More fuel to the Pfizer

Pricks and nicks

Two things have been on my mind for the past month or so, both related to my health for which I needed to plan for and have done before the prospect of a rendezvous with my partner in December. My typically biannual check-up which usually occurs in mid-April and mid-October had landed this time in the last week of October and so the next appointment six months after.

Then, having taken my second COVID jab on May the 6^th, I had been looking to book my booster shot anytime around the 6^th of November. In fact, I had been looking for a slot since the middle of October, though the initial indications suggested at least 6 months and a week after the second jab. Then on Saturday, I found out that from Monday you could find a slot online to get the booster shot.

Running with runs

I was of the mind that I had told everyone, yet it just happened that in the fog of apparently letting everyone know, I had inadvertently not told Brian. You can trust I was going to get an earful for that. On Monday, I did get a slot for after work on Wednesday, today, none of the locations anywhere nearby that I decided to go to the Manchester Tennis and Football Centre by the Manchester City Football Club Etihad campus – that was going to be an Uber ride.

Meanwhile, yesterday, I had a bout of diarrhoea that left me visiting the toilet 10 times around bedtime over some 2 hours. Whilst it appeared to subside in the morning but persist through the day, I had hoped Imodium instants would help as I contemplated postponing my booster shot appointment.

In the end, I took precautions for the inadvertent flows and made for the vaccination venue where I was ushered in to first sanitise my hands and don a new face mask provided by the venue and I proceeded to the registration desk where my booking was retrieved, and a few COVID-related questions were asked.

Just some assurance

Then on to a second registration desk where more questions were asked about allergies, conditions, current medication, participation in recent trials and how I was feeling. On being told I had the runs since yesterday, the nurse sought advice from the location pharmacist who could not be located for probably 10 minutes, at which point they got me a chair to sit down.

The pharmacist came and said as long I was not feeling unwell or running a temperature, the diarrhoea should have no particular consequence. However, with that knowledge, it was left to me to decide if I wanted to go ahead with the booster shot. I felt it would be fine and then I was ushered into the queue for the Pfizer BioNTech Comirnaty vaccine.

Boost your immunity

Much banter ensued between us, the nurse who asked my name and I offered to give a list of 24, the need to take off my long-sleeved shirt that they brought over a screen lest my nudity and corset be exposed to the public and we were done before I was to sit in a waiting area for 15 minutes ere my journey home. Brian called and it was then I realised he had not been informed and my ear was pulled for longer than I could endure.

He felt I should have allowed recovery from the diarrhoea before going for the shot and whilst it is sensible, the medical opinion made allowances and having taken the jab, what mattered was keeping hydrated, taking some rest and probably an analgesic as my body got back together again. I did not want to add fuel to the fire on the whys and wherefore, I had just taken on fuel to my Pfizer. I’ll be fine.

Opinion: Now they stew in their ineptitude

I still cannot forgive it

I was chatting to a friend in Nigeria when it was brought to my notice that Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister had tested positive for the COVID-19 Coronavirus. The unrefined human in me if given vent might have thought it was just desserts, for this is a man that subscribed to the atrocious ‘herd immunity’ scheme that would have allowed the Coronavirus to run through the population without the shield of a vaccine in a Social Darwinism experiment that defied logic.

Blog - #Coronavirus: A collared UK Government dumps satire

Yet, I hope I have more of the qualities of the best of our humanity in me to commiserate and sympathise, to walk a hard-long mile in the shoes of another to wish him a speedy recovery. With that, one would hope that the hubristic effrontery that informed the blasé view that the public should take it on the chin will be tempered with humility and a realisation that we cannot take life for granted and that the Coronavirus is no respecter of persons.

Blog - Thought Picnic: The vulnerable to be martyred to the Coronavirus in the UK

Only yesterday, we learnt that Prince Charles, the heir-apparent had tested positive too with mild symptoms, I probably felt more concerned for him than for our bombastic Prime Minister. Also, we found out that the Secretary of State for the Department of Health and the Chief Medical Officer were showing mild symptoms.

Stand up for frontline staff

To them too, I hope they recover as well as come out better men. In all, we must understand what is playing out before our eyes. We had the time and scope to act yet found ourselves at the point where frontline NHS staff are exposed to risk without adequate protection despite assurances the Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) was stockpiled and being distributed. In my view, that wasn’t enough, the staff should be fully donned in PPE garb at the point of contact with those suspected of infection.

They have been meeting these patients for weeks, the urgency to supply the demand is present and immediate. The same goes for testing the staff so they are not taken out of service in self-isolation when needed the most.

The issue of ventilators is another where the UK was invited to the EU procurement scheme, but it ideological recalcitrance lost us that opportunity that the contract for manufacturing ventilators landed in the hands of a caterpillar maker and a vacuum cleaner manufacturer, both of them have no expertise in that field, whilst British companies with the know-how were ignored.

Accountability and hope

Even in these pressing times, the government has not been weaned off the penchant of jobs for the boys. I would hope an inquiry into the government’s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic would be independent, far-reaching and unrelenting. There must be culpability for failings, irresponsibility, and ineptitude. With high office comes such demanding responsibility and accountability. For once, I hope Mr. Boris Johnson feels the weight of office with the truth that the buck does stop with him.

I don’t know where in the spectrum of the curve of managing pandemics we are in; it is likely to be longer than planned for. I wonder what the aftermath portends for travel and the requirements to be satisfied before embarking on a journey. I am however hoping for a better world beyond this.

#Coronavirus: A collared UK Government dumps satire

Progress of a sort

To suggest a sense of reason had finally prevailed on the UK Government’s handling of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic would be wishful at best, but it is still progress.

One could be deluded into thinking some quality of humanity however minuscule might have arrived in the corporeal embodiment of the anthropomorphic representative we identify as Boris Johnson, but would be reaching and clutching at straws for he has no capacity for principle or responsibility, even though he occupies high office.

However, the crazy ‘herd immunity’ aim that had been shot to smithereens over the weekend with one epidemiologist even thinking what he heard from the UK was satire rather than reality had changed to the health secretary insisting until he was red and blue in the face, that “The over-riding objective is to protect life.” [Telegraph]

Blog - Thought Picnic: The vulnerable to be martyred to the Coronavirus in the UK

Listen and act immediately

Whilst my government might well have been suitably chastised to suddenly be sounding the alarm to now begin self-isolation, social distancing, the avoidance of crowds, the creeping restriction of our liberties. The need to test has not gained enough importance and priority, especially for frontline staff that we have to sign petitions on why we cannot afford to leave medical staff in harm's way during a rampaging pandemic. Schools remain open too.

Change.org- Test frontline NHS staff for COVID-19 as a priority – Please sign.

The WHO Director-General is screaming from the mountain top, his compelling message if the audio-sensory organs of Downing Street can respond to the stimulus of sound, “You cannot fight a fire blindfolded. And we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected. We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test.” [WHO]

Just do more

Yet, the bombastic, blusterer characterising buffoonery to full comedic effect avers, “I have been comparing notes and talking to leaders around the world and I can tell you that the UK is now leading a growing global campaign amongst all our friends and allies.” I would have hurt myself as I fell out of bed with choking and derisive laughter. [GOV.UK]

We all know the UK Government is still not doing enough compared to our European partners, France announced strict measures whilst providing deep reaching economic support to many facets of the economy. Whilst we 'spaff' money up the wall on the folly of a Brexit of our own making amid a more critically difficult ravaging pandemic.

#COVID19france Leadership by #Macron👏🏾
☑️Total #lockdown/ #SocialDistancing
☑️Rents/Utility bills suspended
☑️No business at risk of bankruptcy
☑️No French Citizen will be without resources
☑️Tax/Social contribution postponed
☑️Solidarity fund by State for Unemployed#coronavirus pic.twitter.com/OH04hQ36UU

— Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu (@SholaMos1) March 16, 2020

I am probably not particularly comforted by the fact that I am also in the middle of job search whilst this is going on, the concerns about income and bills becoming a distraction. Still, this is an acknowledgement of the vulnerable with tough times ahead. As for Prof Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer of England, I wonder if the stress of looking for a way forward through this pandemic has had the effect of thinning his neck, his shirt collar seems to belong to a bigger friend. [BBC]

Thought Picnic: The vulnerable to be martyred to the Coronavirus in the UK

What is our government doing?

If anything, I do not want to be preoccupied with the rolling commentary about the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic which sometimes looks like we are have been informed of a distant earthquake whilst at the beach and before our eyes the tide ebbs away presaging the advent of a tsunami with no hills in sight to run to.

Therefore, if anything, I have been concerned about what the UK government is doing to ensure that the populace is neither overcome nor overwhelmed by the virus pandemic. For that reason, I switched my television to the news to listen to what the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson had in mind for us.

Blog - Opinion: Where they'll rather wash hands than show hands

This is as callous as it comes

Only yesterday, in the blog referenced above, I expressed my alarm of what the Prime Minister said, and I quote again, highlighting the salient points. “That’s where a lot of the debate has been and one of the theories is, that perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures.”

Today, again, flanked by scientists, the words from the mouth of Boris Johnson were, “I must level with you, level with the British public, more families, and many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.”

The statements taken together informs a mindset, my government has decided they are ready to sacrifice a slice of the population to the onslaught of the Coronavirus for expediency sake without having to take draconian measures to arrest the spread of this pandemic as compared to the actions of other countries.

I take no comfort from this

The scientists presented charts and tried to explain away the thinking and wisdom behind the stance the government has taken, yet, it is important that we avoid being bewitched by fanciful and colourful charts to the point that we are inured to the reality that there are lives and people that make up the simple numbers of their projections.

I am no scientist, but as an individual and many of us in similar circumstances, if we are to be martyred to a cause of political expediency, we would at least what to be fully persuaded that all other ideas and options are exhausted before we are laid on the altar of the public good.

To make that case more pertinently, I fall into a vulnerable group as an immuno-suppressed cancer survivor, though just in my 50s. I am not comforted with hearing the Prime Minister suggest we first take a ravaging pandemic on the chin chancing on a survival wherein we might miraculously gain immunity whilst making a pre-emptive statement of comfort to our families and friends that the prospect our likely demise pertains if, by happenstance, we contract the Coronavirus.

We must demand more aggressive action

This soulless and heartless approach to the survival of the fittest with very little concern for the vulnerable except with weasel words and the surfeit of science to suggest effective action to save the many with the judicial murder of the few cannot be allowed to pass as the best the UK government can do.

For the majority, they might all be fine, but if in our comfort for being catered for, we are indifferent to those who need just as much or more succour, our broader cause called to the unity of purpose against this pandemic, would have lost the essence of its humanity. What the UK government is doing is not satisfactory, we need more to be done to protect the vulnerable too. There is no reason why anyone should die before their time just because the government mishandled the Coronavirus pandemic.