Saturday 2 January 2021

Yeah! Go Israel!

From the BBC:

Israel has given vaccinations against coronavirus to more than one million people, the highest rate in the world, as global immunisation efforts step up.

Israel has a rate of 11.55 vaccination doses per 100 people, followed by Bahrain at 3.49 and the UK at 1.47, according to a global tracking website affiliated with Oxford University.

17 comments:

Bayard said...

It appears the UK has switched vaccines in mid-stream, unless I've got that wrong. Can't see any downside in that.
On the Pfizer vaccine, the government advice has to say:
"For women of childbearing age, pregnancy should be excluded before vaccination. In addition, women of childbearing age should be advised to avoid pregnancy for at least 2 months after their second dose."
Did someone say "Thalidomide"?

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, or the opposite.

B, better to pay £3 for something made locally that is easy to transport, than to pay $30 for something made thousands of miles away that is difficult to transport.

Re Thalidomide, you can see why they are paranoid about this. And rightly so.

Piotr Wasik said...

I was applauding Israel when I read 11.5% initially, but then I realised - in absolute numbers, it seems all the countries that are running vaccinations already, are around 1 million mark. so maybe it is not really feasible to go above that, like no more doses from the manufacturers? impossible to distribute faster at -70 centigrade? Of course I would welcome 7 million or so vaccinated people in the UK, to make it 11.5%, now I think we have more infections than vaccinations daily :-( I would like to get it already.

On another note, our new name - Common Ground - won't we be associated immediately with Common Ground Trust from "Land for the many" prepared by George Monbiot and others?

Penseivat said...

I understand that many of the people in Israel receiving vaccinations are Palestinians. I wonder what the outcome would be if Palestine had the vaccine.

Mark Wadsworth said...

PW, yes, the 1 million total is same in UK and Israel.

PS, that occurred to me as well.

Piotr Wasik said...

and the name "Common Ground"? association with Monbiot forever?

Mark Wadsworth said...

PW, we use it to mean a similar thing to what he means, so I don't see the harm.

I doubt whether Monbiot's book is that well known among his detractors (so no negative association), and if his supporters associate us with the idea, then that is a good thing.

Mark Wadsworth said...

PW, from his article:

To help stabilise land prices and make homes more affordable, we propose a new body, called the Common Ground Trust. When people can’t afford to buy a home, they can ask the trust to purchase the land that underlies it, while they pay only for the bricks and mortar (about 30% of the cost).

They then pay the trust a land rent. Their overall housing costs are reduced, while the trust gradually accumulates a pool of land that acts as a buffer against speculation, and creates common ownership on a large scale.


That is like a cumbersome form of LVT that doesn't focus on reducing other taxes. So our version is better :-)

Bayard said...

"To help stabilise land prices and make homes more affordable, we propose a new body, called the Common Ground Trust. When people can’t afford to buy a home, they can ask the trust to purchase the land that underlies it, while they pay only for the bricks and mortar (about 30% of the cost)."

Thus returning to a system that was common in the C19th, but is all but non-existent today, although a form of it survives in the peppercorn ground rents that come with leasehold properties.
If this becomes widespread, I forsee political agitation for measures to force the Trust to sell the freeholds (at undervalue, naturally).

Bayard said...

"B, better to pay £3 for something made locally that is easy to transport, than to pay $30 for something made thousands of miles away that is difficult to transport."

Well, yes, obviously, but is a second dose of the second vaccine going to work where the first dose was the first vaccine?

Bayard said...

"I wonder what the outcome would be if Palestine had the vaccine."

I would expect the same self-interest would prevail. Neither would want the other people acting as a reservoir for the disease.

Penseivat said...

@Bayard,
You may have forgotten the Muslim creed, "If Allah wills it". I think Israelis would be the last in line and kept interred until.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, the experts advise against mixing, but it's not the worst thing ever.

B, are you really saying that Arabs have never done anything really self-defeating merely to spite the Israelis?

Bayard said...

M, No, now read my comment again. The Israeli pols are just as capable of doing something self defeating merely to spite the Arabs as vice versa, they are pols, FFS. So, if the roles were reversed, the same self-interested behaviour is likely to be exhibited.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, yes, Israel does some counter-productive stuff as well, all countries do, but it is not quite on the same scale.

Bayard said...

M, are you having a grin? The international ramifications of the Israelis' treatment of the Palestinians and the lengths they have to go to in order to stop that resulting in Israel being treated like a pariah state are colossal. It would be far far cheaper for them to just stop doing it. There is no other country in the world that has to go to such lengths to keep up appearances.

Mark Wadsworth said...

M, Israel lets itself down with those annexations. But it's an obsession with them, The Holy Land and all that. So it's counter-productive as you say. A bit like Brexit might turn out to be for us :-)