So here's a fact for a change: in the UK, representatives of her majesty's national healthcare system injected a vaccine in a person from the general public for the first time. From here on, we pretty much go back to the subjective speculation and interpretation our sensitive individual belief systems allow us to.
Should we have seen similar images broadcasted from China or Russia, mostly all of the western world would seriously eyebrow and instantly question their truthfulness.
The press has been told the 90 year old woman, born and raised in Northern Ireland was chosen at random. It is more likely, HM SNS was instructed from the highest level to conduct a surgical analysis of plausible candidates that would fit well into the public eye and thus inject a boost of confidence of what will go into history.
My bet is that as soon as scientists declare conformity with the absence of side effects, before Boxing's Day, another nice old lady in her 90's will be vaccinated for all the world to see so that the Common Wealth, the USA and also the EU can open their borders to acquire the UK produce.
I would also guess that Boris Johnson takes at least two sets of vaccine when he goes to meet (face to face we need to add in 2020) Ursula von der Leyen in a final action to conclude a EU-UK trade deal. One as a genuine offer to another kind of head of state, the other as a symbol of sarcasm for a 70 year old French Politician who has been heading up the EU Brexit team and happened to be in self-isolation when the the Brexit negations appear to operate smoothly.
There is no question of the relevance of tying a nation to the research, development and actual roll out of a virus in the midst of a pandemic and if there are various countries, a competitive race evolves wherein only one victor can be flagged. Especially with this virus, it is not about public health but about putting social and economic behaviour back on track and thus here too, leverage is available for those who will enter an up cycle ahead of others.
2020 will linger on in history for a long time, eventually as a mere pop up disclaimer in all the world's statistics safeguarding future comparisons with what was an extra-ordinary year. We will spend a significant part of 2021 debating on what went wrong, how we allowed this to happen and whether we went about this in the best way and here too, any society which can archive its review of events in order to look ahead will be at a clear advantage.
It's the way it has always been. We call it a level playing field.
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