Money Could Cure Pandemic
Should We Pay People to Stay Healthy or Take Vaccine?
Oxford Professor Julian Savulescu published an article in the British Medical Journal of Medical Ethics on November 5. He begins with the question, is it ethical to force people to take vaccines.
He says it is, providing the vaccine works and doesn’t have serious side effects. The professor says it better than I can, so here’s a quote
Penalties or costs could include withholding of benefits, imposition of fines, provision of community service or loss of freedoms. I argue that under conditions of risk or perceived risk of a novel vaccination, a system of payment for risk in vaccination may be superior. I defend a payment model against various objections, including that it constitutes coercion and undermines solidarity. I argue that payment can be in cash or in kind, and opportunity for altruistic vaccinations can be preserved by offering people who have been vaccinated the opportunity to donate any cash payment back to the health service."
Personally, I like the idea of locking people in jail or fining them. Sounds a bit paternal, but public health is a paternal discipline.
A poll by NPR/PBS/Marist released on August 14, which reported that “more than one third – 35 percent to be precise – of Americans won’t take the vaccine when it is available. The take-up rates predictably differ by party, with 71 percent of Democrats saying they’ll take the shot versus 48 percent for Republicans.
Robert E Litan of the Brookings Institution, estimates we could pay about $1,000 per person (of $4,000 for a family of four.) Yet another transfer of wealth to republicans, but we could do worse.
Progress on Fusion Reactors Seems Likely
The world’s largest fusion reactor project is being built in France by a consortium of a Who’s Who of major governments called the Iter Project.
You may recall that fusion reactors do not melt down and produce vast amounts of energy from tiny amounts of radioactive fuel. Unfortunately, this requires so much heat that the only way to hold the reaction is in a cloud of hot electrons heated to 150million C, 10 times hotter than the core of the sun. The hydrogen fuel is obtained from seawater and just a few grams is needed but huge magnets are needed to contain the plasma in a doughnut-shaped vacuum chamber known as a tokamak.
Fusion reactors do not pollute the atmosphere and produce tiny amounts of radioactive waste. But they can be expensive. The Iter project’s budget is over 20 billion Euros.
Big Tech is actively involved with Tri Alpha Energy, which harnesses particle accelerator technology and is working with Google, General Fusion, which uses a vortex of molten lead and lithium to contain the plasma and is backed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and First Light Fusion.
Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate the holiday in America.
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