It’s been almost a year and a half since we’ve had COVID-19, and over half a year since we’ve talked about it. It’s time for an update. Global deaths have now exceeded 3 million, despite our having several vaccines with high efficacy. At the heart of this paradox: people refusing to wear masks, to socially distance, or to take a vaccine.

Who are these people? Pew Research have asked … and found an uncomfortable and embarrassingly high proportion of them are Evangelicals. In fact, Pew Research found that white Evangelicals (in the USA) are the demographic most likely to decline the vaccine!? And worse, the most likely to declare that it should not matter what impact their decision has on the community!? “Evangelicals”? Boyd has an interesting word for this kind of people.

In this episode, we give a ground-level primer on what a virus is, and the two new vaccine strategies that have been developed to fight them. Instead of the old approach of injecting actual viruses which have been inactivated (by chemicals or radiation), the new approaches are to artificially synthesize a signature protein from the COVID virus (the “spike protein”) and then float that into our cells using lipid bubbles (Moderna; Pfizer-BioNTech) or a hollowed out shell of a different harmless adenovirus (Oxford-AstraZeneca; Johnson&Johnson).

We also look at the reasons why people are declining the vaccine:

• relatively minor side effects which might mean a few days of discomfort or even lost income
• a misinformed belief in becoming a genetic mutant
• an uninformed understanding of the increased risk of blood clots or anaphylactic shock
• use of stem cells from aborted fetuses
• concern about how quickly these were developed, and lack of data on how well they work
• the feeling that they’re strong and therefore don’t need the protection
• they can quote Bible verses to ward off the threat

As always, tell us what you think.

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