Immunity, Smartphones, Raise Taxes, Guidance for Schools, Letters

 Immunity

A Physician Wearing a Seventeenth Century Plague Preventive Costume
unknown artist
Photo Credit: Wellcome Collection  [Public Domain] 

There is a simple question that the experts who study viruses do not always relish being asked. The question is this: what is it that makes one disease give you lasting immunity, while in another it is fleeting.

"That is complicated," says Shane Crotty, from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California.

"That's really difficult," agrees Deenan Pillay, professor of virology at University College London. "You would have to speak to a geeky immunologist about that."

Dan Davis is professor of immunology at Manchester University ... and a fully accredited geeky immunologist... And his answer?

"The truth is, it's a little bit mysterious."

There is no shame in this - scientists happily admit that sometimes they operate at the edge of knowledge. But it is, nevertheless, a shame. Because as Professor Davis suggests, this question is really rather important. On it hangs trillions of pounds and tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of lives. If an antibody test shows you have had coronavirus, does that mean you are immune to coronavirus? And for how long?

... "The immune system is incredibly complicated," says Eleanor Riley, professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Edinburgh University. "Because it's so important to us, it cannot have a single point of failure. There are loads of ways the body can see a virus, think 'I don't like this virus', and get rid of it."

... She likens it to a pinball falling through a machine. "There is no single path to the bottom. Put in a coronavirus, and like the pinball we know it will end up at the bottom, with immunity. But for every person it will do it differently.

... This immune memory may work like any other memory," says Alessandro Sette, from the La Jolla Institute. "In life, if it's a very traumatic event, you tend to remember it more." In this idea, Dr Riley says "the  body needs to say, 'Eh-up, there's something here I need to pay attention to'. If a virus causes little damage, if it gets into your nose but goes no further, there may just be a trivial response."

... If there's one question more important to the world right now than whether getting the virus gives you immunity, it's whether getting a vaccine does? A vaccine is a medical trick. It is a benign deceit performed on your immune system...

(Tom Whipple, The Times, 2020)

It all goes to show how little we know.

Smartphones

The Problem
Ralph Todd (1856-1932)
Photo Credit: Penlee House Gallery & Museum [ CC BY-ND]

Your right to remain a Luddite is quietly being eroded. We are, as Elon Musk has said, already at a cyborg-like stage of technological advancement. It's just that our smartphones have not yet been embedded in our bodies.

Most of us look to phones to tell us where to go and how to do just about everything. And now, thanks to coronavirus, society is beginning to operate on the basis that we are all carrying these devices every minute of the day.

Since the lockdown began, landlords and restaurateurs have been told that apps which let customers book a table and order food and drink are the future. For technology companies, the apps conveniently double as proxy tracking services, given that they record the owner's contact details. Your information may be shared with "affiliated" or "trusted" partners when all you wanted was a drink.

We are assured that the information we hand over is secure. However, large-scale data hacks are now perennial and a handful of companies hold information on swathes of the population.

Furthermore, the coronavirus crisis has increased the likelihood of privacy rules being ignored altogether. In July the government itself admitted to breaking data laws in the development of its test and trace programme.

... It's more important than ever that we resist the ID cards-by-stealth that we carry in our pockets. Younger people in particular should ensure they spend some part of every day free from the jolting notifications that demand immediate attention.

Evidence is growing about the anxiety that reliance on smartphones can lead to. A 2019 study in BMC Psychiatry showed that one in four young people with "problematic" smartphone usage had increased odds of poor mental health. But the full extent of the psychological toll of smartphone reliance is still unknown. We are all participants awaiting results of that experiment.

The growing obligation to always carry a phone should be resisted. Eating out or a casual pint should not erode your privacy.

(Ross Bryant, The Times, 2020)

If Facebook can sell your personal information to those companies who want it who knows what is going to happen here.

Raise Taxes

Widow Costard's Cow and Goods, Distrained for Taxes, are redeemed by the generosity of Johnny Pearmain
Edward Penny (1714-1791)
Yale Center for British Art [Public Domain]

A group of 84 of the world's richest people have called on governments to permanently increase taxes on them and other members of  the wealthy elite to help pay for the economic recovery from the Covid - 19 crisis.

The millionaires, including the Disney heir Abigail Disney and the co-founder of Ben and Jerry's ice cream Jerry Greenfield, are calling today on "our governments to raise taxes on people like us. Immediately. Substantially. Permanently."

... No, we are not the ones caring for the sick in intensive-care wards. We are not driving the ambulances that will bring the ill to hospital. We are not restocking grocery store shelves or delivering food door to door. But we do have money, lots of it. Money that is desperately needed now and will continue to be needed in the years ahead, as our world recovers from this crisis."

...Among those adding their names to the letter are Sir Stephen Tindall, founder of the Warehouse Group retail chain, and New Zealand's second richest man with a £370m fortune; the British film director Richard Curtis; and the Irish tech venture capitalist John O'Farrell.

(Rupert Neate, The Guardian, 2020)

Thank goodness there are some hugely rich people who realise that raising taxes on the wealthy could be beneficial for the common good. 

School Guidance

The government has ordered schools in England not to use resources from organisations that have expressed a desire to end capitalism.

Merry Go Round
Mark Gertler (1891-1939)
Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND}

Department for Education ((DfE) guidance issued on Thursday for school leaders and teachers involved in setting the relationships, sex and health curriculum categorised anti-capitalism as an "extreme political stance" and equated it with opposition to freedom of speech, antisemitism and endorsement of illegal activity.

The former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said...

... "On this basis it will be illegal to refer to large tracts of British history and politics including the history of British socialism, the Labour party and trade unionism, all of which have at different times advocated the abolition of capitalism ... this drift towards extreme Conservative authoritarianism is gaining pace and should worry anyone who believes that democracy requires freedom of speech and an educated populace."

The economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said the guidance showed "how easy it is to lose a country, to slip surreptitiously to totalitarianism", adding: "Imagine an educational system that banned schools from enlisting into their curricula teaching resources dedicated to the writings of British writers like William Morris, Iris Murdoch, Thomas Paine even. Well you don't have to. Boris Johnson's government has just instructed schools to do exactly that."

Jessica Simor QC suggested the government had on occasion not complied with the guidance itself, after it admitted the new Brexit bill would break international law and it continued selling arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen following a court ruling that it was unlawful.

... The minister for school standards, Nick Gibb, said:

"Our new relationships, sex and health education guidance and training resources equip all schools to provide comprehensive teaching in these areas in an age-appropriate way. These materials should give schools the confidence to construct a curriculum that reflects a diversity of views and backgrounds, whilst fostering all pupils' respect for others, understanding of healthy relationships, and ability to look after their own wellbeing."

(Mattha Busby, The Guardian, 2020)

Like so much of the "guidance" given to schools, by various outsiders over the years, many teachers may well read it in their staffrooms, nod their heads, smile and then proceed to their classrooms where they will close the door and get on with the job of teaching, having already cleared their minds of yet another piece of piffle. 

This particular piece of "guidance" is non statutory - meaning that schools do not have to follow it. 

Letters

*As a retired social sciences teacher, I am appalled but not surprised to hear that the Department for Education is instructing English schools not to use material that is critical of capitalism. I used to strive to present contemporary debates in a balanced fashion so that students could come to their own conclusions. We are now moving from implicitly to explicitly rightwing-biased social and historical curricula. This is the final nail in the coffin of teacher autonomy...

(Philip Wood, Kidlington, Oxfordshire, The Guardian, 2020)

See above!

"Tall objectionable feminist seeks man to object to" remains my all-time favourite Guardian Soulmates ad. I never had the courage to volunteer as an objectee.

(Michael Woodgate, Bedminster, Bristol, The Guardian, 2020) 

An Obese Man Talking to a Tall Lean Woman
unknown artist
Photo Credit:  Wellcome Collection [Public Domain]

At a staff Christmas party in a town hall about 40 years ago, the waitress visited each table with plastic sachets of red and white wine. When my husband asked if they had rosè, she cheerfully poured a mixture of the red and white wine into his glass and moved on.

(Kathy Kirkbright, Marske-by-the-Sea, North Yorkshire, The Guardian, 2020)

Sir, Following up on your series of (almost certainly) apocryphal epitaphs, the Irish playwright Brendan Behan requested that at his funeral the cortege should stop at the last pub before the cemetery and have a drink on him, as he wouldn't be there on the way back.

(Brian Smullen, London SW7, The Times, 2020)