Vaccine rollout

[wildeabandon]

I am feeling quite conflicted about the speed of vaccine roll out in the UK. On the one hand, I am obviously looking forward to life returning to something approaching normal. On the other hand, it's clearly wrong that I, and other low-risk people who can work from home in high-income countries, will probably have access to a vaccine before a lot of people in higher risk demographics who can't. I'm not sure how to feel about that, or if there's anything I can or should do.

Comments

[ewt]

On a local level, once you've been vaccinated maybe there are things you can do that aren't sensible or safe currently. For me the best use of my privilege in being able to work from home is to do that so that I'm not a vector. After I'm vaccinated (and I'll be quite far down the list, I think), I can re-evaluate what I can do.

More globally -- the UK is a country with a high amount of wealth, yes, but also huge inequalities. Getting to a point where we aren't reliant on e.g. UNICEF to feed children in South London might put us in a position to be more helpful. Whether that actually happens (or whether this level of poverty is the "new normal" and continues to be used to justify e.g. cuts to foreign aid, sigh) is down to our internal politics, so that might be something to engage with as and when you can do so safely. And we've proven pretty much unable to control transmission by other measures, so getting community transmission down by use of a vaccine means less opportunity for yet another mutation to emerge.

Of course there's really no moral justification for why it should happen here faster than elsewhere, but the practical reasons for it turning out that way are systemic and historic and vast, and I know you already care about that unfairness. Probably the best any of us can do is pick an area in which to focus on the necessary systemic changes, while making sure we take care of ourselves otherwise.

[ewt]

Also, UNICEF is fundraising for two billion vaccines for lower-income countries (I think, haven't read it very thoroughly): https://www.unicef.org.uk/donate/coronavirus/

[rmc28]

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is going to be sold at cost to low- and middle-income countries forever - that was a condition of Oxford working on it.

It's much harder to work to make the world a better place if you are sick yourself, and if this thing keeps spreading we might get an even worse mutation than the one the UK's already gifted to the world. There are people in other countries that need the vaccine more than I do, but the world needs this country to stop having so many cases ASAP. People like you and me not taking our doses when invited isn't going to make any real difference to people in other countries getting access to doses.

My feeling is:

• stay WFH as long as you can, so as not to be a vector
• follow other public health guidance, so as not to be a vector
• get vaccinated when invited to, so as to cooperate with the public health effort
• think about what political and campaigning actions you can get involved in because you are not sick / don't have to fear getting sick from Covid-19

I think ewt is right, the reasons vaccination is unfairly distributed is similar to the reasons Covid-19 is exacerbating existing unfairness in society. It's all part of the bigger systemic problems in our global society that need both alleviating and fixing. So I'd add:

• if you have spare money, look into places to give it to both alleviate & fix systemic problems in society

But "put your own oxygen mask on before helping others" remains a good guideline.