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From Prianikoff, another long-term commenter on my blog:
The Vaccination campaign against Polio was a successful example of
creating “Herd Immunity”.
Which is what Sir Michael Vallance, the scientific advisor to Boris
Johnson’s government now hopes to achieve for Covid-19, without the
benefit of having a vaccine!
Polio was eliminated from the United States in 1979 and from the Western
Hemisphere in 1991.
The last “wild Polio” infection in Europe was in 1998. A few dozen cases
still occur every year in Afghanistan, Nigeria & Pakistan – any case,
anywhere is a potential threat.
Herd immunity greatly reduces the transmission rate of the disease, but
where regular vaccination programmes don’t cover the whole population
(as in the latter countries), the Oral vaccine can mutate and “go wild”
and cause cases. This fact sometimes misused by anti-Vaxxers.
In the late 1940’s &1950’s there was also a Polio epidemic in the UK.
One of its more well known victims was the singer Ian Dury, who was
partially paralysed and walked with a limp for the rest of his life.
In 1981 he was commissioned to write a song for the UN’s Year of the
Disabled
In his typically derisive way he came up with “Spasticus Autisticus”
Sample lyrics:-
“….So place your hard-earned peanuts in my tin. And thank the Creator
you’re not in the state I’m in….”
“…54 appliances in leather and elastic 100,000 thank yous from 27 spastics.”
I had suspected Polio in the mid 50’s and was put in an isolation ward
at an East London fever hospital.
This involved being kept in a glass cubicle for 2 weeks, unable to
communicate with children in the surrounding cubicles, having no
visitors and the trauma of a lumbar puncture.
They burned all my toys before I went home too.
But I did have a nice Irish nurse called Sherry!
Luckily there were no lasting physical effects, but I do feel for the
over 70’s who are now being told to remain isolated for “at least” 3 months.
I also have my doubts about whether an effective vaccine can be
developed in time to help them, which implies a longer “sentence”.
The Right wingers in Johnson’s government, such as his weird adviser
Dominic Cummings, see this as an experiment in Social Darwinism and an
opportunity for multinational corporations & property speculators to
make money.
The opposition will grow, at the moment it’s “virtual”, with many
organisations advising them members to stay at home.
But I can envisage thousands of stir crazy pensioners taking to the
streets, perhaps on alternate days to the younger workers and students
and workers!
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