Twitteretter

I heard today from a friend who is directly involved in the US, or I should say the Californian, vaccination effort that herd immunity will be reached in the Sunny State by the end of May, with all over 16s now eligible to be vaccinated. This is an incredible turnaround from the position in the US only a few months ago, when the coronavirus battle was definitely being lost and the country was on its knees. It is tempting to put this down to Biden’s leadership, the order after the strident chaos. We must remember, however, that the global increase in vaccine availability is not down to Biden’s administration, but just to the completion of a gargantuan effort by the pharmaceutical industry, finally able to ramp production up after completing development. Politics are fickle and timing can be critical to outcomes. In this case, I am glad to see Biden rather than Trump benefit from this ‘right place, right time’ effect, but we must remember it can benefit the wrong leaders elsewhere Length...

I may have, with this headline, pulled the trick of compelling many to read this article. An unfortunate 81 year old died of a heart attack in Seville, Spain, whilst queueing to receive the Pfizer vaccine. It is always sad to hear of anyone’s death. In this case, however, I think we all, as a species, need to be grateful to the gentleman in question for his promptness. Just imagine the potential consequences, had he suffered his heart attack a few minutes later, just after receiving his vaccination. Global headlines, vaccine rollout pauses, Medical Agency investigations, new conspiracy theories, thriving antivax groups, collapsing stockmarkets… 81 year olds will of course occasionally die of heart attacks, in all kinds of circumstances, but given humans’ capacity to confuse coincidence with causality, this poor chap’s timeliness has saved us a huge amount of trouble, even if depriving news outlets of a much juicier news item and millions of the hankered for clicks. Requiescat in pace L...

Reading Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’, his imagining of an ideal society in the XVI century, one is also reminded, by contrast, of the conditions in his home country, England, at the time. One specific passage explains that theft, however small, was punished by death. This is certainly Draconian. We are living through a period where getting vaccinated against coronavirus, at least for those who have not surrendered their brains to mindless conspiracies, is a primary aspiration. And UK pharmacies are offering some vaccines outside of the government priority lists, under the counter, if you like. All you have to do, if offered, is lie about your circumstance, invent some vulnerable household member whose life is at risk while you don’t vaccinate. The problem is, in so doing, you are stealing the vaccine from those who do need it, putting them further down the list and, by doing so, putting their life at risk. It may look like a victimless crime, but although it is a crime, victimless it is not ...