But here in Part 3 I want to mention how human honour seeking is an undercurrent in more ways in our world than we realise. Recently Russia announced that they have a Vaccine for COVID-19 that they say is ready for full use.
It seems that they are doing Phase 3 Clinical Trial as they go along instead of waiting till that Phase is finished before declaring it safe and rolling it out as a licenced vaccine. To simplify it, Phase 3 is important as in Phase 1 and 2 the vaccine is tested as to whether it produces an antibody response and can be ‘safely’ injected into a limited number of healthy humans. But in Phase 3 not only are there more humans injected across a range of ages and health contexts, but there is supposed to be a greater amount of time given to make sure of what the longer-term effects are and what happens when these people later get the ‘real’ virus in the community - whether it protects them and they don’t get sick, or it does nothing to protect them at all, or if like what has happened previously with vaccines when a person later catches the ‘real’ virus they get extra severely sick or die because of an immune enhancement problem! So proper time and practice is important for this phase. It is this phase that many hopeful vaccines have to be trashed and the research has to start over again!
The point of interest is that they are making it very clear that they are the 1st in the race to get a vaccine. It has been said by some that it is sad that what was meant to be collaboration has become a race to see who can get to the finish line first and has been a race for prestige! Some are concerned that safety is being sacrificed. The human desire for honour, to be first, to be the top, to be the best and better than others, is very strong and can sometimes cause us to throw caution to the wind, cut corners or do the minimum rather than the maximum to ensure health and safety, whether its in the classroom, the school sports field, the workplace, the space race or a vaccine race!
Russia has named their vaccine the Sputnik V, bringing a parallel to the fact that the Russians were the first into space in the ‘space race’. The honour of being first is being questioned by other nations as being at the expense of a proper sequence of protocols to ensure a ‘safe’ vaccine.
But how often do we also rush what we should take time to do, just because we want to be first or noticed or recognised or praised! How often do we ‘cut corners’ to get what we want when we want it? How often do we care more about our own image, and what others will think of us, instead of doing what it takes, no matter what others may think? As God’s children we need to be more concerned about honour in his eyes, than honour in the eyes of the world and those around us even in the small things.
….Keep watch for Part 4 coming soon!
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