Saturday, May 17, 2025
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Great Thunberg’s Spitting Image Sketch and the Problem with Political Satire

Thomas McKeown
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Great Thunberg’s Spitting Image Sketch and the Problem with Political Satire

Between 1984 and 1996, the BAFTA and Emmy-winning satire show Spitting Image spoke truth to power on British television. If you were one of the 15 million people who tuned into ITV on Sunday primetime, you’d find caricature puppet versions of smarmy politicians, shameless celebrities and vapid sports stars being hysterically impersonated and ridiculed. The show revolved around and revelled in its political incorrectness, and now 24 years later – at what many are calling a more necessary time than ever – it’s back.

Just three episodes of the first season have been released so far, but by all accounts it’s just as irreverent and fearless as it was all those years ago. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at their YouTube channel. “Spitting Image: Vicious, Grotesque, Brilliant”, boasts the title of one promotional trailer viewed almost half a million times in three days. And that’s not to mention the reception of the audience: “Finally a blow of fresh air. Your politically incorrect humour is very much needed nowadays,” sighs one commenter with a Union Jack as their display picture. You can see where they’re coming from: if ever there was a year where some satire would serve as a well-received distraction, 2020’s the one – and don’t you worry, for Trump, Brexit, Boris and COVID are all firmly in Spitting Image’s crosshairs.

But among the satirical subjects targeted in the reboot of the show, one name particularly stands out to me: Greta Thunberg. A 17-year-old with Asperger’s whose sole misdemeanour was to dare to take the ruling class of Europe to task regarding their lack of sufficient policy to prevent an environmental crisis. The decision to make Thunberg a recurring character seems short-sighted at best, and outright hateful at worst. If they had to include a mock puppet of her, they could’ve at least made it funny. In the pilot episode, the severe-looking caricature of Greta appears just once, presenting the weather forecast and declaring that the weather will be “HOT”. Haha! Get it? She’s the weirdo climate change girl! The second episode features a longer sketch wherein Greta goes to a West Ham match with a stereotypical cockney bloke and ends up becoming so incensed over the football that she insists on protesting and coming back every week to fix the injustices she sees on the pitch. Here it is, if you’re interested:

https://twitter.com/mchammer66/status/1315008443250552837

Sure, I don’t think it’s particularly funny, but of course, humour is subjective. People might laugh at certain parts, and that’s completely fine – we don’t all have the same taste. What, to me, is the more concerning aspect of all of this is the ‘If It’s Getting The Snowflakes Offended Then It Must Be Good’ brigade coming out in their droves to champion scenes like these, and the reboot of Spitting Image on the whole, as a necessary and effective satire show in 2020. The problem is twofold: firstly, that the show offers critique of people like Greta who don’t really deserve ridicule; and secondly, that all of the critique is completely toothless. Compared to the cutting-edge and culture-shaping Spitting Image of the 80s and 90s, this reboot seems to have taken out its dentures and started sipping the political and environmental crises through a straw.

Even if you happen to think scenes depicting Greta going to the football or Boris having sex with coronavirus itself (yes, seriously) make for great television, the satire still doesn’t break through and offer any effective and long-lasting criticism of the increasingly worrying developments around the world. Satirical novelist Jonathan Coe has reflected on the purpose of humour, saying: “laughter is a kind of last resort – if you’re up against a problem that’s completely (unsolvable), a situation for which there is no human solution and never will be, then OK – let’s laugh about it”. And in genres of comedy which don’t have any other stated purpose, like slapstick or sitcoms, that’s brilliant. When Laurel and Hardy can’t push a piano up the stairs, we’re laughing at them struggling because they’re reflecting a failure of the human condition, showing their exaggerated inability to fight against the forces of physics. But when the subject is political problems, and the genre is satire shows which at least purportedly attempt to make us think about those problems, the effect seems to get lost somewhat. Unlike in slapstick, you can’t only go for the joke or only present the absurdity of what’s on screen if you want to actually make people see Trump, Boris or indeed Greta Thunberg as people worthy of critique. Plenty of folks love the ‘black comedy’ and political incorrectness of the reboot of Spitting Image, but what am I meant to actually be thinking when I’m watching the Prime Minister seducing a strain of a deadly virus in bed? When the weirdly widely faced Greta puppet laments that “the referee has stolen my childhood with his erratic decision making,” what’s actually being said about her effectiveness as a leader in the fight against climate change? Britbox director Reemah Sakaan has responded to criticism of Thunberg’s inclusion, saying that: It’s a very straightforward joke and is nothing to do with her as an individual,” but that’s exactly the problem: if the jokes are straightforward and there isn’t any criticism of individuals being offered, then it seems fairly clear to me that the modern reboot of Spitting Image is no satire at all.

A lot of people like to say that the new wave of political correctness has marked the death of inappropriate humour. I think quite the opposite. Satire in the 21st century has the potential to be both amazingly funny and a priceless tool in holding celebrities accountable and speaking truth to power, but the true intention of the comedy needs to be crystal clear, equal parts court jester and town crier. In the past fifteen years, the overwhelming majority of popular satire has been weak enough to warrant a pat on the head and even an endorsement from the ruling class, rendering it utterly redundant. Of course, it can still be funny. 2008 US Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is almost as famous for being perfectly and hilariously impersonated by Tina Fay on Saturday Night Live as she is for her political career. But when Fay chose to discuss the mechanics and humour of her own impression rather than the intention of the satire on popular US talk shows, and when Saturday Night Live chose to air an episode with a collaboration(!) between Tina Fey and the real politician she was impersonating just weeks before the 2008 Presidential election, the utter pointlessness of the show’s attempt at satire became evident. Viewers weren’t switching off their screens more aware of Sarah Palin’s tendency to avoid questions, nor her views on same-sex marriage or Second Amendment rights. If anything, SNL’s depiction of Palin only served to make her more likeable.

Spitting Image’s return has the potential to bring back effective political satire at a time when it’s most needed and after, but their choice of characters and ad hominem-oriented sketches have missed the mark. If they can stop being so busy concerning themselves with trying so hard to be funny and deliberately and clumsily overstepping the boundaries, they might just end up creating satire with a real purpose.

Illustration by Amir Pichhadze.

Review: Sufjan Stevens’ ‘The Ascension’

Jennifer Goodier
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Review: Sufjan Stevens’ ‘The Ascension’

With access only to a drum machine and a computer, the rest of his instruments being in storage after moving, Sufjan Stevens’ September album The Ascension is perhaps his most ‘simple’ and electropop-esque yet. Talking to The Guardian on its release, he discusses how his mind was not in the same folk sphere of his previous break-through successes such as Illinois and Carrie & Lowell: “I’d packed up my guitars in the storage and I think mentally I’d packed away that aesthetic, too.” The album also manifests a far cry from the introspective lyrics often associated with Stevens, instead representing his desire to respond to the volatile political climate and hostile world of the internet.

Opening with the fiery track ‘Make Me An offer I Cannot Refuse’, an exasperated demand for a sign from God in response to the current state of the world, Stevens sets the scene for a more pushy and angsty take on the chaos of humanity than some of his previous work. In quite a severe contrast, the less punchy yet more commercially successful ‘Run Away With Me’ takes a quick musical and lyrical respite from the heavy subject matter of the album to replicate the light fantasy of modern pop culture. Nevertheless, the last thirty-odd seconds of the song remind me of those solemn, ethereal outros which can be found in numerous Carrie & Lowell tracks. So even while attempting to invoke a contemporary pop spirit, something of Stevens’ mellow reflectivity lingers.

‘Video Game’, the second single of the album, continues this more commercial song-writing, with its repeated mantra “I don’t wanna play your video game” providing a catchy albeit still melancholy chorus. Indeed, the song centres around self-identity and fighting against the modern goal of accolades, likes and follows, something somewhat ironic given the commercial sound and production of this very song. Moving on to ‘Lamentations’, a song I kept skipping until I stuck around long enough to hear one of Stevens’ beautifully ethereal, choral outros, we can sense an echoing of a wider theme of the album with the repeated line “I am the future, define the future”: a suggestion of the need to assess the “sense of urgency” surrounding the longevity of capitalism and its issues. Sufjan Stevens opens up to these urgent fears in ‘Tell Me You Love Me’, opening the track with the lines “I’ve lost my faith in everything”.

“I wanna die happy” are the only lyrics of the eerie and existential track ‘Die Happy’, which I strangely enjoy as a brief reminder in the midst of the album of the small goals of humanity in momentous times. Following on from this, ‘Ativan’, a song exploring the use of prescribed drugs for anxiety and insomnia and the struggle to see a greater purpose in life, once again demonstrates Stevens’ exquisite knack for reflective endings, with a pulsating beat uncomfortably mimicking the panic of existential fear and sleepless nights as the song fades out.

‘Ursa Major’ and ‘Landslide’ are, perhaps unusually, my favourite tracks on the album. From the reconclitary and soulful lines of ‘Ursa Major’, calling the lord to “call off all your invasion” for the sake of the beauty all around, to the calm musical notes of ‘Landslide’, invoking the idea of love as a sudden wave of uncontrollable feelings, these two tracks are pure and pastoral amidst the cold, chaotic world of human brutality depicted elsewhere in this album.

‘Gilgamesh’ and ‘Death Star’ are both powerful tracks in their own right, dealing with an ancient quest for immortality and humanity’s failure to deal with climate change respectively, but musically and aesthetically fail to leave an impression on me. The beautiful transition into the floaty electro-beats of ‘Goodbye To All That’, however, marks the beginning of a final few spectacular songs.

‘Sugar’ – a song all about embracing goodness and purity and making it your own – the album’s title track ‘The Ascension’, and the epic twelve minute song ‘America’, finish this one hour-plus epic album in style. ‘The Ascension’ in particular makes this album for me, with its evoking of the wider theme of the album, expressed by Stevens himself, of having previously had a naïve outlook on the world. The repeated “What now?” in the outro sets an uneasy foundation for ‘America’, a “protest song against the sickness of American culture”. 

Indeed, what makes the final track and the whole album all the more powerful is the context of Stevens’ abandoned Fifty States Project. Stevens’ demand, “Don’t do to me what you did to America”, constitutes a far cry from the man who set out to write an album per American state to celebrate their individual beauty. Instead, The Ascension provides a disillusioned and heart-broken call to action from someone whose eyes have been opened to the long and tumultuous history leading up to America’s current situation. This is perfectly achieved with the mixture of electronic sounds and ‘pop’ lyrics – and they do not diminish the power of Sufjan’s song-writing and delivery at all.

Professorship in vaccinology secured by £3 million Saïd donation

Mark Robins
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Professorship in vaccinology secured by £3 million Saïd donation

Oxford’s vaccine development team has received a £3.33 million gift from Wafic Saïd. The money will be used to fund the professorship in vaccinology, creating a permanent endowment for the position. The post, currently held by Professor Sarah Gillbert, will be known as the Saïd Professor of Vaccinology.

Oxford says the gift will ensure Professor Gilbert can “continue her ground-breaking research in the field, while also helping to ensure that Oxford remains at the forefront of vaccine development for generations to come.”

Gilbert has been working on Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine since 11 January and previously led development of the universal flu vaccine which underwent clinical trials in 2011. Due to her work on the COVID vaccine, Bazaar magazine named her one of 2020’s Women of the Year.

The donation was made by the Saïd family, a wealthy Saudi Arabian family and chief benefactor of the Saïd Business School. The University has also given £1.66 million to fund the position.

Saïd told The Daily Mail: “Professor Gilbert is a great scientist. It is the single most important thing to bring us back to normality – to have this vaccine.”

Saïd is a Saudi Arabian financier and philanthropist who is worth £1.5 billion, according to the Times. He is one of Oxford’s biggest donators and donated over £15 million towards a new teaching facility in 2019.

He added: “I am delighted to support [Gilbert} and the University of Oxford as they work urgently towards developing a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus. This is the single most important thing in the world today as the only way we can return to normality is to have an effective vaccine.

“I hope that the Saïd Professorship of Vaccinology will strengthen in perpetuity the University’s efforts to be a world leader in vaccine research.”

Professor Gavin Screaton, head of the Medical Sciences Division, said: “We are deeply grateful to Wafic Saïd and his family for their incredibly generous gift.

“By securing the future of this important post, the University will be able to continue to deliver and indeed accelerate its world-leading vaccine development research – work that will have an impact on lives globally both during this crisis and as other such challenges arise in the future.”

In July, Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal donated £3.5 million to fund another professorship in vaccinology. This donation supported the position held by Professor Adrian Hill, Director of the Oxford Jenner Institute.

The U.S. election: three students’ perspective

Various contributors
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The U.S. election: three students’ perspective

Anvee Bhutani – Time for (very) cautious optimism 

Living in the UK while America goes through one of the most defining elections of our time has been one of the most out-of-body experiences. My daily routine for nearly the past month has consisted of waking up and looking through the polls and opinion articles as well as asking my friends back home to tell me what the general sentiment is looking like back home. Being from California, everyone I know has had strong opposition towards Donald Trump since the primaries in 2016; indeed, we did not even believe him to be electable so the news then came as a shock which radically increased partisanship and animosity towards the rest of the country. Now, four years later, the election has similarly been a disappointing one, as if I am watching America fail as a state in slow motion. From the disastrous COVID-19 plan to the problematic response to BLM to the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, this year has slowly unfolded to become a living dystopian nightmare. And as always, the candidate choices seem like picking the lesser of two evils, the exact same phrase that was used in 2016. With Biden and Harris now elected, though I am happier than I would’ve been with the alternate outcome, I am worried that there is a lack of a national agenda and that identity politics is in part why their platform became so massively popular. I am therefore cautiously optimistic about the future, keeping in mind that because the bar has been set so low, there is not much to expect from either of these two in response to issues such as climate change or military interventionism abroad. Nonetheless, I do feel at ease knowing that Trump will not be getting a second term and that there will be at least a semblance of change coming to the White House within the next couple of months.

Rita Kimijima-Dennemeyer – Let’s not get complacent

Seeing states like Georgia and Pennsylvania turn blue brought me joy even amidst my multiple crises (both essay and otherwise) this week. Nonetheless, the overwhelming feeling in my heart is not one of celebration, but rather, one of tiredness.

To those who feel genuine happiness about the results of the election, I can only say that I am jealous. Happiness is hard to come by these days, and I say enjoy it while it lasts.  But these past four years have done little to nothing to resolve the issues that we faced in 2016, and if anything, the effects of the pandemic and subsequent civil unrest have made them worse. Wealth disparity in the U.S. has been exacerbated in the past year, with COVID-related unemployment on one hand and the increasing ridiculousness of Jeff Bezos’ income on the other. Disproportionate COVID deaths among people of color, and particularly Black and Indigenous people, have yet again revealed persistent racial inequalities. Furthermore, the Black Lives Matter protests have brought the desperate need for police reform and racial justice to popular light. Compared to being part of what will no doubt be a historic election, it is far less glamorous to have difficult conversations with our family members and acquaintances about sociopolitical issues that have been around for so long that they seem a necessary evil, or quietly donating $10 to a charity on a Sunday afternoon. But it is these small actions that make a difference between elections, and which can contribute to changing people’s minds about how to vote when the time comes again. We have all (hopefully) cast our ballots, and now all we can do regarding this election is wait. But our political involvement should be far from over.

Sonya Ribner – A victory for empathy and experience

“What comes next?” King George asks the newborn America in the musical Hamilton. While the country no longer has to construct a government from scratch, it must resuscitate the one it has. Joe Biden’s victory is a declaration in favor of science, competence, experience, empathy, and unification. However, the break was anything but clean: a razor-thin margin split blue and red on Election Day.

Overlooking the precipice of a firmly divided country, President-Elect Biden must tackle the pandemic, confront an existential environment threat exacerbated by the current administration and, in his own words, “battle to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism.” The open question remains whether a Senate increasingly likely to have a Republican majority and the Trump Supreme Court will hamstring any meaningful initiatives attempted by a President Biden. Indeed, the senate majority leader presently supports Trump’s “right” to legally challenge the election’s outcome when no credible evidence has surfaced to contest the election results.

In spite of looming roadblocks, Joe Biden’s win matters. Not only will Kamala Harris be America’s first woman, first Black, and first South Asian vice president, but together they promise a forward-looking America that will reengage with the international community. In addition, President-Elect Biden has made clear he will embrace science and prioritize the welfare of all citizens. The typically conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce voiced its optimism that the Biden administration would break the political gridlock that has plagued the United States in order to pass legislation that bolsters the economy. Human Rights advocates at the United Nations meeting in Geneva also commented that a Biden-Harris administration would introduce positive policy changes, such as police reform and the treatment of migrants. Though some lament that Joe Biden represents a mere changing of the old guard, he ushers in the wave of hope and decency that the world needs in this challenging time.

20% of COVID-19 patients receive a psychiatric diagnosis in 3 months, Oxford study finds

Zoe Lambert
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20% of COVID-19 patients receive a psychiatric diagnosis in 3 months, Oxford study finds

A new study shows that 20% of those who contract coronavirus are diagnosed with a mental health illness within 3 months. This is about twice as likely as for other groups of patients over the same period. 1 in 4 had not had a psychiatric diagnosis before COVID-19.

Paul Harrison, Professor of Psychiatry, University Oxford, Theme Lead – NIHR Oxford Health BRC, who led the study, said: “People have been worried that COVID-19 survivors will be at greater risk of mental health problems, and our findings in a large and detailed study show this to be likely. Services need to be ready to provide care, especially since our results are likely to be underestimates of the actual number of cases. We urgently need research to investigate the causes and identify new treatments.”

Research by the University of Oxford has also reported that those with pre-existing psychiatric disorders are 65% more likely to develop coronavirus.

The Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEBM) is conducting further studies to establish the link, but so far have observed a correlation which have been attributed to a variety of factors: medications, residential facilities, behavioural, and lifestyle factors all interact to increase occurrences and severity of coronavirus.

Some medications used to treat mental health conditions have been proven to suppress the immune system and give the patient side effects which exacerbate their vulnerability to coronavirus. Antipsychotic medication such as Clozapine can lower white blood cell counts by over 15%, thereby significantly reducing immunity. This is in addition to other side effects such as diabetes, obesity and respiratory depression, which are known to be coronavirus risk factors.

Across the UK in 2019, there were over 16,000 patients in psychiatric inpatient units. In a similar manner to the pandemic’s care home crisis, shared spaces and overcrowding, as well as a lack of PPE, have intensified the likelihood of contracting the virus and created an environment for coronavirus to spread rapidly. Paired with the increased vulnerability of patients due to medical and lifestyle factors, this greatly increases the risk to patients.

Dr Max Taquet, NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow, who conducted the analyses, remarked: “This finding was unexpected and needs investigation. In the meantime, having a psychiatric disorder should be added to the list of risk factors for COVID-19.”

Balliol “flood” leaves students adrift

Maya Misra
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Balliol “flood” leaves students adrift

This week, a broken tap in Balliol forced a staircase to evacuate, and concerns were subsequently raised regarding the College’s response to student welfare.

The leak, referred to as a “flood” in one TikTok video, began around midnight and continued on for several hours until the proper maintenance staff could arrive. A College porter was at the scene but was, as one student described, “helpful but out of his depth”. Eventually the fire department was called to turn off the water. As a result of the flooding, students slept in spare classrooms, grouped by household.

@amylia1917

#uni

♬ original sound – James Charles

During the leak, as one student told Cherwell, “Students were using bins to bail water out of the window. We got soaked and cold due to the cold water. Thankfully other students were incredibly helpful, offering clothes and hot drinks”.

One of the students who assisted the affected staircase said, “They came out all wet and freezing and tired, there was no one there to help them, and it was down us to get them towels and a hot drink so they wouldn’t get ill.”

The next morning, students received an email from College stating: “We have discovered the flood was caused by student vandalism. I am sure you would like to join me in thanking all the staff who came in at a moments [sic] notice to fix a situation caused by such thoughtless behaviour.”

Students contest this, however, saying it was an accident and that College “appeared to want to blame us rather than help us.”

Other descriptions of the College response included “poor” and “threatening”.

Speaking to Cherwell, Balliol said:  “We are still investigating the cause of the water leak. Students affected were given immediate support. Luckily nothing was damaged except some towels, which the College replaced.”

University Q&A: No safety net for 2021 examinations, residency requirement remains in Hilary

Abigail Howe
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University Q&A: No safety net for 2021 examinations, residency requirement remains in Hilary

2021 exams

At a COVID-19 question and answer session on Tuesday 17th November, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Martin Williams, confirmed that there are no plans for a safety net policy for examinations taken this academic year, stating that we are “in a significantly different situation to last year” and “students engaged with alternative forms of assessment very well”.

Williams continued by stating that the University is “trying to make sure that what we are offering this year is a fair assessment and a level playing field for all students”. However, Declared to have Deserved Honours and Declared to have Deserved Masters degrees will still continue to be options for those who are “unable to take these assessments”. The previous safety net policy gave “faculties the choice of how results are calculated, with the option to exclude or adjust the weighing of results obtained in remote assessments” with the aim that no student should be “disadvantaged by the conditions in which they revise for and sit their exams in the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic”.

Williams also discussed the likelihood of alternative modes of assessments, including open-book exams or examinations sat remotely, saying “we think about two-thirds of exams will switch to an alternative format”, but that some for some courses, particularly those which deal with “mathematical problem-solving”, examinations should still be taken in person and invigilated traditionally. 

Residency requirements

Many questions were raised regarding plans for Hilary term. Professor Roger Goodman, the Co-Chair of the Hilary and Trinity Term Co-ordination Group, explained that the University is “still at the mercy of government regulations” regarding an in-person term, but that – barring government regulations – students should expect to return to their colleges in January. Explaining the University’s decision to make residency required rather than optional, Williams stated: “our feeling is that there is a lot more to being an Oxford student than just the face-to-face teaching”, including “access to labs, access to libraries, access to each other, to the opportunity to work in a scholarly environment”. Addressing those who are studying remotely this term after applying for an exemption to the residency requirements, he explained that “students who were granted a residency exemption this term [which he clarified to be before 1 November] will be able to roll that over to next term if they wish” but that he “would encourage students to return to Oxford if they can”.

Tuition fees and finances

Some students did raise the possibility of a tuition fee refund or reduction, citing lack of access to facilities under the current circumstances. Williams stated that he would “push back on the idea that the university is spending less on providing education this year” and that “at this stage, we are not considering any fee reductions”. Miles Young, the Warden of New College and Chair of the Conference of Colleges, continued that there has been a “huge extra cost”, including buying perspex and “ensuring that tutorials are delivered properly”, particularly “at a time when our revenues are absolutely diminished by loss of all sorts of revenue streams”, such as conferences and visiting students. He concluded: “The problem smaller colleges have is, frankly, finding a way to survive”.

Pandemic response

Regarding the University’s overall response to the pandemic, Young was more positive, saying he “feel[s] reasonably comfortable that in Oxford we’ve handled the pandemic well, certainly in comparison to other universities”, helped by the collegiate system and the adoption of households within colleges. He continued that “the household system has been the reason we’ve managed to contain Covid… they have a price, which is the self-isolation of a larger group, but it’s a price I think is well worth paying”. However, he said that he hoped, over the vacation, colleges would consider their household arrangements so “friendship groups can migrate into households”. 

The Pro-Vice-Chancellor praised the “really fantastic, constructive behaviour from [the] student body” and the slight drop in coronavirus cases. Professor Chris Conlon (Professor of Infectious Diseases, and Chair of the University Health Medical Advisory Group) elaborated on this, saying there has been “very little transmission of infection within departments and almost none within teaching spheres”.

Student responses to the webinar were mixed. While some were encouraged by the question and answer session, saying “thank you… all you’ve done so far, it’s really impressive”, another was far more damning, claiming that “communication has been terribly short-sighted, making planning impossible and increasing anxiety”.

Image Credit: Billy Wilson // Flickr. Licence: CC BY-NC 2.0.

Oxford vaccine 7x cheaper than Pfizer’s

Charlie Hancock
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Oxford vaccine 7x cheaper than Pfizer’s

The vaccine against COVID-19 being produced by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca is likely to be cheaper and easier to roll out than the Pfizer vaccine, which the manufacturer recently claimed was 90% effective.

The British government has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine. It is not currently known how much this will cost, but the United States government reached an agreement with Pfizer to purchase the vaccine at a cost of £15 ($19.50) per dose. The Oxford vaccine costs £2.23 per dose. AstraZeneca is producing it at a financial loss but this makes it far more affordable to distribute around the UK and the world.

The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses delivered a week apart to induce immunity. This doubles the cost of immunising a single person to £30. A virologist at the Frances Crick Institute – Professor Jonathan Stoye – warned that the need for two injections could “severely complicate administering the vaccine to many recipients.” In a coronavirus question and answer session on Tuesday 17 November, Professor Chris Conlon, Chair of the University Health Medical Advisory Group, said “the good thing about the Oxford vaccine, if that’s what will be used, is that it’s a single dose”.

Distributing the Pfizer vaccine could also be difficult because it needs to be kept below -70 °C in order for it to be effective. This not only makes the vaccine less suitable for use in developing countries but also in GP surgeries. Care homes and GP clinics, from which the government hopes to mount a national vaccination effort, do not have the freezer technology necessary to store the vaccine. The Oxford vaccine only needs to be stored at 2-8 °C, making it suitable for storage in most fridges.

Neither the Pfizer nor the Oxford vaccine use a SARS-CoV-2 virus to induce immunity. They both use the genetic material from the virus to cause human cells to produce spike proteins, which the body’s immune system can use to learn how to defend against COVID-19. This viral RNA is very unstable and breaks down easily. The Oxford vaccine uses a harmless chimpanzee adenovirus to deliver the RNA into cells, which helps prevent the unstable RNA from breaking down and allows it to be stored at higher temperatures.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Pfizer has developed a reusable refrigerated transport box which can keep 5,000 doses of the vaccine below -70 °C for ten days until it is opened. It is currently unclear how much one of these boxes will cost, but it is unlikely to be cheap; storage boxes from Polar Thermals which can hold 1,200 vaccines at a temperature of -8 ° C cost £5000 per unit. Experts have warned that the challenges associated with storing temperature-sensitive could leave 3 billion people without access to the vaccine, according to the Associated Press.

A further logistical challenge Pfizer faces is a global shortage of carbon dioxide, which in its solid form (as ‘dry ice’) is used to maintain low temperatures in the storage boxes. The US Compressed Gas Association has said it would “ramp-up/reallocate production so dry ice is available when and where it is needed.”

The British government has secured access to 355 million doses of various vaccines against COVID-19, including 100 million of the Oxford vaccine, and 5 million of the Moderna vaccine, which the US biotech firm recently announced was 95% effective. The seven different COVID-19 vaccines which could be deployed in a mass-vaccination effort would provide the UK with “a toolbox as full as possible”, according to Professor Robin Shattock from Imperial College London. “All these vaccines will have different levels of immunity and may be useful for different populations, so we need as many vaccines as possible to be able to combat this pandemic.”

Oxbridge applicants face technical difficulties during admissions tests

Yihang Fang
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Oxbridge applicants face technical difficulties during admissions tests

A number of candidates who sat for university admissions tests two weeks ago, such as the Biomedical Admissions Test (BMAT) and Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA), experienced technical difficulties with the online test software, potentially dashing their hopes of being admitted to Oxbridge.

Cambridge Assessment Admissions Testing (CAAT), which administers the tests, moved assessments online this year, to support candidates around the world who might be self-isolating or subject to restrictions and unable to sit a test in a centre. These tests were delivered online through a platform provided by Mercer Mettl.

However, according to some schools in the UK, a number of students have been disadvantaged by tests not working, test links not arriving, or formatting issues stopping them from completing questions. 16 complaints regarding links not being sent or logins not working were posted on Cambridge Assessment’s Twitter page between November 3 and 5.

Graham McNamara, the director of sixth form at Chiswick School in west London, shared with Schools Week that a pupil sitting the BMAT had to be isolated for 2.5 hours until the test link was sent through.

“He couldn’t have his phone and no one could speak to him,” McNamara said. “For him it was stressful – there is a lot riding on him doing well in the exam.”

According to remarks from another teacher published by Schools Week, a student who sat the TSA was unable to view sections of the exam script, as the screen zoomed in on the text that she was attempting to analyse, making it impossible to read.

“Because it was being invigilated online she didn’t want to run the risk of being accused of plagiarism or communicating during the exam so she stayed silent,” said the teacher, who wished to remain anonymous.

The admissions tests were sat in more than 3,000 locations around the world. The majority of candidates completed their assessment smoothly, except for a small number of centres in the UK.

Speaking to Schools Week, a Cambridge Assessment spokesperson said: “It is extremely important to us that no candidate is disadvantaged and we have a special consideration process for any candidate who felt that something on test day – be it a technical or other issue – impeded their ability to answer the questions.”

Candidates who wish to pursue Medicine or Biomedical Sciences at Oxford University are required to sit the BMAT. The TSA is also an admissions requirement for a number of Oxford courses in the social sciences and humanities, including Economics and Management, Experimental Psychology, Human Sciences, and Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

The tests aim to provide an additional piece of information for tutors to differentiate between many well-qualified candidates, particularly because candidates come from a wide range of countries and hold many different qualifications.

An Oxford University spokesperson told Cherwell, “Some centres in the UK experienced technical issues and CAAT are looking into these as a matter of urgency. At this stage, they have not confirmed the number of candidates affected, but we know it is a small percentage of the total number of participants.”

“Oxford University recognise the distress that affected students may be feeling and will support them wherever possible. Candidates who experienced issues in the run up to test day or on the day itself have been advised to let us know via either or both Oxford’s own extenuating circumstances form or the Special Consideration process on the CAAT website so that tutors considering their applications are aware of any exceptional challenges they may have faced,” the spokesperson added.

CAAT has been contacted for comment.

Image credit: SjPrice / Pixabay

The Lord Gave Me Brothers: Lockdown Lessons from Religious Lives

Angela Eichhorst
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The Lord Gave Me Brothers: Lockdown Lessons from Religious Lives

“You can discern that the Lord has called you to community life; the one thing you don’t get any say in is who you live with,” says Father Maximilian Wayne OFMConv, one of six friars living at Greyfriars house. Despite widespread changes to life as a result of the pandemic, the daily schedule at the Franciscan friary based in Cowley hasn’t changed much. 

The day begins at 7:15 with morning prayer, followed by private study or work with additional prayer meetings at midday and in the afternoon. “Routine helps us get through difficult moments, whether it be a COVID moment, or a non-COVID moment,” says Father Giles Zakowicz OFMConv, who joined the Franciscan Order 55 years ago. 

In the evenings they cook a communal meal where “we get to appreciate the abilities and the expertise, and sometimes the limitations, of the individual brothers,” Fr. Giles says. Since Greyfriars is a formation house for novices to discern if the Franciscan way of life is right for them and prepare for their ministry, “the conversation around the meal table is quite often whatever particular philosophical or theological concepts [our two novice friars] have been working on that day,” Fr. Max says. When people visit Greyfriars, they praise the diverse conversations, ranging from science fiction to sports to music to politics, all shared in light of the Gospel, says Fr. Giles. “We talk a lot in this community, we laugh a lot in this community, we share a lot in this community.”

Because Franciscans don’t vow to stay in one monastery but move to different friaries around the world, their living situations are always in flux. “St. Francis said once ‘The Lord gave me brothers,’ and you can hear that in one of two ways,” says Fr. Max. “You can either hear him saying ‘Yippee, the Lord has given me other brothers to come and share this wonderful life,’ or sometimes you can hear it with him rolling his eyes.” 

When conflict does arise, “we have to deal with it, otherwise our community fragments,” says Fr. Max. “[We realise] Brother does this because that’s him, that’s how the Lord has made him, and [the Lord] has made me this way. We both have something affirming and positive to offer in our attempted service.” In order to witness the love of God to the world, Franciscans “promote the spirit of unity, of fraternity, of brotherhood and sisterhood,” says Fr. Giles. “And of course, it has to be learned.”

After dinner, the brothers have time for recreation where they play chess, card games, or even watch The Office US. However, having others physically around you isn’t an automatic cure for loneliness. Friar John Paul Banks OFMConv, the newest friar in the house, believes loneliness happens when “[people] fail to find their own purpose, or they just don’t like being with themselves. I do like my own company, even for all my faults and weaknesses, and all the problems that I have.” Similarly, Fr. Giles’ speaks of a time when he was surrounded by people while serving as a missionary in West Africa, but for the first year felt he was “not being understood, or perhaps the feeling of not being valued.” 

Despite the brother’s deep joy, they share in the sadness of scuppered plans and the heaviness of heart brought by COVID-19. Their trip to Europe was cancelled, they haven’t been as able to assist charity work around Oxford, and ministry is over Zoom. Greyfriars shares a compound with their residential home for the elderly, so they have to be especially careful. 

Ten minutes away, another intentional religious community, the Buddha Vihara temple, houses seven Buddhist monks. They wake up at 6:30am and start their day by chanting together and meditating together, before time for private study and talks about mindfulness topics. 

Nyarti Kham, a monk from Thailand, tells me that many laypeople with “some mental health issues come to the temple, so we try to help them to overcome their suffering.” The monks get calls from people who can’t sleep at night or students who can’t focus. During the pandemic, “some [people] have lost their family, they are not being happy. It’s never been like this before. Some of them have tested positive and then some of them die, so, they are not happy,” Nyarti says. “We understand what they feel so, we try to explain to them that this is not just you, not just me, everyone in the world is [experiencing] this.” 

A woman whose mother died from COVID-19 is staying at the Vihara to learn from the monks there, and they have certainly dealt with feelings of loss. Nyarti was sent to live in a monastery at the age of five after his father died and his mother re-married. “I’m trying to understand the nature of a human being but I also can learn in some way from the chicken. Some chickens have many with a big group, some are just one.” 

To pass on good karma, every day “I have to help someone out and then I have to do [something] for myself,” says Nyarti. For himself, Nyarti works on his dissertation about Aristotle’s and the Buddha’s teachings, which Nyarti hopes will enlighten future generations. “At least I should help two or three people, and when I go to the city centre, when I see the homeless, at least one pound or two pounds, I must give them.”  

Whenever totalitarian political regimes take hold, men and women following religious lives are often the first disposed, because governments know they are far from harmless. “When I came into [religious] community, [people asked] isn’t it a bit like running away from the world?” says Fr. Max. “If that’s what people think, try it for a while, because you almost kind of go sprinting straight into the world and grasp it with both arms.” The one official change the brothers made to their schedule is a weekly COVID-19 prayer meeting. Every Friday, they gather for the people who have died, the people who have lost loved ones, scientists researching a vaccine, those undergoing family tension at home, the homeless, and any other prayer requests they receive. No matter what lies ahead, there are communities around the world praying for us and thinking of us, and that is a comforting thought.

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