A recent conversation I had with a non-family member gave me the full sense of the resistance to the vaccine. I know about the slight risk in all vaccines; I know the cumulative number of Covid-19-related deaths, the serious illness caused by the virus in the immediate and long term, the devastation of our economy and education, and it seems to me that the scale is balanced way in favor of getting the jab. But some people are on a way different page. They, I think, are not looking at all the facts.

Those who say that they have 100% rights over what goes into their bodies should please consider that there are no human islands in this world, that we are all connected.

Those Belizeans who escaped childhood vaccinations and brag about it should take a huge pause before they pat themselves on the back. The reason many of the unvaccinated escaped polio, small pox, diphtheria, and tuberculosis, has much to do with the collective. See, because the vast majority took the vaccines, there is “herd immunity”, and it is all of our profit in that bubble.

I heard somebody say that we should build our immunity naturally, to help us fend off the virus. But, while strengthening our immunity is great, natural immunity doesn’t count that much against a novel, NEW coronavirus.

Some point to the Mennonite group and say they shun vaccines and they have done very well during the pandemic, but they don’t know or aren’t looking at the facts about this group. I know of Mennonites who were doubled over by Covid-19. But never mind that, what we should note is that the Mennonites don’t live the way most of us do. They live hundreds of yards from each other, while we live tens of feet apart. Their jobs are mostly outdoors, and they don’t group nearly as frequently as we do.

I told the non-family member that he should consider what science has done for this world, and that without science the world’s population would shrink overnight. Herbs, wonderful herbs, did not get the world through tuberculosis, diphtheria, polio, and small pox. Herbs did help treat malaria, but that’s no virus. Malaria is caused by a parasite.

One source says that in the 20th century malaria took between 150 and 300 million lives. It is the WHO that has led the charge to contain malaria; it is the WHO that has made malaria almost disappear from Belize. There isn’t yet any vaccine for this disease, but they’re working on one. Wish those scientists the best of luck.

Those daam scientists that God created have done some wonderful work. Our World in Data says there were less than 2 billion people on the planet in 1900. In 2000 the world’s population was 3 times that. According to PBS, the child mortality rate in 1900 was 165 per 1,000 persons; in 1997 it was 7 per 1,000. It is science that did all that.

Science enhances our world. Science is so effective that countries like India and China have had to introduce laws to control their populations, and that’s because when babies are born today there’s a whole range of vaccines to protect them. Of course, we all have access to artificial methods to keep birth rates down, if that’s the inclination.

This AstraZeneca vaccine to protect us from Covid-19, it’s not impossible that we can survive without it, but we’ll be mired in an economic slump for an extended period, and that translates to more pay cuts and layoffs. It is what it is.

We have to get over our distrust. Some scientists warn that we will be attacked by even more deadly microbes. The fact is that the more people keep jamming up in urban areas for direct economic reasons, the more we keep deforesting and contributing to global warming, the more we destroy the habitats of other creations of God, the more we expose ourselves to deadly diseases.

What then? Hey there, God made the prophets to guide His people. Remember when Moses told his people, in Leviticus, to stop eating worm-infested hog meat because it would sicken them? In the same way, God guides His scientists so they find the answers to protect the health of His people.

Leaders and their need for fat

I think the elite of our financial system, the CEOs, should have foregone the fat to express solidarity in these terribly lean times, and because it would have been easier for them to rally the troops beneath them if they had shown da empathy.

But, I don’t have to absolutely scrape the barrel to find why it isn’t the absolute worst decision for them to be exempted from the 10% cut that most of the fifteen or so thousand persons on the government’s payroll had to take.

In the big scheme it doesn’t cost us a leg. I think there are fifteen or so ministries, and if a CEO takes home a whopping $80,000 a year (Belize standards), then, keeping it on a straight line, each gets $8,000 that should have been taken away, and multiplying that by 15 we see that the move costs the national treasury $120,000.

Considering that most of these CEOs are capitalists, they naturally are money-motivated, so if they hold onto the dough, they should work harder to show gratitude for the perks many of them must have thought they would, should have expected to, lose. I will say this. You want the people at the top of the pyramid, the people in leadership, to be very happy, and it doesn’t matter which economic system it is.

Seriously, your leaders must rest their back on a good mattress, because you don’t want them falling asleep on the job. These soft pops leaders must get high proteins and rich vitamins and minerals in their diet, because we don’t want them getting tired when they are negotiating with canny foreign governments.

Those hogs in Animal Farm, as leaders, needed the milk and eggs, and the soft beds. Unfortunately, the pampering in their instance didn’t translate to anything good for Boxer and the workers, because they were rotten beasts, PUDP-ers, out for themselves.

I have heard people throw words that Fidel, when he was around, didn’t eat like the masses in Cuba. To that I have said, and say, don’t ask a leader with the fate of millions on his shoulders to not eat the best food. I am not aware that Fidel lived lavishly, but I wouldn’t complain if he ate the part of the fish and the fat steer that he preferred.

The capitalist system, more than any other, is a star system. It takes 18 players to make a football team, yet sometimes one player makes more than the other seventeen, combined. We see people who have a little singing talent, or can rain fire and brimstone from a pulpit, make millions and buy jet planes so they can reach their fans and congregations quicker, so they can rake in more money.

Equilar, at the website equilar.com, says the average top CEO salary in that country was $15.5 million per year. Looking at bottom earners in the US, the US Department of Labor says the minimum wage in that country is $7.25 per hour, and if we multiply that by 262 10-hour working days, a bottom earner in the USA takes home $19,000 per year. Ouch, that is extreme!

Hmm, the prophet Samuel told the people of Israel what they would get if they preferred a king to a man of God. Well, so many people just love this capitalism! In that system yu feed yu leaders gud. Where we go wrong is that we accept excuses when they mess up.