Vaccines for the privileged

Footballers really are a cut above the rest! Just look at the Conmebol, the association of Latin America’s football associations. In mid-April Sinovac, the Chinese vaccine manufacturer promised 50’000 doses to vaccinate all professional players ahead of the Cop América after Lionel Messi donated them three signed shirts (not all of the national associations involved in the competition have to date accepted the Sinovac offer). But also in Mexico, 19 players from a club in Monterrey flew to Dallas to get injected, and the Mexican government promised to vaccinate the professional men’s and women’s football teams if they qualified for the Olympics (only the men did). And in Brazil Athletico Paranaense pledged to vaccinate not only its players and staff but also its entire fan base.

In Latin America, a region with both high numbers of covid-19 deaths and slow vaccine roll-outs, injections are a prize worth winning. In Mexico the roll-out has been politicised by president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He decided to initially give vaccines to people in rural, poorer areas rather than those most at risk of dying. Mexicans who can afford to do so are getting the vaccine in Texas. Brazil’s president Bolsonaro wants to make it easier for corporations to buy vaccines and earlier in the year it was revealed that ministers an their friends in Argentina, Ecuador and Peru hat get themselves vaccinated early.

In Venezuela, president Maduro received his first jab at the beginning of March already, while the rest of the population could be waiting for months (only 2% have had their first dose), by far the worst roll-out in South America. And the few available vaccines are given to those loyal to the government, whereas the rest are offered a ‘miracle’ cure based on thyme extract apparently developed be venezolean scientists and touted by Mr Maduro.

While infection rates explode in India and most of the African continent is still desperately waiting for vaccines, in South America the privileged get inoculated before the needy, Mexicans cross the border to get their jab in the USA, and even here in Europe cases of vaccination tourism become more frequent, for example with Germans coming to Switzerland to get inoculated.

In the U.K. and Switzerland, the Covid-19 vaccine is only available through the government’s health services. But this fact does not preclude the rich and famous from offering vast amounts of money to jump to the front of the queue, even ahead of care workers and the vulnerable. Take the example of Johann Rupert, a South African billionaire who lives at least part of his time in Switzerland, who got his COVID-19 jab in a private clinic as part of a trial vaccination run ahead of the official launch of the occultation campaign, and of which he is a major shareholder.

A survey in 2018 found that 61% of Mexican and 50% of Brazilian respondents said they trusted professional athletes and footballers; only 13% and 7% respectively said the same for politicians. Still, putting young, fit footballers ahead of society’s most vulnerable could turn out to be an own goal.