Sir Tom Moore

was one of those extraordinary individuals - an "ordinary" man who did something ordinary and turned it into something extraordinary. Raising $97m for charity in the last year of your life, the year you had your 100th birthday by walking around your garden has to be seen as extraordinary. I wish I had met him, been able to shake his hand and simply say, "Well done ye." (In our clan that is the highest form of praise.)

I thought about what he had done as I went out to fill the bird bath this morning. That's a little thing. It needs to be done most days in summer. The birds use it of course but we have it at ground level and other animals use it as well. The local cats, dogs, lizards and more all know where to find it in our front garden. There was that wonderful morning I saw the young koala there early on that hot summer morning - drinking steadily.  (Koalas get most of the moisture they need from eating gum leaves.)

And I also thought of something else. Sir Tom died from Covid19 as much as he died from pneumonia and old age. Would he have survived had he been vaccinated? We will never know.

The Senior Cat will be one of the first to be offered vaccination when they finally start rolling it out here. I know there will be people who say, "What's the point of vaccinating very old people? They are going to die soon anyway." Yes, perhaps they are but, if they become ill with Covid19, our society will also believe that everything possible has to be done to save their lives. We don't "give up" on people. 

The World Health Organisation is apparently now telling the United Kingdom that, instead of vaccinating people in the UK, they should pass the vaccine on to countries "more in need".  This has been said before in other ways. In Downunder we are being told that there is no need for a vaccine here. We are, according to them, only getting a few cases. The Federal and state governments here are also under pressure to allow more people into the country, to allow recent arrivals to "self-isolate" at home and more.

I have been thinking a lot about all this. There are no easy answers to these questions. All governments seem to be struggling with this. The UK government has a country in lock down, an economy which is in tatters. Those who opposed "Brexit" will blame Brexit but it is likely that Covid19 has done more damage. The EU wants access to the UK's supply of vaccine too. 

We had scientists working together on this - and now politics is pulling it all apart far more rapidly than professional jealousy will.

Here in Downunder we do need to vaccinate. We are close to countries where the virus is still spreading. Little is said about it but it is spreading. The Federal government's overall strategy of vaccinating the population to try and keep the severity of any outbreak to a minimum makes sense. It makes sense because then, and only then, can we concentrate on getting the close Pacific region vaccinated as well. As I understand it doing one thing without the other makes no sense. Whether we could be doing more to produce greater quantities of a vaccine here is something I cannot comment on. I know nothing about vaccine production.

But WHO is castigating "rich" countries - and we are considered one - for not doing more to help. So far however they do not seem to have made any serious criticism of China. If China really is containing the spread of Covid19 as well as they claim then China has far more room to help - to help the region rather than those whose regimes of which they approve. We have almost no idea what is going on in North Korea. Are they getting help from China? What about Mongolia and places like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the west? We hear almost nothing about these countries. Covid19 is there and is likely a major issue. I suspect China is doing no more than applying small band aid strips. 

I don't know the answer but I hope the Downunder government will fulfill their commitment to the Pacific region - and go beyond that.