Famous words spoken by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. There is a classic example of the practical logic in those words being demonstrated today in Johannesburg with the new Covid variant. This new variant called Omicron is said to be a result of 50 mutations and has developed in a country that has less than 20 per cent of its population who have had one dose of the vaccine.

Scientists are worried about the transmissibility of the virus and whether the existing vaccines have any resistance to it. The truth that lays bare the illogic of an intense programme of vaccination conducted in the developed nations — only to become undone because they neglected the poorer, if not darker, nations — is that the mutations are occurring where there is no vaccine and the disease has been allowed to mutate among this unvaccinated population with reinfection after another as the virus gains function and adapts to survive.

Britain and Europe are already reporting cases of the new variant, which seems to have a higher reinfection rate. Countries are scrambling to shut down travels from South Africa which feels like the world is trying to punish it for what truly is the joint negligence of the global community. South Africa is part of Brics nations, and all of those partner countries have had a bad experience with Covid — except for Brazil, they all have an active vaccine initiative.

India, in particular, is the largest producer of the vaccine and experienced a terrible episode contained through a vaccine programme. So how could they as economic partners turn a blind eye to South Africa; and the same goes for China, where the disease emanated?

The neglect gives rise to the question of what's going on, what were they thinking? There have already been accusations by conspiracy theorists of a perpetuated genocide and of repopulating South Africa. The same theorists originally claimed the Aids dilemma was the alleged tool of destruction, which caused harm but ultimately didn’t put a dent in population growth. According to that theory, is the new weapon Covid neglect?

There is understandable hesitancy within the general population, which, because of bad previous experience with the Aids programme that contributed to a rise in infections, treats any new programme with suspicion. Because of that negative experience, it becomes imperative to educate the population by example so as to gain their confidence in the efficacy of the vaccine.

Africa's population according to The Economist with its present growth rate, will be doubled by 2050 and become at that stage 25 per cent of the world's population, and the largest racial group. It is already the case that it has the youngest median age with countries such as Niger with a median age of just a little over 15 years of age. It’s an opportunity time bomb for Africa, which with today's technology is the new frontier and emerging economy.

This blatant neglect is suspicious, particularly by the developed nations, and the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, was right to bring attention to the matter at the recent United Nations General Assembly.

What will the rest of the world do? What will South Africa do? I can't predict, nor am I a scientist, but being one of the world’s oldest continuous populations whose land plays host to almost every animal species, every bird including several varieties of bats, and given the diet of the African people includes almost everything — even the unimaginable, similar to the Chinese — I think with these millions of years of adaptation, they are more predisposed to develop herd immunity faster than many countries.

The net result of the neglect may result in the rest of the world paying more in Covid casualty for not inoculating the poor countries of Africa and the islands of the Pacific. The clock has turned and owing to travel and economic interdependency, we are “one world” and must behave accordingly. We are witnessing the failures and disruptions in the global supply chain, where one item causes the cessation in the production of all products requiring a simple microchip. Factories cant build a car or a simple blender or food processor without a microchip. Production is no longer the result of a nation having all the commodities because the production line is now made up of a global supply network. Africa plays heavily in the network of resources.

The global situation brings us to the other part of the equation, which says “Your life is my life”. This extends not only to the human family but to the entire cosmos and environment. As a global society, which we truly are, we either act responsibly like this is one world that we all share, or we will suffer the consequences of our narrow focus and neglect.

So no one is free until we are all free.