A review of multiple studies on common painkillers found that they have a marked effect on our resistance to infection—which is sometimes bad and sometimes good. Some of these medications could also reduce our response to a vaccination—especially if taken straight before one.

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals keep you healthy. But despite Australia's relative good health it has major problems with general practice. By international standards we are probably overproducing medical graduates, but not enough go into general practice.

New variants of the COVID-19 virus continue to appear, especially as there are low income countries with low levels of immunisation. The 2022-23 Australian Budget allocated A$85 million to COVAX, the international program for delivering COVID-19 vaccines particularly to low income countries. Is it enough?