4.  On the Negative Halo and its Impact.

Dearly Beloved,

For once the main political story of the month of March 2021 challenges the reality of our compassionate thoughts and actions. That story is the one about the Astrazenaca/Oxford vaccine against Covid-19. The problem seems to be the result of this vaccine being produced at cost rather than at a price that would enrich the company, as other vaccine producers are being enriched. The fact that this vaccine is easily transportable and cheap gives it huge potential to save the poorer people of the world from the virus and its production may be seen as a compassionate series of actions by a commercial company.

The reception of this vaccine has been to say the least hostile and irrational. It has ignored or even misrepresented the basic data which shows the vaccine to be both safe and effective. I love psychological puzzles and the unexpected antagonism that has greeted the Astrazenaca vaccine has fascinated me. Surely the main problem is that the vaccine is so cheap? When I studied psychology I was confronted with what was called “the halo effect” associated with the high price of objects such as watches and branded fashion items. The theory says that identical objects are more attractive if there is a higher price tag attached to them than the cheaper ones. Astrazenaca has caused the inverse phenomenon, so basically it is easier for us to think, or perhaps perceive at the unconscious level, that a vaccine that was so cheap could not be any good. That perception has been exacerbated by political attacks in the EU, undoubtedly attempts to scapegoat the company for the administrative failure in the block to secure a watertight contract and an effective vaccine roll out. In the USA there seems to have been a nationalistic and capitalistic bias against the vaccine, where the “at cost price” challenges the whole principal of profit at any cost. Undoubtedly the most extraordinary manifestations of bias have been in the EU where, simultaneously, the effectiveness and the safety of the vaccine have been under attack whilst at the same time EU politicians have decried the company for failing to produce the vaccine in adequate quantities whilst EU regulatory bodies further slowed the production process by failing to give timely approval to both the vaccine and the pharmaceutical plants where it was produced.

My wife wanted to show her support for the company because of its compassionate pricing of its vaccine by buying some shares in the company. On the other hand I said, well, the price will probably fall because of the present politics surrounding the vaccine. Of course as a good Christian I should have supported the company, its vaccine and its compassionate pricing. My wife after all is only an agnostic – although baptised a Catholic she had a strictly atheistic, humanist, upbringing.

There are strong forces in our society that oppose compassionate acts. The Spectator magazine published a famous article which introduced the idea of “virtue signalling” which opposed the perception of any compassion behind a compassionate act, by implying it was only a bid for social approval. Undoubtedly those on the very right and the very left of politics tend to lack compassion because their heads are full of ideology so that there is no room for compassion. We who profess to follow Christ must beware that our heads are not so full of dogma that compassion and compassionate acts are squeezed out or that we confuse compassion with seeking social approval.  

Peace,

Paul.

Originally published on 29 March 2021

                     

Archangel Raphael; the bringer of healing with Tobias.

By Workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio - National Gallery, London - online catalogue., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16444916


Additional Note on 30/10/22 -- the Astrazenaca vaccine has never been approved by the Federal Drug Administration in the USA. Astrazenaca has nevertheless produced over 2 billion doses of the vaccine which have been put to use.

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