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      in UK Politics

      Nurses ‘short changed’ by Sunak budget says union as household incomes fall

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      Nurses have been “short changed” by Rishi Sunak’s Spring budget and will be subsidising the NHS every time they buy petrol, unions said last night.The Royal College of Nursing said mitigating measures announced by the chancellor would not be enough to prevent frontline NHS workers “having to choose between filling up their cars and feeding their children.”It comes amid concerns that community nurses have been left out of pocket as they are not properly reimbursed for fuel used when travelling by car to patients.The Health Foundation said the government had not gone far enough to “protect the most vulnerable families from this latest economic shock.”NHS hospital leaders also said while the 5p-per-litre cut in tax on fuel was welcome they want nurses to be “better reimbursed for the petrol they buy through both mileage rate reimbursements and business tax relief.”The British Medical Association said Sunak’s statement was “disappointing” over the NHS care backlog and that ministers had failed to heed warnings over “punitive” pension tax rules that it says are driving doctors to retire earlyDr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the BMA, said: “Given the unprecedented pressure that the NHS is currently under, with patients experiencing life-threatening waits for care and a serious workforce crisis in the NHS, it is disappointing that the government has failed to listen to our concerns around under-investment.“While the government has retained its commitment to boost NHS funding through the Health and Social Care Levy, we were disappointed that there was no mention of how they would fund the extra £7billion needed to clear the current backlog.”He added: “It is deeply disappointing that the chancellor has failed to heed the BMA’s call to address the punitive pension taxation rules, which is resulting in many doctors being unable to take on extra work or forced to retire early. This comes at a time when severe staffing shortages threaten the very sustainability of the NHS and compromises patient care.”Jo Bibby, Director of Health at think tank Health Foundation, said: “COVID-19 has further widened the health gap between the wealthiest and the poorest, who can on average expect to live shorter, less healthy lives. This announcement shows that the government has yet to fully grasp the pandemic’s stark lesson that health and wealth are fundamentally intertwined.“Despite the measures set out today, household incomes are set to fall by 2.2 per cent in real terms in the coming year.”There has been no action on benefits, while the additional £500m for the Household Support Fund falls well short of what is needed. Higher inflation will also erode planned spending on public services which support health.”RCN general secretary and chief executive Pat Cullen said: “Nurses feel extremely short-changed by this statement. The cost-of-living crisis means some are having to choose between filling up their cars and feeding their children.”Today’s fuel measures are not enough to stop nursing staff subsidising the NHS when they fill up their car.  When community nursing staff drive great distances to see their patients, giving vital care, this is not enough action – they need immediate additional payments and an urgent review of the rates.!Deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said: “As collective employers of 1.4 million people, trust leaders are keenly aware of the spiralling costs their workforce is facing in their day to day lives.“They are particularly worried about the impact on their younger and lower-paid staff who are likely to be hardest hit and who will need further financial support.” More

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      in World Politics

      The Great Fever Misconception

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      Yes or no? On or off? Zero or one? Binary is simple, and simple is good. It facilitates decision-making, especially in a crisis like a pandemic. After all, either you have COVID-19 or you don’t. If you have COVID, then you are infectious and should isolate to avoid spreading it. On the other hand, if you don’t have COVID, you can’t infect anyone else, no matter how closely you associate with them. Of course, the tricky part is determining whether or not someone has COVID.

      The PCR test is the gold standard for determining if a person has COVID-19. It’s a very good test that gives us the yes-or-no binary information that we value so much for making decisions. Unfortunately, the test is not always readily available and it’s also expensive. And timing is critical. If you take the test too soon after you are infected, the virus may not have yet traveled to your nose where the sample is taken, and thus the result may be a false negative — you have COVID but the test indicates you don’t. Also, it often takes time in a laboratory to process the results — will you isolate or carry on while you’re waiting?

      COVID Failure: A Matter of Principle

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      Finally, what would prompt you to get a COVID test? Perhaps some event prompts you or requires a test by policy, but otherwise, you might take a test because you feel sick. If so, you already know you may be infectious. In that case, a positive COVID test merely confirms what you already suspect, and you normally get that confirmation a couple of days too late to do any good. Despite our heavy reliance on testing, it’s not as simple or as timely as we would like for deciding when to isolate.

      We’ve had another way to separate the healthy from the sick during the COVID-19 pandemic: symptoms. For example, if you have a fever, then you may be infectious. But temperature-based screening has not been very effective at all, and a big reason why is that the US government has historically defined fever as 100.4°F (38°C) or above. If a person’s body temperature is 100.3°F, then according to the government, that person does not have a fever. Does that make sense?

      Unfortunately, one of the distinguishing characteristics of COVID is the tendency of many infected people to have mild or even unnoticeable symptoms, including only slightly elevated body temperature, below 100.4°F. So, the government’s definition of “fever,” although simple and binary, has only confused the situation. Some people who were asymptomatic with COVID-19 took their temperature, found it to be below 100.4°F and assumed they did not have a fever. So, they carried on with normal day-to-day activities, often infecting others. Temperature-based screening systems typically use the government’s 100.4°F fever threshold, and, as a result, failed to prevent entry by many infected persons. Relying on the government’s 100.4°F fever definition has contributed to the spread of COVID-19. Where did this government standard come from, how can it be improved, and why has the US resisted change?

      © Douglas Dyer

      Origins of 100.4°F

      In 1868, a German physician, psychiatrist and medical professor named Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich published a paper describing his assessment that normal body temperature is relatively constant, varies from 97.9°F to 99.3°F (36.6°C to 37.4°C), and averages 98.6°F (37°C). He found that patients with a disease often exhibited a symptom of fever that he found to average at or above 100.4°F. He based these findings on 1 million temperature measurements for 25,000 patients.

      For the time, this scientific result was quite remarkable, and it changed medicine forever because it gave physicians the newfound ability to objectively assess the presence and severity of many diseases. However, Wunderlich’s patients were mostly German rather than being from different cultures, his thermometer may have been less accurate than those we have today, and people are a little different now than they were then.

      These are reasons to suspect that Wunderlich’s ideas of normal body temperature and fever are somewhat different today than they were in the mid-1800s. But, to be fair, Wunderlich observed differences in temperature based on many variables when healthy, and he advised that temperature averages have many “shades of gray.” In particular, Wunderlich noted that even smaller rises in temperature are cause for concern, and that there is no definite temperature threshold over which a person transitions from health to sickness. He said that any “elevation of the axillary [under the arm] temperature above 99.5°F (37.5°C) or any depression below 97.2°F (36.5°C) is always very suspicious.” He added: “But even when every precaution has been taken in making the observations, it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line to indicate by temperature the exact limits of health and disease.”

      © Douglas Dyer

      Today, clinical research suggests that Wunderlich’s findings should be revisited, that the normal temperature range varies by the individual, and that there is no arbitrary fever threshold that works for everyone. Yet, the US government and some medical experts still regard 98.6°F as normal body temperature and 100.4°F or above as a fever. For COVID019, this is simple, easy and, for most people, wrong.

      Improving on 100.4°F as a Fever Threshold

      If you’re interested in seeing if 100.4°F is an appropriate fever threshold for you, try taking your temperature. Use a normal, digital, under-the-tongue thermometer for at least 60 seconds. Make sure you haven’t consumed anything for 15 minutes — a hot or cold drink or food will change your measurement. Keep your mouth closed during the reading. Assuming you are healthy, if your temperature is below 98.6°F, then it’s a good bet that your fever threshold is under 100.4°F.

      If you were to take your temperature every day, preferably in the morning when you first wake, you would see that your normal temperature varies in a range of one degree or so. For example, in the image below is the normal temperature data for a person we’ll call JRDA5.

      © Douglas Dyer

      From this graph, we can see that JRDA5’s normal body temperature varies from 96.6°F to 97.4°F when healthy, and you can expect your own normal temperature to vary also.

      In modern medicine, a fever is understood to be a temperature elevation above a person’s normal range. This definition of fever is more accurate than an arbitrary fever threshold like 100.4°F that is based on population averages and data from 150 years ago. A person’s normal temperature range depends on many factors such as age, sex, nutrition and level of activity, and so different people will have different fever thresholds.

      Almost always, a fever threshold defined as above your normal temperature range is below 100.4°F. Therefore, if we use this new definition, there is significant potential for identifying sick people using temperature-based screening. Relying on 100.4°F is insufficient for identifying mild, pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic cases of COVID-19.

      Why the Government Has Resisted Changing the Definition of “Fever”

      A pandemic is not the best time for complicated methods. Perhaps the US government chose to stick with 100.4°F for simplicity and consistency. But, in this pandemic, nothing has been simple. We’ve learned to take advantage of vaccines that need boosting, tests that need repeating and symptoms that keep changing. People can figure out their normal temperature range and their own personal fever threshold if that means effective screening. Having a fever or not is still binary, even if we define fever as above your normal range. It’s still pretty simple.

      Elevated temperature is not definitive proof you have COVID-19. We all like certainty, and the PCR test will remain the gold standard for COVID. But we don’t need certainty to make a decision to isolate. A fever should prompt isolation, even though it may not be caused by COVID. The next step is to get tested and then wait for the results. We can stop the pandemic if people isolate if they get a fever. Fever is the most timely indicator we may be infectious.

      Asymptomatic cases may not exhibit any elevated temperature, so we cannot depend on temperature screening anyway. It’s possible that there are some people infected with COVID-19 who do not have any fever, perhaps because their immune system doesn’t work at all. However, we know that many asymptomatic cases are accompanied by elevated body temperature lower than 100.4°F. We can catch those people using the more correct definition of fever. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.

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      People hate change and the government is no different. It takes a lot to pass federal legislation and to modify federal regulations. But the government’s 100.4°F fever threshold isn’t working. The effort to change will help us control the pandemic.

      How Redefining “Fever” Helps

      Since the omicron variant of COVID-19 emerged, we’ve seen increased demand for testing, with many people standing in line for hours waiting to get a test. In the United States, the government has been ordering more tests to address the shortages. However, the demand for testing can evidently overrun our testing resources. By using a more accurate definition of “fever,” people will have a better idea of when they need to get tested. Today, about 75% of tests come back negative. We have clinical evidence that fever and other readily available health data can predict test results. By redefining “fever,” we can make testing more efficient.

      We can also monitor our health every day, conveniently, in our own homes. We can’t afford to give everyone a daily PCR test, and hardly anyone wants that anyway. In contrast, it’s easy, fast and affordable to take our temperature every day. It’s a smart, safe way to help keep our friends and family safe and do our part to fight the pandemic. A lot of people would self-monitor if they knew it would help.

      The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 evidently mutates easily, giving rise to variants, and we don’t expect that to change. It’s possible there are already variants that are not caught by current tests. Redefining “fever” can help identify cases that PCR tests miss. So far, fever is a symptom of all variants. More broadly, fever is a symptom of many other infectious illnesses, such as the flu. Isolating when you have a fever is appropriate for new variants and other viruses to help prevent the spread and keep everyone safer.

      It’s high time for the government to redefine “fever” as body temperature above a person’s normal, healthy range. With a more accurate definition, temperature-based screening can be a powerful new tool for fighting the pandemic — and one well-suited to use by anyone, at home and in time to make a difference. Americans want to help fight the pandemic. It’s about time the government helps them do just that.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      COVID Failure: A Matter of Principle

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      This is Fair Observer’s new feature offering a review of the way language is used, sometimes for devious purposes, in the news. Click here to read the previous edition.

      We invite readers to join us by submitting their suggestions of words and expressions that deserve exploring, with or without original commentary. To submit a citation from the news and/or provide your own short commentary, send us an email.

      March 10: True Toll

      In this month of March, the world is understandably somewhat reluctant to commemorate the second anniversary of the moment when the nations of the world unanimously declared COVID-19 a pandemic and began their largely concerted actions of lockdown. The story that unfolded afterward included a variety of traumatic episodes, including speculation about a diversity of possible preventive and curative treatments, sporadic outbreaks of revolt against enforced public policies and a scientifically successful campaign to produce effective vaccines. Despite their promise, the effectiveness of those vaccines nevertheless proved to be far from absolute.

      Pfizer’s Noble Struggle Against the Diabolical Jared Kushner

      READ MORE

      A group of over 100 public health, medical and epidemiology experts, after assessing the global results, has chosen this second anniversary to react and call into question the decisions taken by governments presumably capable of doing more. From the very early days, the scientific experts knew that, given the capacity of the coronavirus to mutate over time, any complication or holdup related to manufacturing and global distribution could undermine the entire logic of vaccines. They should have known that the biggest complication would come from a political and economic system that works according to principles that make it impervious to understanding the logic of a virus.

      Embed from Getty Images

      On March 9, the group of experts addressed a letter to the Biden administration to express their frustration with a situation that has evolved very slowly and largely inadequately outside the wealthy nations. This is not the first time concerned experts have urged “the administration to share Covid-19 vaccine technology and increase manufacturing around the world,” Politico reports. For the past two years, they have regularly been rebuffed, as governments preferred to pat themselves on the back for the short-term efforts they were making to protect their own populations, while creating the conditions that would allow the virus to mutate and gain strength elsewhere before returning to provoke new research and the promise of further commercial exploitation with boosters and new treatments.

      Principles vs. Ideals

      The experts should have realized by now that there is a principle at work that overrides every other scientific or medical consideration. It was established early on by the coterie established around Bill Gates, big pharma executives and other important influencers sharing their industrial mindset. It can all be traced back to the wisdom of Milton Friedman, who loved to repeat the slogan, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The principle is self-explanatory: In a competitive world, the idea of sharing simply cannot compete with the idea of competing. If you can’t afford lunch, you’ll just have to go without eating. That works when the only outcome is seeing people starve. It doesn’t work when the effects of their starvation are somehow transmitted back to those who have a permanent place at the banquet.

      US culture has cultivated the idea that life itself is a competitive race for advantage and the promotion of self-interest stands as the highest of virtues. Health like wealth must play by the rules of the competitive game. That same culture insists heavily on a form of discipline based on the idea of respecting “principles,” which it sometimes perversely confounds with “laws of nature.” The divinely ordained requirement to solve all problems through competition is a prominent one, but not the only one. 

      The problem with such principles that are taken to be universal laws is that once you believe it is a law, you no longer need to reflect on its appropriateness or assess its very real effects. We are witnessing an example of it today in the Ukraine conflict. The United States has invoked the defense of the sacred principle of “sovereignty,” reformulated as the right of a nation to determine its own foreign policy, including the choice to join a distant empire. That may be a principle, but is it a law? Insisting on it instead of reflecting and debating the question has provoked a disastrous and increasingly out of control war that, like the COVID-19 pandemic, has already had severe unintended knock-on effects, wreaking havoc on the global economy as well as destruction in Ukraine itself. 

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      Every culture must realize that its own principles may not be universally applicable, that they may not be perceived as others to have the status of laws. Any attempt to apply them as universal truths may cause immense human suffering. And that reveals the very dimension of the problem the health experts are pointing to. A potentially criminal complacency exists when the suffering caused by the inflexible application of the principle is directed toward others, at the same time when the purveyors of the principle take measures to protect their society and their environment. The principle of Ukraine’s sovereignty is already damaging not just Ukraine itself and now Russia, thanks to the application of the principle, but also Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which will be cut off from vital supplies of energy, food and fertilizer.

      For the past two years, the concerted defense of the ideal of competition by the pharmaceutical companies in their supposed combat to defeat COVID-19 has clearly aggravated the effects of a pandemic that might have been contained if the idea of sharing had been elevated to the status of principle. But sharing doesn’t deserve to be regarded as a principle. For Americans, it is based on soft ideas like empathy and compassion rather than hard reasoning about what might be financially profitable.

      Reflecting on two years of struggle, the group of experts noted “that the development of U.S. vaccines was largely successful, bringing protection to the public in record time,” Politico reports. That’s the good news. And now for the bad news: “But getting shots in arms in low- and middle-income countries has been a ‘failure.’”

      Out for the Count

      No precise statistics can account for the difference between the damage actually done by COVID-19 and what might have happened had governments effectively managed the global response in the earlier phases of the pandemic. “The true toll of this failure will never be known,” the experts explain, “but at this point almost surely includes tens of millions of avoidable cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths from Covid.”

      The “true toll” they cite reminds us of John Donne’s meditation on the bells rung for the dying in a time of plague. The poet and dean of St Paul’s affirmed that “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” Might we hope that 400 years after Donne wrote these words, pharmaceutical companies and politicians could, for once, take them to heart?

      But there is yet another much more concrete  meaning of “toll,” as in “toll road.” It is the price humanity is expected to pay, in dollars and cents, to the pharmaceutical companies that have so diligently used their patents to protect their exclusive rights to exploit and enrich themselves thanks to the global potential for suffering of others.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The final and fundamentally political irony of this sad tale relates to the fact that to do what the experts insist needs doing requires “more funding from Congress.” At a time when prominent members of Congress have become obsessed by the threat of inflation, while at the same time unabashedly inflating military budgets and responding urgently to the “sacred” needs of NATO in times of peril, the likelihood that Congress might suddenly address a global problem it has avoided addressing for two years seems remote.

      One of the experts, Gavin Yamey, suggests that COVID-19 “could follow the path of diseases like HIV or tuberculosis: become well controlled in wealthier countries but continue to wreak havoc in poorer nations.” Geopolitics in this increasingly inegalitarian world appears to be following a trend of domestic demographics in the US, marked by the separating of society itself into two groups: the denizens of gated communities and the rabble, everyone else out there.

      Why Monitoring Language Is Important

      Language allows people to express thoughts, theories, ideas, experiences and opinions. But even while doing so, it also serves to obscure what is essential for understanding the complex nature of reality. When people use language to hide essential meaning, it is not only because they cynically seek to prevaricate or spread misinformation. It is because they strive to tell the part or the angle of the story that correlates with their needs and interests.

      In the age of social media, many of our institutions and pundits proclaim their intent to root out “misinformation.” But often, in so doing, they are literally seeking to miss information.

      Is there a solution? It will never be perfect, but critical thinking begins by being attentive to two things: the full context of any issue we are trying to understand and the operation of language itself. In our schools, we are taught to read and write, but, unless we bring rhetoric back into the standard curriculum, we are never taught how the power of language to both convey and distort the truth functions. There is a largely unconscious but observable historical reason for that negligence. Teaching establishments and cultural authorities fear the power of linguistic critique may be used against their authority.

      Remember, Fair Observer’s Language and the News seeks to sensitize our readers to the importance of digging deeper when assimilating the wisdom of our authorities, pundits and the media that transmit their knowledge and wisdom.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Pfizer’s Noble Struggle Against the Diabolical Jared Kushner

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      These days it’s rare to read in the media a story with a happy ending designed to comfort our belief that, at least occasionally, we live in the best of all possible worlds. Forbes has offered such an occasion to a self-proclaimed benefactor of humanity, Dr. Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer. (Disclaimer: Pfizer is a company to whom I must express my personal gratitude for its generosity in supplying me with three doses of a vaccine that has enabled me to survive intact a prolonged pandemic and benefit from a government-approved pass on my cellphone permitting me to dine in restaurants and attend various public events.)

      The Contradictory Musings of Biden’s Speculator of State

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      The Forbes article, an excerpt from Bourla’s book, “Moonshot,” ends with a moving story about how Pfizer boldly resisted the pressure of the evil Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, who had no qualms about depriving the rest of the world — even civilized countries such as Canada and Japan — of access to the COVID-19 vaccine to serve the US in their stead.

      “He insisted,” the good doctor explains, “that the U.S. should take its additional 100 doses before we sent doses to anyone else from our Kalamazoo plant. He reminded me that he represented the government, and they could ‘take measures’ to enforce their will.”

      Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Take measures:

      Go well beyond any measured response in an act of intimidation

      Contextual Note

      Bourla begins his narrative at the beginning, before the development of the vaccine, by asserting his company’s virtuous intentions and ethical credentials that would later be challenged by bureaucrats and venal politicians. “Vaccine equity was one of our principles from the start,” he writes. “Vaccine diplomacy, the idea of using vaccines as a bargaining chip, was not and never has been.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Some readers may note that vaccine equity was only “one” of the principles. There were, of course, other more dominant ones, such as maximizing profit. But Bourla never mentions these other principles, instead offering a step-by-step narrative meant to make the reader believe that his focus was on minimizing profit. That, after all, is what a world afflicted by a raging and deadly pandemic might expect. A closer examination of the process Bourla describes as well as the very real statistics about vaccine distribution reveals that, on the contrary, Pfizer would never even consider minimizing profits. It simply is not in their DNA.

      Bourla proudly describes the phases of his virtuous thinking. The CEO even self-celebrates his out-of-the-ordinary sense of marketing, serving to burnish the image not only of his company but of the entire pharmaceutical industry. “We had a chance,” he boasts, “to gain back our industry’s reputation, which had been under fire for the last two decades. In the U.S., pharmaceuticals ranked near the bottom of all sectors, right next to the government, in terms of reputation.”

      Thanks to his capacity to tone down his company’s instinctive corporate greed, Bourla now feels he has silenced his firm’s if not the entire industry’s critics when he makes this claim, “No one could say that we were using the pandemic as an opportunity to set prices at unusually high levels.” Some might, nevertheless, make the justifiable claim that what they did was set the prices at “usually” high levels. A close look at Bourla’s description of how the pricing decisions were made makes it clear that Pfizer never veered from seeking “high levels,” whether usual or unusual, during a pandemic that required as speedy and universal a response as possible.

      Thanks to a subtle fudge on vocabulary, Bourla turns Pfizer’s vice into a virtue. He writes that when considering the calculation of the price Pfizer might charge per dose, he rejected the standard approach that was based on a savant calculation of the costs to patients theoretically saved by the drug. He explains the “different approach” he recommended. “I told the team to bring me the current cost of other cutting-edge vaccines like for measles, shingles, pneumonia, etc.” But it was the price and not the cost he was comparing. When his team reported prices of “between $150 and $200 per dose,” he agreed “to match the low end of the existing vaccine prices.”

      If Pfizer was reasoning, as most industries do, in terms of cost and not price, he would be calculating all the costs related to producing the doses required by the marketplace — in this case billions — and would have worked out the price on the basis of fixed costs, production and marketing costs plus margin. That would be the reasonable thing to do in the case of a pandemic, where his business can be compared to a public service and for which there is both a captive marketplace (all of humanity shares the need) and in which sales are based entirely on advanced purchase orders. That theoretically reduces marketing costs to zero.

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      But Bourla wrote the book to paint Pfizer as a public benefactor and himself as a modern Gaius Maecenas, the patron saint of patrons. Once his narrative establishes his commitment to the cause of human health and the renunciation of greed, he goes into detail about his encounter with Kushner. After wrangling with the bureaucrats at Operation Warp Speed created to meet the needs of the population during a pandemic, Bourla recounts the moment “when President Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, called me to resolve the issue.” That is when Kushner, like any good mafia boss, evokes his intent to “take measures,” a threat the brave Bourla resists in the name of the health of humanity and personal honor.

      That leads to the heartwarming, honor-saving denouement, the happy ending that Bourla calls a miracle. “Thankfully, our manufacturing team continued to work miracles, and I received an improved manufacturing schedule that would allow us to provide the additional doses to the U.S. from April to July without cutting the supply to the other countries.”

      Historical Note

      Investopedia sums up the reasoning of pharmaceuticals when pricing their drugs: “Ultimately, the main objective of pharmaceutical companies when pricing drugs is to generate the most revenue.” In the history of Western pharmacy, that has not always been the case. Until the creation of the pharmaceutical industrial sector in the late 19th century, apothecaries, chemists and druggists worked in their communities to earn a living and like most artisans calculated their costs and their capacity for profit.

      The Industrial Revolution changed all that, permitting large-scale investment in research and development that would have been impossible in an earlier age. But it also introduced the profit motive as the main driver of industrial strategy. What that meant is what we can see today. Pharmaceutical companies have become, as Albert Bourla himself notes, “ranked near the bottom of all sectors.” They exist for one reason: to make and accumulate profit. Industrial strategies often seek to prolong or extend a need for drugs rather than facilitate cures. Advising a biotech company, Goldman Sachs famously asked, “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” The implied answer was “no.” The greatest fear of the commercial health industry is of a cure that “exhaust[s] the available pool of treatable patients.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      In any case, COVID-19 has served Pfizer handsomely and is continuing to do so. In late 2021, the Peoples Vaccine Alliance reported “that the companies behind two of the most successful COVID-19 vaccines —Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna— are making combined profits of $65,000 every minute.” Furthermore, they “have sold the majority of doses to rich countries, leaving low-income countries out in the cold. Pfizer and BioNTech have delivered less than one percent of their total vaccine supplies to low-income countries.”

      At the beginning of the COVID-19 “project,” Bourla boasts, “I had made clear that return on investment should not be of any consideration” while patting himself on the back for focusing on the needs of the world. “In my mind, fairness had to come first.” With the results now in, he got his massive return on investment, while the world got two years and counting of a prolonged pandemic that will continue making a profit for Pfizer. At least he had the satisfaction of putting the ignoble Jared Kushner in his place.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in UK Politics

      Treasury ‘preventing’ NHS from maximising taxpayers’ money

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      NHS leaders have hit out at Her Majesty’s Treasury for failing to set out a long term workforce plan, warning services are being forced to spend billions in tax payers funds on temporary staff. Chris Hopson, chief executive for NHS Providers, which represents all NHS trusts has said quality of care is now being compromised and that the Treasury’s silence on workforce funding means the NHS cannot maximised taxpayer’s money.He tolds the Commons Health Committee: “I just want to address the Treasury directly, the treasury is forever saying we need to maximised tax payer money, the truth is we are spending billions of pounds of money we do not need to spend on agency and locum staff instead of full time staff that we desperately need.“We’ve reached an absurd and extraordinary position where NHS is saying we need this long-term workforce plan to maximised tax payer value for money but the treasury is stopping us from doing so that cannot make sense.”His words come as the House of Lords is due to debate an amendment to the Health and Care Bill this week which was previously rejected by the government. The amendment was proposed by former health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, would require the NHS to publish workforce requirements every few years.Speaking at the Commons Health Committee Professor Dame Helen Lampard Stokes, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said urged the Lords to back the amendment.She said government is not prepared to be honest about what is required in terms of workforce numbers and that NHS staff will be “bewildered” over why there hasn’t been a long-term plan.The government has promised to set out a future ‘framework’ for NHS staffing needs however has failed to set out any definitive figures or long term investment. Mr Hopson told the Commons Health committee the NHS had reached the point where workforce shortages are now impacting the quality of care and that care backlog built up during the pandemic cannot be recovered as it stands because of staff shortages.“We simply can’t run the NHS effectively or efficiently without a long term plan”, he said. On Tuesday NHS England chief Amanda Pritchard announced a new drive to recruit thousands of people as “reservists” to assist the NHS in tackling the backlog.The NHS looking to increase recruitment of people who are interested in a career in the NHS or former staff who might want to return to work, into agency like roles.Speaking at the annual Nuffield Trust health summit on Tuesday, Amanda Pritchard said: “Reservists will help us in our time of need but also help those who want a rewarding career in the health service – the roles are flexible and can fit around your lifestyle.“The challenges for the NHS are far from over – and as we now pull out all the stops to recover services, we once again need the public’s support.” More

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      in UK Politics

      Government to stop publishing weekend Covid case and death figures

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      The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has announced it will scrap its weekend coronavirus updates, in what appears to be another part of the government’s push for England to begin “living with Covid”.Starting this week, Covid case and death figures will only be published on weekdays, with Saturday and Sunday’s data being fed into Monday’s update from now on.Previously, the UKHSA gave these updates seven days a week – they include case, death and vaccine figures from the last 24-hour period. In a statement, published on the gov.uk website, it was announced: “The dashboard will be updated as usual from Monday to Friday. “Daily cases and deaths by report date published on Mondays will include figures from the weekend. These will not be separated out to show daily figures for Saturday and Sunday.”The five-day reporting model is one other countries, such as Scotland, have used throughout the pandemic.The change came as it was announced that the number of deaths involving coronavirus in England and Wales fell for the third week in a row.A total of 1,066 deaths registered in the week ending 11 February mentioned Covid on the death certificate, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – down 14 per cent on the previous seven days. It is also the lowest number since 922 deaths were registered in the week to 7 January.The figures suggest Covid deaths are now on a downwards trend, following a rise in December and early January driven by the Omicron variant. This is likely due to the success of the vaccination rollout across the UK, in particular the rollout of booster jabs.On Monday, Boris Johnson announced an end to almost all Covid restrictions by the end of the month, saying this was only possible due to the high levels of immunity and low deaths currently being seen. As part of his “living with Covid” plan, the prime minister said the legal requirement to self-isolate after testing positive for Covid and £500 quarantine support payments would end in England on Thursday. He also confirmed that free Covid testing for the public will be scrapped in England from 1 April, in a move that has angered health officials. It “fails to protect those at highest risk of harm from Covid-19, and neglects some of the most vulnerable people in society,” Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the British Medical Association’s council chair, said yesterday.“Living with Covid-19 must not mean ignoring the virus all together – which in many respects the government’s plan in England seems to do.”Mr Johnson, on the other hand, stayed positive. “It’s time we got our confidence back … let us learn to live with this virus, and continue protecting ourselves and others, without restricting freedoms,” he said, before admitting England could not yet “claim victory over Covid”. More

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      ‘Very brave or very stupid’: Scientists’ warning over early ending of Covid rules in England

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      Boris Johnson’s surprise decision to end all domestic Covid restrictions in England one month early is either “very brave or very stupid”, scientists have warned.The prime minister told MPs on Wednesday that the legal requirement to self-isolate could be scrapped by the end of this month, instead of at the end of March as originally planned.But the move has been met with unease by the scientific community, with national Covid cases once again on the rise.Mr Johnson was accused of playing “fast and loose with people’s health” in an attempt to placate restive Tory backbenchers as the fallout from Partygate continues.Labour’s West Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said the announcement at the start of PMQs was “designed to dig [the prime minister] out of a political hole, with no plan to back it up”.As well as ending the legal requirement to isolate, legal powers for councils to shut down premises linked to outbreaks will be removed. But no changes are expected to international travel restrictions, and the supply of testing kits free of charge will continue, said Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson.One member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said that no consideration had been given to the prospect of lifting self-isolation rules during the most recent meeting. Another scientific adviser to the government said the PM’s announcement “doesn’t seem very cautious”, adding that he was “very concerned that the number of cases remains very high”.Dr Simon Clarke, an associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, called the move “an experiment which will either be shown to be very brave or very stupid – but nobody knows for sure what the result will be”.Guidance will remain in place to stay home after a positive Covid test – as with any infectious disease – but it will not be legally enforceable. No 10 declined to say whether the £500 support payment for those isolating would be withdrawn.“Provided the current encouraging trends in the data continue, it is my expectation that we will be able to end the last domestic restrictions – including the legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive – a full month early,” the PM said.He said he would present the government’s “Living With Covid” strategy when the Commons returned from recess on 21 February. Aides said remaining restrictions were expected to be lifted by 24 February at the latest.The surprise policy announcement came as new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed infection levels had risen in most parts of the UK, with only Wales experiencing a clear week-on-week decline.In England, around one in 19 people was estimated to have had the virus in the week to 5 February, equating to 2.8 million people – up from one in 20 in the previous week. However, the ONS described the trend as “uncertain”.Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said he “certainly didn’t expect” the government to drop its self-isolation guidance this month.He said there were “grounds for optimism” in the current data, pointing to the example of falling cases among children and declining hospital admission rates, but expressed concern over those who are clinically vulnerable, saying: “There need to be robust procedures in place to ensure infections in this group are diagnosed early and antivirals are provided within hours of any positive result.”Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of Nervtag, a subcommittee of Sage, told BBC Radio 4 that “it would be wholly wrong to say that the pandemic is in any way over”, and suggested that the population had “become rather used” to the country’s high infection and death rates.On Wednesday, 68,214 new cases were reported, along with 276 further deaths and 1,196 hospitalisations.“I think we’re all really looking forward to being able to get back to some sort of normality, and we know Omicron is generally fairly mild in people who have immunity, and most adults have immunity now, either because we’ve been vaccinated or because we’ve been infected or both.“So, we’re going in the right direction, but this doesn’t seem very cautious.”Under the current Covid rules, individuals who test positive for the virus are required to self-isolate for at least five days and can face considerable fines for non-compliance.Regulations mandating the wearing of face masks in certain settings, however, along with guidance to work from home to contain the spread of the virus, ended in January.Mr Johnson’s spokesperson said the publication of the plan would be dependent on last-minute approval by the cabinet.Dr James Gill, an honorary clinical lecturer at Warwick Medical School, said: “Frankly I see no justifiable reason for the scrapping of this law, certainly not from the perspective of patients, nor from a business case either, as the Omicron variant is highly contagious.”Devolved nations will make their own decisions on whether to move at the same time as England, and cities like London, which still require face-coverings on public transport, will be allowed to continue to do so.Last month, Mr Johnson told the Commons that the government would replace legal requirements with advice and guidance, saying he expected “not to renew” the self-isolation rules after they expire on 24 March.The move to bring forward the date by a month will inevitably be viewed as an attempt to bolster his support among Conservative MPs, and was immediately welcomed by the former Brexit secretary Lord David Frost. “The PM’s plan to end all Covid restrictions a month early is the right thing do,” he said.The Liberal Democrats’ Layla Moran, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, said the decision was “foolhardy”, saying: “As they have repeatedly done throughout this pandemic, this government is preparing to make a serious public health decision for short-term political expediency.“Ministers must not play fast and loose with people’s health in an attempt to meet political demands.” More

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      Will the UK go into another lockdown in 2022?

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      The emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 caused huge concern around the world when it was discovered in southern Africa in mid-November, not least because it was found to be highly transmissible and because the 32 mutations to its spike protein suggested it might be able to resist current vaccines.Prior to Christmas, UK prime minister Boris Johnson introduced a series of “Plan B” social restrictions to combat the threat posed by the strain, ordering people to work from home, wear masks in public places, present a Covid pass proving their vaccination status in exchange for entry to crowded public venues and to get a third booster jab as a matter of urgency.He declined to tighten the rules ahead of the festive season getting underway in earnest, a decision that allowed him to avoid a repeat of his notorious address of 19 December 2020, and continued to stick to his guns in the early weeks of January, despite total daily cases in England rocketing to a pandemic high of 218,724 on 4 January, according to the UK Health Security Agency, despite pressure growing from experts to take a tougher stance to support beleagured NHS staff.Having weathered that storm, the rate of Omicron infections began to fall, enabling the prime minister to repeal those restrictions on Wednesday 19 January, with working from home dropped immediately and masks and passes abandoned from Thursday 27 January.Taking time out from the firestorm still raging over the Downing Street “Partygate” scandal, Mr Johnson told the Commons that he also hopes to remove the requirement to self-isolate from 24 March, saying: “There will soon come a time when we can remove the legal requirement to self-isolate altogether, just as we don’t place legal obligations on people to isolate if they have flu.“As Covid becomes endemic, we will need to replace legal requirements with advice and guidance, urging people with the virus to be careful and considerate of others.”Changes had already been made to testing and self-isolation guidance in order to minimise staff absences and prevent a further major hit on the UK economy, a primary concern among Conservatives keen to avoid a repeat of the “pingdemic” experienced last summer at the hands of an overzealous NHS Test and Trace app. Responding, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused the prime minister of being “too distracted to do the job”.“The 438 deaths recorded yesterday are a solemn reminder that this pandemic is not over,” Sir Keir said.“We need to remain vigilant, learn the lessons from the government’s mistakes, with new variants highly likely we must have a robust plan to live well with Covid.”The leader of the opposition is right to be cautious.Daily case numbers may have fallen considerably from that early year peak but were still at almost 110,000 on the day of Mr Johnson’s announcement and members of the public are still being advised to exercise caution and get their boosters, which so far less than 64 per cent of the UK’s adult population has done, enthusiasm having apparently stalled.However, barring another extreme spike in cases, perhaps caused by the emergence of another new variant of the virus, we are unlikely to see another lockdown imposed on the British public for the time being, with the measure considered the most extreme available and a last restort.Lockdowns have proven unpopular with the public due to the mental and physical toll they take on individuals and because of the devastation they cause to British industry, hence the particular anger expressed by many at the idea that Mr Johnson and his aides were swilling wine at Downing Street and ignoring the rules while ordinary citizens dutifully complied.Shorter circuit-breaker lockdowns could still be a possibility in future should the circumstances change but it seems more likely that social restrictions will continue to be imposed in stages, according to necessity and in line with the data, the situation kept constantly under review and the steps imposed adjusted accordingly. Even before Omicron began to cast its sinister shadow across the globe, many Britons were already glancing anxiously towards the continent as Austria and the Netherlands reintroduced lockdowns in response to spiking cases of Covid in the autumn.The World Health Organisation (WHO) had said it was “very worried” about the spread in Europe and warned 700,000 more deaths could be recorded by March unless urgent action was taken, bringing the total number of fatalities on the continent to 2.2 million since the pandemic began.Omicron variant shows just how ‘perilous’ Covid situation is, WHO saysPrior to the scare parked by Omicron, Mr Johnson’s government had been deeply reluctant to reimpose restrictions at all, despite consistently high case numbers.While the vaccines kept death rates low after the mass rollout began to have an effect in spring 2021, infection levels typically hovered around the 40,000-per-day mark from 19 July – “Freedom Day” – to the arrival of the new variant on these shores.Mr Johnson also appeared to be concerned that further restrictions might lead to social disorder, having seen anti-lockdown protests – some of them violent – erupt in Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy and Croatia.Londoners were certainly unhappy about the initial return of the mask mandate, accusing the PM of hypocrisy for declining to wear one himself at several public engagements.However, in other quarters, there appeared to be a clear appetite for new restrictions even before Omicron, at least according to the polls.A survey by Savanta ComRes revealed that 45 per cent of adults would be in favour of a selective lockdown targeting only those who had declined to get their Covid jabs and therefore could pose an ongoing risk to others.But, until the fresh strain threw a fresh spanner into the works, there was a credible case for believing that the UK was in such a strong position that it could avoid the worst of the outbreak marauding across Europe.Although Britain’s infection rate has remained high for months, it has also been highly stable until recently, lingering at a seven-day average of around 600 daily cases per million people, whereas Austria and the Netherlands have suddenly spiked to 1,500 and 1,250 respectively from well below that starting point since the beginning of October.Part of the reason for this is that the UK was hit by the more infectious Alpha and Delta variants of the coronavirus sooner and was therefore able to tackle them ahead of its European neighbours and unlock earlier. 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