It is plausible that it was only detected in South Africa, not that it originated there. This is because of South Africa's long history and experience in detecting diseases.
Secondly there is no supply problem for South Africa and indeed in alot of underdeveloped countries. Most South Africans have refused to be vaccinated despite vaccine availability, indicating a vaccine hesitancy issue.
Furthermore, just with regards to this new variant, so far most cases - according to global and South African health officials - are actually mild. In fact it is plausible that this variant may actually be more mild than previous strains, but that is yet to be seen.
And finally, while vaccines clearly do work, so does immunity gained through infection, and many of these countries that have not vaccinated a large amount of their populas have not seen a great amount of deaths in the current Covid wave (such as South Africa) mainly because of previous deadly Covid surges that ripped through the populas.
I think the media tends to be negative and makes money on people's panic, and we will really see if this variant is really worth the hype.