Sam Armytage on the Covid vaccine rollout’s heroes and villains

Podcast host Samantha Armytage says the last year has had more drama than a Hollywood movie as she dreams of the day life returns to normal.

Hollywood has taught us many things. Everybody, even the ancient Spartans, spoke with an American accent (and they all looked like Brad Pitt); the protagonist will never turn on the lights when they walk into a dark, scary house; jumping through a glass window doesn’t hurt; and the bad guy is always the worst aim in a shoot-out.

“Australians are far smarter than Hollywood, and more intelligent than many who run for politics.” (Picture: Daniel Nadel)

And if you cast your mind back to classics like The Fugitive, The Constant Gardener, Planet Of The Apes or maybe Mission: Impossible 2, pharmaceutical companies are often cast in the role of villain.

But here we are in the reality of 2021, with Hollywood all but shut down due to a virus that’s mutating around the world in less time than it took Bruce Willis to fly to that asteroid.

This story has everything Tinseltown thrives on: deception, grief, conflict, a new reality and, of course, a few hopeless politicians along the way. Spielberg himself couldn’t have written it better.

Lo and behold, who is the new protagonist? The big drug companies have become the heroes, rather than the villains.

We’ve all added words and phrases like “herd immunity”, “efficacy” and “booster” to our lexicon, while shaking our heads at anti-vaxxers. (Although, I should point out here, most of us are trying to do the right thing and get jabbed.)

And while our government struggles to import more supplies, the people at Pfizer (the Winx-style favourite) must be as excitable as... well… the day they invented Viagra.

Samantha Armytage features in this Sunday's Stellar.

We can rest assured that we have a reliable TGA and that most Australians are far smarter than Hollywood, and certainly more intelligent than many who run for politics.

The sooner we’re all vaccinated, the sooner we can resume normal transmission and return to regular conversations like the weather or the stock market.

Big Pharma shares, anyone?

A new episode of Something To Talk About with Samantha Armytage is released today. Follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.