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Old 25th Nov 2020, 05:57
  #70 (permalink)  
FlightlessParrot
 
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There are, to be sure, rational grounds for being cautious about the new vaccines: chiefly, that the only way to find out about long-term consequences is to let a long time pass. I can well understand a young person, in good health, concluding that they would rather take the risk of catching the disease than being one of the first to be vaccinated. This also makes it easy to decide the initial allocation of vaccine: it should go to those who are most at risk, and have least reason to be concerned about the long run (you know who you are: get a new credit card, look at the expiry date, and you're all "Hmm, I wonder...").

The problem is that even such rational concerns have got caught up in the politicisation of reality. As far as I know, Big Pharma does not make Big Money out of vaccines: what the pharma companies like are patented drugs that are important for the chronic management of diseases of the affluent. Similarly, outrage about the suggestion of vaccination being conditional for any activity is tied up with belief that the pandemic has been weaponised as a political wedge issue. Like so many other sad things, "only in America"; and it's not the people who want sensible public health measures who are weaponising it. The reason that rational hesitations get lumped in with the bat-shirt crazy is that even the rational gets entangled with the irrational.
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