What is it like to be a bat?

You know what it is like to be a bat. To be a bat is to be a mammal like no other. You spend half the day dozing in caves, and then you all leave together. You flap about, in order to get anywhere. You find out where you are by seeing how the sounds you make come back to you. You are where all the others are. Each of you is there because everyone else is there. Everyone else is a bit batty. You know what it is like to be a bat.

Health and Safety

"Police officers are, quite rightly, furious at the government for failing to prioritise them in the vaccination schedule."

Click on that quote for more on that "quite rightly,"

Blaming the government is how our democracy works; but I was wondering, who failed to get the police vaccinated in the early days of this pandemic, when it would have done them (and therefore us) much more good?

Many months ago (here is a link to one timeline) the vaccines were safe enough to be given to thousands of volunteers, for phases II and III of the testing process (for a description of those phases see the quote below, which is cut-and-pasted from WHO). Could some of the vaccines not have been made available then, for key workers who volunteered (for the vaccines, not for participation in the trials, which were presumably randomized)? Tinkering with the timetable of the current roll-out of mass vaccinations would inevitably involve some risk to that roll-out. Why do people who failed to think this through earlier, when it would have done more good, now think that they know better than the government how to balance those risks?

Here is that WHO quote:

"An experimental vaccine is first tested in animals to evaluate its safety and potential to prevent disease. It is then tested in human clinical trials, in three phases:

In phase I, the vaccine is given to a small number of volunteers to assess its safety, confirm it generates an immune response, and determine the right dosage.

In phase II, the vaccine is usually given [to] hundreds of volunteers, who are closely monitored for any side effects, to further assess its ability to generate an immune response. In this phase, data are also collected whenever possible on disease outcomes, but usually not in large enough numbers to have a clear picture of the effect of the vaccine on disease. Participants in this phase have the same characteristics (such as age and sex) as the people for whom the vaccine is intended. In this phase, some volunteers receive the vaccine and others do not, which allows comparisons to be made and conclusions drawn about the vaccine.

In phase III, the vaccine is given to thousands of volunteers – some of whom receive the investigational vaccine, and some of whom do not, just like in phase II trials. Data from both groups is carefully compared to see if the vaccine is safe and effective against the disease it is designed to protect against."

Happy Valentines Day

Two Dragons

Flocks of susurrating starlings sometimes look like dragons.

And flocks, herds and tribes are deathless things.

Cultures thereby accumulate knowledge.

They can be a bit robotic, though:

     Freedom has, as a matter of fact, given us two parties, which compete for our votes. Individuals can choose to vote for one of them, or to waste their votes on other candidates, or not even vote at all. They can also apply to enter the parties. If they suit a party, they will do well within it if they dedicate themselves to performing well by its standards. Or they can leave the party, at will. All that freedom serves to maintain the culture of the party. The parties persist, each position filled by some appropriate person.

     And as they compete with each other, they evolve, in their own way. They carry us with them as they evolve in an essentially mechanical way. They are a bit like a blue dragon and a red dragon, fighting over who gets to appoint our leader; or scapegoat? The parties compete for significant numbers of votes, but each vote is relatively insignificant. How can we feel responsible for what our representatives do? And yet, we are responsible for obeying the laws they make. And we are a democracy. Does the buck not stop with us?

     Could we make our parties more representative, if more of us joined them? Or would that tend to make our country even more divided? Perhaps we should get ourselves a more proportional system; then we could join, or at least vote for, a wider range of parties. If we do not, will the two parties move mechanically, in ways that we hardly understand, toward something even less representative? If so, then one way or another, we will be getting a different system. Surely should at least think about voting for a transitional Liberal government.

     The people are all, collectively, responsible for the form of their democracy, for voting within that system, for the outcome of that voting, and for what their leaders do. But most people in our democracies think that what is done in their name is not their fault. Most of us did not vote for the people in charge. But everyone feels that their vote is relatively insignificant. And the outcome of an election really does have little or nothing to do with any particular vote. It is as though none of the voters are responsible. Whereas, we are all responsible.

Happy New Year (again ;-)

Haikoo

  A moo oozes out
of a cow's mouth, in a fog
           that is not too odd.