Health First (until we get a vaccine)

A quick covid-19 vaccine that saves humanity is the ideal of nearly every political or societal leader of our time. PM Andrej Babiš told Blesk this week that he met with Novavax about building a factory in Bohumil/Jevany and that the vaccine could be ready early next year. Yet even Bill Gates said that the typical development time is more than five years and that no vaccine has ever been developed in 18 months. His hope, he said, is that a vaccine available in Oct. 2021 will be "as close to perfect as possible." The smallpox vaccine had side effects bad enough to cause one out of every three people to stay home from school or work, he said, and a small but not insignificant number developed more serious reactions. The covid-19 vaccine might be similar, Gates said. In other words, Babiš and other politicians who shut down the economy in order to put Health First are now embracing an approach that might prove statistically more dangerous to Czechs than the virus itself.