A Hong Kong man in late middle age has a flu jab, and soon after is stricken by a side-effect of the vaccine called Guillain-Barre syndrome. Frightened citizens are taking no chances and are skipping their inoculation appointments.
A sign of herd-like, cowardly irrationality? No. This is not an isolated, statistically freakish incident of a tragic reaction to the injection. It has happened before.
Click for 'Madman running through the field'!
Just a few weeks ago another Hong Kong man of a similar age had the vaccination. Almost instantly he became deranged and insisted that it was necessary to spend HK$67 billion on a 16-mile stretch of rail line. Yet the good, decent and rational people of the Big Lychee continued to line up for their vaccinations for the good of themselves and the community.
The authorities have not revealed whether this latest victim is gibbering obsessively about using grotesquely astronomical sums of taxpayers’ money to build worthless infrastructure, but who can blame people for being cautious? Why risk such a truly horrible fate?
You’re not going to stick one of those things in my arm.