CAVALIER ATTITUDE
I WAS watching a news report regarding a recent Covid study in which researchers are looking for volunteers to be infected with the SARS-2-Covid 19 virus. This does not include the latest variants.
The criteria for volunteers is you need to be between the ages of 18 and 30 inclusive and a non-smoker. You also need to have no underlying health factors, such as diabetes and you must not be overweight. Each volunteer will be paid £4,500.
Am I the only one who can see a fault in this research? Firstly the sample group of 90 volunteers will not be an accurate representation of the most vulnerable demographic and secondly, what about the variants, as mentioned above, which are complicating the latest efforts to eradicate the viruses responsible for this pandemic? To say this research is valid because it uses 99.9% of the variants genome is ridiculous. Tanks in WWII were still tanks (host cells) and very formidable too. Until they developed armour-piercing shells!
I understand the treatment of severe Covid has really improved out of necessity and a cathartic learning process. But, just how much do people value their healthy life? You will be paid approximately £88 a day – 17 of them you will be in quarantine at the Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead.
The presenters of the show did a street survey of people who would be viable candidates and I was shocked at how many young fit adults said they would consider it! That tells me two things. Firstly, they are not taking this pandemic seriously. And secondly, they are putting a lot of faith in the efficacy of the vaccine.
They think if they get severe symptoms and require ventilation, they will walk away as healthy as before the trial they volunteered for with the help of the Remdisivir vaccine. They are sadly mistaken. Oxygen is vital for life but it is a devil in disguise. When it is forced into your lungs at jet washer pressure, and at a higher concentration, it is a potential killer in itself.
The only justification I can see for this research is to give the inept Tory administration more propaganda material to spin out and try and hide the fact that it has failed miserably in the handling of this pandemic – in my opinion, to the point of criminality.