Time to deal with facts on anti-vax
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WEEKS AGO I volunteered to take part in a Covid vaccine trial and I’m gutted not to have been called. The success of the early Oxford trials is such hopeful news. I’m still here, by the way, waiting. And not bothered by needles. Every schoolboy and schoolgirl knows (at least they used to) the story of the 18th century doctor Edward Jenner. It was common knowledge then that those who worked with cows and caught the mild disease cowpox didn’t catch lethal, disfiguring smallpox.
In 1796 Jenner took some gunk from the lesions on the hand of Sarah Nelms, a young dairy maid with cowpox and inoculated eight-year-old James Phipps.
A couple of months later Jenner inoculated the boy with gunk from a smallpox lesion. (That must have been a tense couple of weeks for all concerned and I’m guessing experimentation on children would be frowned on today). But there were no ill-effects. The vaccination had worked.
Vaccination works. It can’t be said often enough. Thanks to vaccination, smallpox itself was eradicated in 1979, a disease with a 30 per cent mortality rate.
Vaccination has saved the lives of millions from diseases which, because of vaccination, no longer need concern us. Such as polio.yet a recent survey found that 14 per cent of people say they wouldn’t have a Covid-19 jab. And 13 per cent of dithering dimwits don’t know if they would refuse or not.
Chances are that some of those nay-sayers turned up last week at the demonstration in London’s Hyde Park against the wearing of face masks.
I don’t enjoy wearing a mask either. Like many, I ponder the wisdom of the lockdown. I’m equally irritated by those who are terrified about resuming a normal life and those who are stroppily blasé about the risks. But the grim reality is that normal, mask-free life will only resume once Covid has made itself scarce and that won’t happen until a) there is a vaccine and b) as many people as possible receive it.
So those who bluster about not falling into line by either wearing a mask or having a jab are shooting themselves in the foot.
Unfortunately, the anti-vax campaign is a natural in a world where social media presents us with fake news every second. It’s the mindset for those who also believe the Earth is flat, that Elvis is alive and well, that the Moon landing never happened and that we are ruled by giant lizards.
In movies the characters who believe in the big conspiracy are always right. But, in real life, they’re always wrong.
Ever since I can remember there has been talk of a cure for the common cold which is, in itself, a coronavirus. That’s never been found. Neither is there a vaccine for Aids, the other health emergency of my lifetime. If we are on the brink of getting a Covid vaccine, then for pity’s sake just shut up and roll up your sleeve.
A SOUTHEASTERN rail worker, Tony Trice, sacked for selling a ticket was in 2018. He was to a passenger of “gross misconduct” accused he committed this heinous because the crime before he’d completed training. He said he “was necessary a trying to help out” when only his desk. colleague was away from initiative, being helpful? Showing thing! can’t have that sort of
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Fortunately, an employment and tribunal has seen sense given him £25,000.