Covid and extended overlanding, what will make you feel good enough to go?

[Wazungu Wawili]

It sounds like the doctor had been vaccinated, but his family who accompanied him on this trip, had not necessarily been vaccinated. And had the other members of his trip been vaccinated?

Being vaccinated is only one step forward.

We have been lucky enough to have had our first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine this week. Nearly 20 million doses have been administered here in the UK, with the target being to give the first dose to all adults by the end of July. An incredible feat of logistics.

[Wazungu Wawili]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55674139

[BasZ]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55674139

I think the same applies for the registration of births

[tashtego9]

Actually, this doctor (and two members of his family, who were with him in Namibia) developed the symptoms a few days aftet their return. He was vaccinated (second shot) in January.

There is no info on how severely ill they currently are, but he has had quite some contacts with his colleagues and patients at work, even when he already started to show some symptoms. So our epidemiologists are currently very bussy with detecting and isolating all who were in closer contacts with him.

(Maybe not quite appropriate to mention this, but his apparently was a hunting trip to Namibia. Seems like a bad carma striking back.)

It seems from this study that the Pfizer vaccine elicits a lesser antibody response against the SA variant (2/3rd less). I would be curious to see how the J&J fares against the SA form, it has just had FDA approval yesterday in the US I think...

https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pan...-south-african

[Stan Weakley]

Contributing my thoughts on this very pertinent thread, rather late but have been away (locally ).

I too am really itchy to do some extensive overland traveling again in Africa. Would have almost certainly been on the road had it not been for the pandemic.

I will not be leaving until we are vaccinated, preferably two doses each. I also will want to wait until more clarity emerges on inter-African border posts and their propensity to be closed suddenly as further Covid flareups occur or new variants emerge. It can be a very expensive and inconvenient business to store a vehicle for a prolonged period mid-trip should there be border closures, never mind the temporary import expiries, flights home etc.

I am happy to take all the risks that African travel can throw at us in the normal course of events and with my medical background as a doctor should be able to arrange the best local care available if suddenly needed and feel confident that my medical status should equip me a little better than average to deal with the vagaries of international medical insurance. What I am concerned about is to be needing sophisticated hospital care for a non-Covid medical crisis in a country with limited medical resources already, without being overloaded by the pandemic.

I therefore will not be considering prolonged multiple African country overlanding until about 2022.

[Wazungu Wawili]

I haven't read this one yet, but another overlanding trip that is underway right now: https://catch-the-wind.com

I don’t know about the current owners of Big Bertha, but the previous owners - who had travelled extensively all over the world in that enormous truck as a family - the wife had not passed her HGV licence and could not drive the truck. I think it is a “big ask” for only one person to be able to drive the vehicle. What happens when the driver is incapacitated in some remote place?

Each person on an overland trip needs to be able, on their own, do basic things like changing a tyre - and, definitely, be a competent off-road driver.

Reminds me of

“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”

[alannymarce]

I don’t know about the current owners of Big Bertha, but the previous owners - who had travelled extensively all over the world in that enormous truck as a family - the wife had not passed her HGV licence and could not drive the truck. I think it is a “big ask” for only one person to be able to drive the vehicle. What happens when the driver is incapacitated in some remote place?

Agree completely - we share driving 50/50 - 2 hours/2 hours (and in tough conditions 1 hour/1 hour), and take breaks at every change or at most every 4 hours.

Having only one driver is putting a lot of stress on that one person - it's far too easy to think "no problem, I've done this for years". When I was younger and even more stupid I used to drive long hours - falling asleep at the wheel once was enough! Occasionally one of us will do more driving (for example in national parks when we're doing game drives I usually drive so that Marce can focus on photographs, so I may drive all day, albeit stopped much of the time), however as a rule we share (and argue about who owes whom X minutes...).

I have a licence to drive trucks, although haven't done so for years - we've talked about both of our doing the truck test when mine comes up for renewal (every three years). Our normal vehicle is however not a truck.

In terms of the potential to have a driver incapacitated - this happened to us in Australia - in Pine Creek (which is on the main highway from Katherine to Darwin). Without any warning, I was overcome with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV), which I'd never had before - came out of nowhere. Fortunately we had stopped for a coffee. Marce had to drive to the town we'd left an hour before, where we went to the hospital. I was unable to drive for about three weeks. Had we been in the middle of the Desert we'd have been in real problems if only I could drive. During those three weeks we made shorter trajectories and took longer breaks.