[quote VaguelyInteresting]@FizziWater
How is that controversial?
If your lifestyle is unhealthy (smoking, drinking, poor diet, overwork, not enough sleep, high stress, no exercise) etc etc then yes, you are more likely to be severely ill with almost any illness - including covid.[/quote]
Yes. If only it was easier to include socioeconomic risk for vaccine prioritisation. Too many people have too little control over their lifestyle. For many, whether because of poverty and/or physical and mental ill health, mobility issues, and poor or insecure housing, lifestyle is not a choice.
Excessive and prolonged stress causes inflammation. And Covid is an inflammatory disease.
Incidentally, Gordon Brown pushing for us and other countries to donate vaccines to other countries instead of boosters here. He ignores or doesn't care that it will be our poor and vulnerable who will be most harmed by that. He also seems fixated on 'the West'. Perhaps he's stuck in a colonial mindset. In the East, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and UAE amongst others. All doing boosters.
It would hurt our poor and our vulnerable... all for a rather empty gesture. Donations are a drop in the ocean compared to what the lower income countries need, nowhere near enough. It's also not so helpful to donate Pfizer or Moderna, since many lower income countries lack the infrastructure to use them.
No, the way to getting the rest of the world vaccinated is Biden and Macron's way. The way called for by many of the low income countries themselves. Temporary vaccine patent waiver.