a delicious crust? Maybe the juices of the veggies better seeped into the meat and imbued it with their flavour? But great-grandma laughed when the question was put to her. “Our first family home was rather small,” she said. “It had a tiny oven and the only way I could get the roast to fit was to cut off the edges.” The lessons of this story should be obvious to just about everyone. Or so we hope. Somebody at the health department has been leaving expensive cuts of meat on the floor. The week began with South Africans able to apply for a “request for vaccination for special circumstances”. This specifically covered those people who may require it for travel. By yesterday afternoon, however, the situation had become horribly muddied. Acting health minister Mmamoloko Kubayi came out and insisted that the circular issuing that directive had now been withdrawn. The policy had apparently not been cleared by the interministerial committee (IMC) — the Survivor jury who determines who was supposed to get immunity in this week’s episode. “This was not authorised by [the] IMC on vaccine[s], which is the final decider on target population,” [Kubayi tweeted](. “I have consistently maintained that I will vaccinate when my age group population is opened; this is the stance by many of my colleagues. The circular has been withdrawn.” And so, in typically oblique South African fashion, a circular was issued denouncing the previous circular that had been issued only two days before. To us, the public, it is yet another gaffe in the tiresome vaccine saga. Surely, at some point while this significant directive was being rolled out, somebody might have thought to question the process? With so much disinformation drifting around, might there not be added emphasis to interrogate what is released? What information actually makes its way to frontline workers? This is unacceptable from our leaders. They will do well to take a bonus lesson from the pot roast principle: at some point, future generations are going to question why we do what we do. When they do, those in power — many of whom are still coasting on generational goodwill — better have the answers. See you Friday, Kiri Rupiah & Luke Feltham [Subscribe now]( Enjoy The Ampersand? Share it with your friends [Share]( [Share]( [Tweet]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( [Forward]( [Share]( [Share]( Copyright © 2021 Mail & Guardian Media LTD, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in to receive communications from the Mail & Guardian either at our website or by taking out a print subscription. Our mailing address is: Mail & Guardian Media LTD 25 Owl St BraamfonteinJohannesburg, Gauteng 2001 South Africa [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences or unsubscribe here.]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} [why did I get this?]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update subscription preferences]( Mail & Guardian Media LTD · 25 Owl St · Braamfontein · Johannesburg, Gauteng 2001 · South Africa