Don’t let rich jump jab queue

A PRIVATE member’s travel service is offering Covid-19 vaccinations to the super-wealthy. It’s charging £40,000 for a trip to the UAE or India to receive the jabs. Ugh, how grotesque. At present the vaccine isn’t available privately in the UK and I’m delighted about this. The Prime Minister must resist any attempts to change this so the rich can’t jump the queue ahead of the poor. The pandemic has thrown the health inequalities that exist in this country into sharp relief. I feel proud that, at least for the time being, all of us, rich or poor, have to wait patiently in the queue.

DID you suck your thumb as a child? I confess I did until I was about six, to the horror of my parents who did everything they could to dissuade me. TV doctor Chris van Tulleken asked about thumb sucking on Twitter as he was wondering whether to try to stop his three-year-old daughter. I was surprised by how many were in my parents’ camp. I understand concerns it may result in a deformed upper jaw, but this is rare and fixed with orthodontic treatment which most children go through anyway. I think there is worse a child can do and most grow out of it. I suspect it serves as a form of self-soothing, so I wonder if it helps their long-term development as it teaches them they can calm themselves, rather than relying on parents. I think most efforts are futile — a GP told me my thumb would dissolve and I cried until my mum confessed it was a lie. Eventually my parents gave up and then one day a friend saw me do it and laughed. I stopped after that.