The United Kingdom has omitted Nigeria from its list of countries with valid COVID-19 vaccine certificates, in derision to the African giant’s efforts to vaccinate its populace.
The decision means fully vaccinated Nigerians travelling to the UK will still get some of the treatments reserved for the unvaccinated, among them, observing the required 10 days isolation on arrival in the country.
The UK said in a statement on Monday, that the decision is based on “a phased approach to recognizing vaccines administered by other countries and territories, building on the success of the pilot with the U.S. and Europe.”
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“Fully vaccinated residents in other countries not yet part of the inbound policy, as well as those partially vaccinated, will still have to take a pre-departure test, PCR tests for day 2 and day 8 after arrival, and self-isolate for 10 days, with the option to test to release after 5 days.
“The UK government is continuing to work with international partners as we seek to more regularly expand the policy to further countries and territories,” the country said.
Other African countries are also impacted by the decision, no matter how vaccinated they are.
Nigeria is among the countries least-impacted by covid, recording 165,809 cases and 2,067 deaths as of October 5, and has not been on the UK’s 54-country covid red list.
Currently, the UK accepts Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNtech, Moderna and Janssen vaccines for those fully vaccinated for at least 14 days before arrival in the country. Apart from Johnson & Johnson, Nigeria’s other vaccines fall in the category of vaccines approved by the UK, which adds curiosity to the ‘why’ Nigeria was excluded from the list.
Surprisingly, hardly hit countries like the US, Spain and Italy are allowed into the UK with vaccine certificates.
While the UK did not provide further explanation to why Nigeria is excluded from its list of countries with valid covid vaccine certificates, the decision stands opposite UK’sperceived support for Nigeria’s campaign for vaccination. The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, said the UK strongly supports the work of the Nigerian health authorities and the nation’s vaccination campaign.
Experts said the decision amounts to discrimination and will dampen the willingness of people to get vaccinated.
“We do not understand why the UK has taken this position,” the Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr John Nkengasong said last month. “It was a message that creates confusion within our population… creating more reticence, reluctance for people to receive vaccines.”
“This message doesn’t really speak to solidarity and co-operation that we all believe are the cornerstone and ingredients for us to emerge from this pandemic together,” he added.
The UK is not the first country to tow this path, the EU, though it was narrowed to the AstraZeneca manufactured in India, has failed to recognize people with some vaccine certificates, restricting them from entering into some European countries.
EU regulators had said AstraZeneca has not completed the necessary paperwork on the Indian factory, including vital information on its production practices and quality control standards. It is a claim that experts have refuted, describing it as unscientific and discriminatory while pointing out that the World Health Organization (WHO) had inspected and approved the factory.
Thus, the UK’s decision is believed to be part of the growing discriminatory treatment, by rich countries, against millions of people vaccinated through the UN-backed vaccination programs such as COVAX.
The political Covid-19 has provided another avenue for the ‘great divide’ to expand its territory, and as always – the rich nations lecture and dictate to the rest on how to manage their health policies.
It’s been long the legendary Covid-19 left the realms of science and logic, so it’s now fully domiciled in political capitals and bureaucrat kingdoms. The scientists no longer determine what works for covid, rather the politicians have taken over, telling you what you must do to be safe, even when they have been unable to prove that any of the ridiculous things they propagate actually works.
A vaccine that isn’t working, yet everyone is more or less mandated to get it, and when you ask, why? Nobody manages to come up with any meaningful or coherent answer, just shut up and get the shots…
As for Nigeria, if it wants to be taken seriously, it needs to learn to beat the mafias in their own game. Nobody owns science, so if others are entering laboratories to concoct ‘solutions’ to sprawling world’s problems, you need to enter your own laboratories too, and as they are reporting ‘successes’, you also need to be reporting ‘successes’ too. If the famed vaccines cannot protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated, then you do not need further exhortation to agree that they are not effective; but in a world built on half truths and herd mentality, almost everything makes sense.
The same vaccine, but depending on the country you get your shots, you are either accepted or rejected, and we are still wasting time believing nonsense? The issuer of your vaccine certificate is more valuable than the actual vaccine and your true health status, but we are meant to follow science! What a criminal enterprise we have built up over time.
Nigeria is perhaps the healthiest and most successful country to emerge from this covid thing, that’s what the science could have said if we still pay attention to it; now you have those dying in large numbers telling you that you are dangerous and unhealthy, even when they are on the ground…
Excellent Sir!
Is not their fault. When our politicians inflated the figure of covid patients in Nigeria ?? they don’t really know it will affect us this bad. May God help us.