Monday 1 February 2021

Captain Tom and COVID

I was very sorry to hear that Captain Tom Moore, who last year raised money for the NHS, has gone into hospital, and is being treated for pneumonia, as well as now having contracted COVID.  But, I am prompted to ask a number of questions.

Firstly, its reported that Tom has been treated for pneumonia for several weeks, so obviously this came before him contracting COVID, which he only tested positive for last week.  The first question then is why the NHS is still not able to ensure that some of the most vulnerable people are shielded from contact with the COVID virus, when they are being treated in its care for other illnesses.

The second question, here, is why Tom had not been given the COVID vaccine.  Its reported that this was due to being treated for pneumonia, but at over 100, you would think that Tom should have been first in line to get a jab, and jabs have been given out now, since the start of December.  That's two months ago, so I am still puzzled as to why he didn't get a jab before starting to suffer with pneumonia.  After all, we are told,

"Captain Tom and his family travelled to Barbados for a family holiday over Christmas after he was gifted the trip by British Airways."

So, presumably he was not suffering with pneumonia during that period.  That begs the question as to why Tom was not given the vaccine, in that three week period prior to Christmas.

Given the lack of data about the effectiveness of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine on th over 65's, this leads to further questions, such as, given that Covid affects almost exclusively elderly people, why is it that its amongst the over 65's that Astra-Zeneca did the least testing?  Surely, as its that group that was clearly going to be the priority for vaccination, all testing and trials should have focused heavily on people in that age group rather than amongst the young.

Could it be that there was an emphasis on doing trials amongst the young, because its amongst that demographic that the best trial results would be obtained, which was important given that governments, as part of the medical-industrial complex, had pumped large amounts of money into this vaccine development, and as lockdowns had completely failed to dent the virus, and as astronomically expensive test and trace systems - which now, after spending over £12 billion on, we hear nothing about - had been even more useless, that governments only hope was a quick roll out of vaccines?

Of course, the question that always arose in relation to Captain Tom, was why it should be necessary for a centenarian to raise money for the NHS, by walking around his garden, rather than the NHS having been provided with the funds it required by a Tory government more concerned with giving tax handouts to the rich, or bankrupting the economy with its ideological pursuit of its crazy Brexit agenda.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

All very pertinent points.