Jim Stewart's Blog

There have been a lot of coverage of Teodros comments on the fact rich countries are buying up the vaccine supplies. The UK has orders for three times the number of vaccines than it needs. CRAZY!!!

Or is it. Look – once people are vaccinated the UK can’t use the rest of the orders, so we know they will be released to poorer countries.

Why has the UK got such a good position – well it started to negotiate purchase really early (the EU is borderline enough vaccine for the population). Nobody could tell what would be approved and when – so the UK hedged it’s bets. It currently has only enough purchased and in deployment to cover the country once. Most other countries (all of the EU for example) are still hoping for the vaccines that are in development and may not be approved till later this year (if ever).

The UK also created a less bureaucratic approval system than most countries (a simple way of looking at it is that most countries only started watching the box set once the final episode came out, while the UK watched the episodes as they were produced). It was only a few weeks difference, but this meant the UK could take all of the initial production.

Is this all unfair? What about poor countries? Hey – we have COVAX – where does that fit in, and this GAVI thing and all those other acronyms?

Remember back in June I wrote about millennium goals (that became the SDGs)

In 2003, in order to help meet the millennium goals for health the UK set up a special fund to support the availability of vaccines for poorer countries. The UK currently accounts for more than 40% of the donations.

But panic panic – a pandemic has arrived. So the WHO, The EC and France decided they needed COVAX.

What will COVAX do? Well, maybe the best way to look at it is that COVAX membership means we will try to cover the first four groups (I’ve used the UK groups because it is close) by the end of 2021. The UK will have covered those groups in the country by mid-February. So let this sink in – what COVAX suggests is that we should stop first vaccinations in the UK at that point until the rest of the world catches up (we would carry on with second vaccinations). That is what Teodros was calling for between the lines.

The more complicated part of this is that most countries will not have approved the vaccines by that point, so we could even up with a glut of vaccines while we wait for the paperwork to be produced (you see not all countries are backing all vaccines – the Oxford vaccine is currently only approved in about 10 countries – the other countries cannot use it yet even if they had it!).

And now think carefully about the vaccine rollout here – we are being contacted when it is our turn. John Smith at 3 Smith Street and John Smith at 7 Smith Street can be identified as separate people and contacted when their time is right. Now apply this to poorer countries – does that approach work? Or would it be more likely that a village by village approach would more appropriate rather than an age based approach?

The EU have adopted a single approach (the centre controls for all). Did you know the vaccine they have approved and deployed is only enough for about two thirds of the population. That should get up to 95% by the summer. And a lot of those orders were last minute.

To me this could be a BREXIT problem. What? Are you daft? How can it be a BREXIT problem?

To propose the vaccination of only 20% of the world by the end of 2021 is just not ambitious enough, COVAX should have set a much much tougher goal. To only order enough vaccines to cover your population when you do not know which will be approved and when is not ambitious enough.

The approach of COVAX and the EC has been very tame in comparison to the UK approach. Given that the UK was not involved in the setting up of COVAX it is surprising that they are the biggest donor (giving about one and a half times much as the whole of the EU combined).

I have no doubt that the EC and COVAX approach would have been much more ambitious had the UK still been an influence in the EU.

Teodros – we cannot afford to only vaccinate 20% of the world in 2021 – you need to raise your target, not complain that some countries have been too ambitious.

Struck me today that the message Biden delivered and the message Trump delivered was essentially the same “Make America Great”.

The difference was in the definition of “great”.

And what a difference.

So what does great mean for a country?

Trump said he was proud that he didn’t start a new war. Is that great? Is that greatest?

Theresa has said Boris has made us less great because we are no longer keeping our aid budget at 0.7%.

BREXIT is the “big opportunity” – so what changes can we make that will make us great?

I spotted somebody the other day said they still wear black socks on workdays. As usual my mind wandered – he hadn’t mentioned any other clothes – did he still wear them?

Switch to another conversation – about how waste energy from a computer can heat a house.

Move forward to a conversation about setting personal environmental goals. I mentioned the black socks guy and joked I had not changed clothes since lockdown (JOKE!!!). I just left my clothes on until they wore out – it reduced my environmental footprint.

Okay, a joke. But it got me thinking a bit more about carbon emissions. I remember a friend being proud that they used candles on world environment day instead of electric lights. It can be hard to work out the carbon footprint of a lightbulb, but it would need to be pretty massive to be worse than a candle (or rather enough candles to light a room).

Maybe a good example is the modern electric bike. What releases more carbon – a bike co-powered by a person and electricity or a bike powered by a person?

Choosing to use manual power rather than a modern alternative is not always a way to reduce carbon – the human engine is a carbon emitting device (and sometimes less environmentally friendly gases). The efficiency of a human body is not amazing if we only look at kinetic energy production.

There are some interesting calculations around, see MPG of a Human by Tom Murphy. The crucial issue seems to be around things like the energy of food production.

The inference is that either energy efficient food production or a thoroughly modern energy efficient lifestyle are more beneficial than many of the middle options. Being lukewarm seems to be the option to avoid.

“When we had a [Brexit] deal, I thought, we’re saved all the rigmarole and hassle, it’ll work sweet as a nut, but it hasn’t happened,” says Mr Flannigan. Instead, he says, it feels like the clock’s been turned back 30 years.

BBC News

Actually nearer 50 years. A complaint was that the load was incorrectly marked – the VRI code they used on the pallets was “UK”. Okay – the requirement was to mark it with the same mark we all use on our cars. We started using GB in 1910 (although driving licences retained UK till 1922).

As part of my job I have had to look at reasons loads don’t move, and a large number of the problems are because people get the paperwork wrong. I have suggested to industry bodies that they need to provide help for their members – with little response.

So yes I have sympathy for the fish rotting on trucks, but actually I have little sympathy. You see a lot of companies have been using a lot of the new paperwork for a year already. So there has been a lack of preparation by some companies.

But even going back further and looking at who caught which fish where and sold it to which country it was obvious that the ability to make money from exporting fish was going to be much harder with Brexit. But Nigel led his flag waving flotilla on the Thames and they all believed.

In America Trump waved the flag and told them he would do things for them and they believed.

In Scotland Nicola waved the flag and said they would all be better if she was president, and they all believed.

You would think COVID might be a tool to combat the blindness, but it doesn’t seem so. This is a religion, a cult, where faith supersedes facts. But it has been growing for a long time – the hippy greens are an excellent example – “the man” was the enemy.

Watching the film about the Watergate cover up it was quite obvious how blind faith in politicians and an evil corrupt press (sound familiar) was the tool of the criminal (and when I say criminal I guess I include a lot of good meaning people that facilitated evil).

One of the old sayings effectively implied that we bought the newspaper that supported our view of the world. Now we use the social media that supports our view as well.

As I walked around Greenbelt festival last year (2019) I was impressed by the number of speakers that were there to encourage people to keep on with their thinking, and how few were there to challenge us to change our thinking.

We need to make sure we live in a world that includes people that disagree with us.

I woke up with a start. Mild panic. Where is my library card?

There is absolutely no way I will be needing it for a few months, and I have not needed it for the last 9 months, so why it popped into my head in the middle of the night I will never know.

Anyway – I couldn’t get it out of my head, so from time to time today I searched for where it might be. I finally found it (sitting on the desk next to where I am right now).

While I was looking in all the nooks and crannies it was amazing all the stuff I found that I used to use weekly, but had been put to the side.

Was my life really that complicated?

I think it probably was.

The question is – if we get over this pandemic – what will I do? Will I fill my life with the business, or is there something else I’ll do?

I think sitting on a chair in the sun reading a book sounds like a good start.

Remember those pesticides that people were concerned could harm bees? We banned them 2 years ago didn’t we?

Have you spotted that last week an emergency exemption from the ban was issued for one of them for sugar beet seed?

A lot of people used to campaign against GMO products. But what about GE products (that’s gene edited)? GE products used to be included in the regulations covering GMO products. Now there is a consultation to exclude them if they “could have been produced by traditional breeding methods”.

But the press are just full of problems with fish exports.

Why not take a couple of minutes to express your views on GE products?

Ozzy on University Challenge

I don’t understand the question

I don’t understand the answer

And I don’t know why this is still on TV

Some four letter words edited out

It struck me that sometimes deep thinking about a subject can end up with us not seeing the wood for the trees. There are lots of specialist experts out there that can give you ideas on how to think through overthinking.

There are tried and tested ways of dealing with overthinking. The most obvious are the methods for getting to sleep – counting sheep to distract the brain. I was taught to picture windscreen wipers clearing away thoughts. It works.

I decided to apply it to Facebook this week. Instead of reading the details of posts I focussed on the feelings posts generated. I then hit the snooze button on about 6 people. Suddenly Facebook is a much more pleasant place.

The interesting thing is I am not talking about people I disagree with – it has more to do with attitudes. It is interesting how attitudes can transfer.

In the past I found myself walking down roads that were unhealthy – just because of the attitudes around me. One workplace was filled with people in it for themselves at any cost – and I found myself taking that on. I ended up leaving – and I found myself changing for the better.

Sometimes we need to make a point of surrounding ourselves with people we want to be like.

A lot of people have been calling for more regulations. Maybe even a curfew. Let me think – why would it stop virus spread if we stopped people going outside when hardly anybody is outside? Hmm.

But I understand. There are two ways to write regulations, and us frail humans like to be told “What does local mean?” “How far can we walk?” “What is the definition of exercise?”

I remember driving in the USA and when I got to Montana the speed limit sign said “Reasonable and Prudent” for cars in the daytime. That was it – no mph. So how fast could I drive? Well daytime was half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset. Just to help this is part way between the normal definitions of civil and nautical definitions of twilight.

Many of us like numbers – a clear right and wrong.

Just look at the reports – what number of vaccines – what number of infections. There was a God of Number is Egypt, Seshat. One of the early Gods by all accounts, so one of the first things to be deified.

What % do you like somebody? Sounds silly, but I just found an assessment from work recently, and it put a % against all my characteristics.

I like numbers, numbers are important, but we can, like the Egyptians, treat them like a God. Sometimes we need to ignore them for our sanity. And sometimes things like sanity and mental health should not be given a number.

Watching a game show today the question was “What will you buy if you win?”

In all my time I have never heard a response “I’ll be putting it in to my saving account”.

Okay, that isn’t likely to be given as an answer. But I was actually thinking about the question – the encouragement to blow it all. To eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we die.

I remember working with young people in the Thatcher years – and the on thing that struck me was the way so many of them stopped thinking about the future. It was now, now, now.

A lot of business was looked at in the same way. The city set rules for how to account for the future, purely based on profit now.

But finance is not the only way we should be looking at business in my view – we need to balance other factors. The effects on the environment we are seeing today come from the change in the way electricity generation was planned. Without a change in how we see the bottom line of businesses like the electricity industry we stand little chance of meeting our carbon goals.

But are we prepared to spend more for the same product, or is money still leading us by the nose.

I’ve been watching the news recently. As the virus gets bad we seem to have been looking inward more and more.

How many articles have there been about £5.20 worth of groceries (most of which were wrong BTW). How many articles are there about whether you should travel 5 miles to exercise.

At the same time the USA is burning – okay we get a few reports of that.

But did you read about the outcome of the December elections in Venezuela?

What about that white tiger born in Nicaragua?

This isn’t just about interest in other parts of the world – it is about the need to look up to stop ourselves spiralling downward.

So why not pick a country in the world and do a bit of studying about their recent news – give yourself a challenge – just to get your head in a different place.