Gordon Robinson | The essence of vision

In Apocrypha, our favourite fantasy land beyond the stars, public health authorities found themselves in a conundrum.

Despite less than 25 per cent full vaccination against a raging global pandemic, Government removed restrictions it had placed on movement, gatherings and public clinical protection. The rationale was that the country was “pandemic-fatigued” after two years of restrictions; the pandemic had waned recently; and the economy needed to be rebooted.

But Apocrypha’s chief medical officer, a supremely competent technocrat known (behind her back) as ‘Jack Mack’, was fearful the lack of restrictions in such a lowly vaccinated populace would result in yet another debilitating spike in cases. Also, she noticed with grave concern that since the announcement of the lifted restrictions, vaccination take-up, already abysmal, had plummeted to all-time lows.

After more than a year of struggling to vaccinate a majority of Apocryphans, Jack Mack was at her wits’ end. So she consulted Oma D’unn.

Regular readers remember Oma, a PhD in logic, but, like a moon, bright only in the dark. Oma D’unn was a retired politician whose new business, a political consultancy, was birthed from his days as a Cabinet member, when his friend and political opponent R.U. Shaw would regularly ask him for advice. R.U. Shaw got his name from a fictional character whose initials were GBS. When asked, “Are you Shaw?” he replied, “My dear old thing, I’m certain of nothing.”

So, when he retired, Oma expanded his relationship with Shaw into a full-fledged consultancy firm where he solved, by parable, political problems brought to him by politicians of all shapes, sizes, ideologies or political affiliation.

Oma advised Jack Mack to buy a rear-view mirror. She seemed perplexed, so he told her the story of a policeman’s strange traffic stop.

“A senior citizen drove his brand new Mercedes to 100mph. He took a quick glance in his rear-view mirror and saw a police car behind him.

He floored it to 140; then 150; then 170.

Suddenly he thought, ‘I’m too old for this foolishness!’

So he pulled over to the side of the road and waited for the police car to catch up.

The officer walked up to him; looked at his watch; and said: ‘Sir, my shift ends in ten minutes. It’s Friday and I’m taking off for the weekend. If you can give me a good excuse – one I’ve never heard before – for why you were speeding, I’ll let you go.’

The senior citizen looked very seriously at the policeman, and replied, ‘Years ago, my wife ran off with a policeman, I thought you were bringing her back.’

The cop said, ‘Have a good day, Sir’, turned on his heel and left immediately.”

GOVERNMENT’S MISMANAGEMENT

Jack Mack still didn’t get it, so Oma explained that if she looked in her rear-view mirror, she’d see government’s mismanagement of the pandemic chasing her and could plan her excuse for when it catches up.

The reason she was facing her current concerns was due to government’s inconsistent policy on vaccine mandates and ineptitude in vaccine roll-out.

The Apocryphan Health Minister belatedly announced that reopening of entertainment and sports would come with fully vaccinated-only spectators/patrons but then, after complaints from football, backtracked by allowing that sport unvaccinated spectators.

Apocrypha could dance around clear and imminent public health dangers with excuses like ‘personal choice’; ‘early treatment’; and ‘natural immunity’ til thy kingdom come. THAT Kingdom WILL come for too many unvaccinated victims, because ‘natural immunity’ is short-lived (no pun intended); ‘early treatment’ isn’t as effective as preventative vaccination; and ‘personal choice’ isn’t personal as long as it endangers others.

Without vaccine mandates, no country will ever achieve sufficient vaccinated citizens to ensure herd immunity. Those countries’ death and severe illness rates will continue to simulate a ping-pong game, and the virus causing the pandemic will laugh all the way to our graves.

Peace and Love!

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.