French Racists, COVID-19 and the BCG vaccine

By Nana Dadzie Ghansah

As COVID-19 broke out in China and began its inexorable spread worldwide, epidemiologists noticed the paucity of cases in places like India and countries in the southern hemisphere like Brazil. They also compared mortality in a country like Japan with what was going on in Italy, Spain and later the US.

In a paper by titled “Correlation between universal BCG vaccination policy and reduced morbidity and mortality for COVID-19: an epidemiological study”, Aaron Miler and his group hit upon a possible cause for this:

The Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine used to prevent tuberculosis.

In a paper great on correlation but sparse in causality, they make the claim that COVID-19 is not that severe in countries with active BCG vaccination schedules.

Researchers in Australia and the Netherlands had also come to the same conclusion and are even planing a trial of the vaccine in healthcare workers.

So what is the BCG vaccine?

It was found by two French bacteriologists — Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin — and went into use in 1921. Tuberculosis is caused by the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The two men working together found that an attenuated version of another Mycobacterium…