We must rethink delay in second shot for health staff
You report on the decision of the UK government to delay second doses of covid-19 vaccines for 12 weeks in order to get a first dose to more people (16 January, p 8). The British Medical Association has come out against this plan, saying that the strategy to delay second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is “evermore difficult to justify”.
I have elderly friends who are glad to be vaccinated, but will not change their behaviour in any way afterwards: they will still stay at home, have groceries delivered and have minimal, or no, contact with anyone outside their household. They are happy to have their second dose delayed, in order to vaccinate more people, as they recognise that their risk of catching covid-19 is low.
However, I am a nurse working directly with people with covid-19. I feel that the government is forcing me 鈥� and hundreds of thousands of other front-line health workers 鈥� into a giant experiment to see how effective the vaccine is if not given according to schedule.
If we get sick, that has a direct impact on others with covid-19; we are already seeing huge staff shortages in acute covid-19 units. We need to be given the best protection available 鈥� we need our second shots on time.
UK virus variant may not need to spread to go global
Your report says that the “more infectious coronavirus variant from the UK has gone global” (23 January, p 11). This implies that it has spread from a person in the UK, thought to be living in the Kent area.
However, since its greater infectiousness may only involve one key mutation, it surely would have been fairer to point out that this variant could be arising spontaneously in other people in other countries and doesn’t necessarily stem from the UK, even if it was first identified there.
It is worth recalling that the “Spanish flu” of the early 20th century didn’t originate in Spain, but the Spanish made an early job of reporting it.
The Venetians gave us quarantine
While the English village of Eyam is famous for its quarantine in response to plague in 1665, the word itself comes from 14th-century Venice, when the crews of ships were isolated for 40 days after arrival to minimise the risk of transmitting bubonic plague (9 January, p 38).
The drive to have green cars needs another step
From
16 January, p 23
Your generally upbeat comment on the progress of electric vehicles, and their contribution to local and global health, doesn’t mention that half of the electricity for charging currently comes from fossil fuels.
Looking to 2030, and the ban on the sale of new fossil fuel-powered vehicles in the UK, there will be an increased and sizeable demand for electricity from the transport sector. But we will only be able to claim this is carbon-free if we have already met the electricity demand for all other uses from non-fossil fuel sources. Otherwise we are simply robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Perhaps a technology should only be considered zero-carbon when new infrastructure for the generation of clean electricity it requires is also provided.
Collective intelligence will be the key (1)
Robert J. Sternberg proposes ways for rethinking intelligence, but mixes individual intelligence with collective social intelligence (16 January, p 36). This matters because it is surely collective social intelligence that will be needed to address problems such as climate change.
There is an unstated assumption that by maximising individual intelligence we will maximise collective intelligence. However, as any sports coach will tell you, a team of stars doesn’t generate a star team. We condition people to focus on individual skills, then act surprised when teams of them act like committees and fail us.
Collective intelligence will be the key (2)
The discussion of the narrow understanding of what constitutes intelligence might benefit from study of Indigenous cultures.
Indigenous Australians have the world’s longest continuous culture and they have a radically different understanding of cosmology, land management, fish and animal husbandry and many other areas to that of Western cultures. To have lived sustainably and apparently peacefully for many millennia in their changing and frequently harsh environment implies a more appropriate intelligence than the Western one that has wrought so much damage in a couple of hundred years. Perhaps it is just the adaptive one that Sternberg seeks.
Don't forget this use of low-carb diets too
The article “Breaking with bread” discussed medical applications of low-carb diets (9 January, p 32). It covered type 2 diabetes extensively, but not type 1 diabetes. However, whether to use a lower-carb or extremely low-carb diet in .
There is , adherents would say, makes it much easier to live with day to day. However, this use of a low-carb diet is seen as controversial by some, particularly in childhood. Rich material that I for one would have been keen to see discussed in what is otherwise a fascinating and timely article.
Plants have long been the friends of metal hunters
In discussing the metal content of certain plants as a means to “farm” mineral resources you say that “for decades, these plants were regarded as mere curiosities” (9 January, p 42). However, the related science of geobotany goes back a fair way.
The Romans were aware that some plants reflected the underlying geology and 17th-century Scandinavian miners used indicator plants like Lychnis alpina (pyrite plant) to locate ores.
Since the launch of the Landsat Multispectral Scanner in the 1960s, research has been done to identify from space plants or plant communities that reflect underlying mineralisation.
For the record
Conservationists will implant fertilised eggs of northern white rhinos into surrogates from the southern white rhino population (23 January, p 16).