Vaccines hogging the headlines this week:
Huge variations in vaccine hesitancy btw countries and over time. Twitter responses to my request for explanations highlighted legacy of previous public health campaigns / controversies; a function of deference to authority intersected with examples of historical abuse of science by governments; spread of the internet and false information (does more internet → more hesitancy?); trust in public health services at variance with overall trust in govt (eg UK)? And noise/big confidence intervals.
South Africa leads backlash against big pharma over access to Covid vaccines
Countries marked with an X are the ones blocking a proposal to drop patents on vaccines during the pandemic ht Jenny Ricks
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took over at the WTO, which joined a growing band of international institutions run by women. According to her interview in this Guardian profile, equitable access to Covid vaccines will be one of the first battles.
Gender & Development Journal is looking for contributions on an issue on Feminist Protests and Politics in a World in Crisis. Closing date: 2nd March. Details.
Exemplary professionalism from the BBC archive. 1984: Moira Stuart reads out the ‘other’ candidates in the Chesterfield by-election.