Vaccine Cheats, Bill Gates

 

The Cheat Detected
Edward Bird (1772-1819)
Photo Credit: Sir John Soane's Museum [CC BY-NC-ND]

In New York you're now eligible for a vaccine if you're an "educator". Who falls under that definition? Stacey Griffith, a celebrity SoulCycle instructor who yells motivational quotes at her clients from an exercise bike, decided she did. So off she went to Staten Island to get a shot, documenting the adventures on social media like the modern wellness guru that she is. Bless her healthy heart, she appeared to be genuinely surprised at the backlash she received.

"It saddens me that people go so dark and mean," Griffith told the Daily Beast. "I'm really just trying to do the right thing and be safe." So were a lot of schoolteachers...

Then there is the Canadian casino executive Rod Baker and his wife. The millionaire couple recently broke quarantine and flew to a remote Indigenous community where they posed as local motel employees to get their jabs. I would ask how people like this sleep at night, but I already know: they sleep in fancy neighbourhoods in fancy sheets. They sleep just fine...

A number of hospitals in the US are under fire for offering early vaccine access to trustees, donors and board members. 

Meanwhile, moneyed Brazilians are trying to formalise a system where you can pay to skip the line. Private health clinics are negotiating directly with an Indian pharmaceutical company to secure vaccines for their wealthy clients. President Jair Bolsonaro has said he won't interfere with these plans. You can always trust Bolsonaro not to do the right thing...

Watching wealthy people, who have the means to shield from the virus, being vaccinated before many essential workers is infuriating. Even worse is the fact that there's not much we can do about it. Making it harder to get a vaccine helps no one: better a few undeserving people slip through the net than a single precious vaccine goes to waste...

(Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian, 2021)

Presumably there are penalties if the likes of the Canadian casino executive and his wife are caught out?

Bill Gates

The world is not lacking rich men with big ideas, Bill Gates has acknowledged, but having pumped $100m (£72m) into Covid research, the Microsoft billionaire has turned to the climate emergency and the urgent need to slash carbon emissions to zero.

And he says he is undeterred by being a self-confessed "imperfect messenger" for the cause...

Gates recognises he is not necessarily the best person to "lecture" people about climate change. His own carbon footprint is "absurdly high", but writing the book, How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have And The Breakthroughs We Need, made him more conscious of his responsibility to shrink and offset emissions which is "the least that can be expected of someone in my position".

"I am aware that I'm an imperfect messenger on climate change...And I own big houses and fly in private planes - in fact, I took one to Paris for the climate conference, so who am I to lecture anyone on the environment?

"I plead guilty to all three charges. I can't deny being a rich guy with an opinion. I do believe, though, that it is an informed opinion."

Gates said that private jets are his "guilty pleasure", he loves hamburgers and eats grapes year-round...

Radical change in how we produce the worst climate offenders - steel, meat and cement - is needed, he says. Steel and cement production account for roughly 10% of all global emissions, and beef 4%.

(Lucy Campbell, Emma Brockes, The Guardian, 2021)