Cheers for Covid-19 vaccine; local answer to this and a very busy Minister

Britain – the first Western country to use the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine – importing it in all its dry ice maintaining a minus-several-degrees temperature, was used today, December 8, for the first time. The injectee, so to say, who will surely go down in history, not as remarkable as Rosa Parks or Margaret Thatcher but much more than Pavithradevi, is Margaret Keene who turns 91 next week. She was given the first shot in the University of Coventry hospital – lovely city, beautiful university. She does not look her age, lucky dame!

We should cheer loud and sing hossanahs to the saviour vaccine. Russia has been doing mass jabbing with its produced vaccine and so has China, whose scientific inventions and advancement cannot be critiqued, having seen on TV its probe to the moon which is busy collecting dust and rocks to bring back to Earth. But conservative Cass, believing hordes of sensible, cautious thinkers, cannot really trust either of these. She places her implicit trust and pins her hopes on the Oxford vaccine now in its last stage of being tested to obtain more than

95 % potency sans any risks.

Give it to the British to pioneer matters. They have bought the Pfizer vaccine with all its complicated wrapping and transport modalities without waiting for its own vaccine and started vaccinating health workers and the over 80s. Sure for free too, though the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine costs much. It’s beyond poor Sri Lanka’s means. But no great matter; the Oxford vaccine with one of our own scientists in the inner team will soon be in full production and WHO is sure to make it available to us poor Third Worlders. Cass supposes the huge amount of money our country received some time ago for Covid 19 protection has been spent for that purpose and not siphoned off for personal use like some of the generously donated tsunami funds were.

Thailaya for everything

Sri Lanka, admirably, is not far behind with its own panacea for Covid-19. Cass offers plaudits to the person who brewed the ayurveda potion of just five ingredients. The Health Minister sipped it with cameras flashing as assurance it has no adverse effects, even if it may not be equal to combat that speck of fat covered protein.

Busy busy Minister

Yes, Cass means Pavithra Wannniarachchi, holding that all important ministry as of now. She threw pots of holy water to a river to save our nation; announced she was ready to sacrifice herself to the waves of the Indian Ocean to save dear ole Motherland, and then she acted guinea pig to the locally made cure cum prophylactic for the ‘flu that is raging in every populated place and keeping other masses indoors who, of course emerge to shout and protest about the inadequacy of Rs 5,000, conveniently forgetting it is a free gift, even if hardly adequate. We have nouveau riche multimillionaires with political power coated palms; so why don’t a couple of them come forward to help these suffering countrymen? No need to hide amassed lucre under bushels, or stash them away in foreign banks or give to local entrepreneurs to invest who become billionaires in just one generation. Spend a bit during this season of giving instead of procuring helicoptered choice meals, racing in exorbitantly priced cars and living it up though heavily curtailed with travel abroad banned, and even parties verboten.

The latest attention grabbing move of the Minister of Health, Pavithradevi, is sacking SLMC president and council members. With one fell swoop she attempted unseating most eminent, much respected persons who have rendered excellent service to the nation. She has had the audacity to sack Specialist Paediatrician Prof Harendra de Silva who we remember as such an efficient Head of the Child Protection Society; plus distinguished others. No less than a former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and acting Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo, Vidyajothi Lalitha Mendis, Emeritius Professor, has protested the move. Cass heard it said it was unlawful to dismiss members of the SLMC Council. Hinted at or rather implied in the media was that a powerful trade union was instigator of the move. These king makers are clever at pontificating and struck work at the drop of a stethoscope during the previous regime. Of course we know Pavithradevi’s hand is ordered, not merely guided but pushed to action like a puppet on a string. She’ll dance to any Royal Command. In all her starring roles the most starkly etched in disgusted minds is the way she led the rioting in Parliament in September 2018. Remember her shouting as if she were in a fish market and egging on the rioting MPs to smash furniture, rip microphones off, throw bound volumes. Closely and loudly associated with her was Dr Sudharshi Fernandopulle, now newly appointed State Minister in the health sector. No woman of decent breeding would go to those lengths that made other women hang their heads in shame, during the Parliamentary turmoil caused by a catastrophic misjudgment of the then Prez.

No Whispering Hope?

Are there no silver linings? No hopes or reason for optimism? Covid-19 is raging in the country but not once has it been told us officially that social contagion is well on its way. It could have been contained in clusters; but no.

Cass met with three other women to break bread together in this desert of social contact- in-person. It was such a breath of fresh air. Talk inevitably reverted to the vaccine. One said she would try the peniya made of five ingredients including bees honey and nutmeg, the others kept secretly tight in the traditional closed fist of the inventor. Ayurvedic medicines are not injurious to the system; they cause no adverse effects. The peniya claims to be both prophylactic and curative against Covid-19, but is supposed to cause the runs. Thus the friend who said she would take this averred she would not get herself injected with even the Oxford vaccine. We accused her of being mean enough to wait and watch our reactions to it. Anything is better than nothing and much better to take the jab when it comes, was the general opinion.

Very choosy courier service

Usually unruffled Cass is akin to a cyclone roused sea. She is, in short, frothing mad. A service that calls itself a local courier service, when phoned as she needed to dispatch a parcel, says this prompt service does not accept anything in glassware, ceramics, nor food items. Then what does it carry, Cass queried: flowers and human parts?! Typically locally circumscribed; contrary to advertisement!