Our nutty neighbour

 I have mentioned before some of the strange beliefs held by our neighbour (5g-nutters-are-loose-in-hundon). Now she is adding to her the list of nuttiness, having attended the anti-mask wearing march and rally in Trafalgar Square this weekend. Thousands of people were crowded together, free of masks, and excited to hear the arch-nutter Piers Corbyn spout his nonsense. If her outlandishness were confined to 5G, it would be harmless except to the damaged masts. If it were just a refusal to wear masks, it could be considered anti-social and dangerous to vulnerable people she coughed on, but not to the wider community. The biggest problem though is the idea held by so many of her group that the whole thing is a conspiracy by the pharmaceutical companies, to make vast profits from a dangerous vaccine that will only cause ill-health. This group firmly believes that all vaccines cause autism in infants. The fact that the Covid vaccine will only be given to adults does not register with them; perhaps she imagines that all adults will become autistic after the injection.

Polio "survivors" in Nigeria

The thing that really disturbs though is the ignorance and denial of the good that vaccination has done throughout the world. Polio, particularly damaging to children under 5 years of age, leads to irreversible paralysis for 1 in 200 infected children, of whom up to 10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized. Today, only Pakistan and Afghanistan still have endemic polio thanks to a world-wide vaccination programme. As long as a single child remains infected, children in all countries are at risk of contracting polio. 

Smallpox has now been eliminated from every country. Cases of diptheria and measles have declined hugely, and now cause few deaths in childhood. The fact that their incidence is rising again following the anti-inoculation propaganda of people like the Hundon fruitcake is an indictment of everyone who argues against vaccination programmes. On their heads alone are the needless deaths of many infants, and I can only hope that they may see their folly before they learn the hard way through the death of their own children.