Pandemic equality

The headline in the Sunday Times this weekend read “Britain’s elite get pills to survive bird flu”. The first thing that occurred to me was why was it that nobody seems the slightest bit upset by this news, i.e. the blatant disregard for the safety of the ordinary citizens of this country while the elite take care of themselves. Why are the mainstream press so enamoured with New Labour and the Tony Blair cult that such revelations seem not to matter to them? But secondly, and most importantly, I could not help but wonder if the spiralling descent in civil liberty under the guise of the “war on terror” is actually connected with a threat far more real, such as this? On the other hand, it is scientific naivety to imagine that there would be an effective vaccine at all against a rapidly mutating virus such as H5N1 anyway. In spite of delusions to the contrary, we would face such a threat together as equals.

The Londonist posting on the very same subject.