Hello and welcome to Hankgames Without Hank. My name is John Green. I'm the manager of the sixth place AFC Wimbledon Wimbly Womblys. Finally into the play-off spots. Taking on today Cardiff City. In a stunning turn of events, it's raining in England. If we were playing in Cardiff, I would say it's playing Wales. But we aren't. So it is indeed raining in England.

(0:15) As you can see, there's been a change at the back. Uh, Seb Brown gave up two goals on two shots, so I've benched him, uh, just for the moment... In favor of Amankwaa Amankwaa, um, who's from the AFC Wimbledon academy. Who's been with AFC Wimbledon since he was eight years old. He deserves his shot, so he's gonna get one!

(0:32) Um... As you can see, Cardiff City, one of the best teams in the championship actually, um, yeah. They're very, very good. And uh, formerly coached by Malky Mackay, one of the most likeably named characters in all of the world.

(0:46) John Green and John Green, missing what will hopefully be their last match. And yes.

(0:51) What am I talking about today, Meredith? Vaccinations! So, uh- I don't know if you guys know this, because I can't remember if I've mentioned it in a Wimbly Womblys video, but I recently had viral meningitis. Um, can't recommend any facet of it... Found it to be a very unlikable um, disease. Uh... But! Much, much better in every way, according to the experts and the statistics, than viral- than bacterial meningitis, which is fatal about 15% of the time. And uh- and also causes severe disability and brain injury and lots of other problems in um- in people. And also- and disproportionately affects young people um - college students, pre-school students... Lots and lots of people who- who, you know, have wonderful, long lives ahead of them. And it's a real tragedy.

(1:42) Viral meningitis, not to make this about me, also blows. And I can't recommend any facet of that either. But- oooooh! YEAHHHH, Deeney! He listened to my advice! I said- do we have a song about Deeney yet, Meredith? No, we don't. We don't. We gotta work on that. He listened to my advice about not going out at night, and look where it got him! Nice, near-post headed goal. Deeney's beautiful head. Who? Deeney! I guess that's kind of his song.

(2:11) Uh- one side of the fans- one side of the stadium says "Who?" and then the other side says "Deeney!" It's good! It's not great. You know what I mean? I just feel like there's so many pop-songs about magic... (sings) Do you believe in magic? (hums)

(2:26) (talks) Look at Kaz! Look at Kaz! Marauding! Nope. Nope. Kaz. And then he goes for an unnecessary slide-tackle. Um... I love the word marauding though.

(2:37) So, uh... The nice thing- OOOOOOOOOOH! Deeney! Who? Deeney! Who? Deeney! Oh, man. You know, it's- what? They are cute! They love each other! Dicko and Deeney? They are truly a buddy comedy. It's funny, because they're very different men. You know? They have very different values, they come from very different backgrounds, very different places.

(3:04) You know, Dicko... One of the very few professional soccer players who attended any university, um. Very thoughtful, smart guy. Loves the classics! Deeney? Not much for reading! Likes to read the occasional FHM but doesn't enjoy- doesn't enjoy the book-length work. Um, you know? Likes to party. Dicko? No interest in partying, whatsoever.

(3:25) Um, but! God, they are magic together on the field. They're just an odd couple. One of them's clean, one of them's dirty. One of them's serious, one of them's funny. But man, on the football pitch they are magic. It's- ooh, look at that beautiful unnecessary slide-tackle! I can not imagine a less necessary slide-tackle.

(3:42) Uh, the great thing about bacterial meningitis is that there is a- there is a vaccine for it now, that has saved many, many, many lives. And um, and would save even more if it were- if it were more widely used. Um. And then, uh. Then you have, of course, diseases like smallpox, which has been eliminated thanks to vaccines. You have diseases like polio which is now in only a few countries - Pakistan, Nigeria, Afghanistan, um, and I think now unfortunately also in Syria. But that's been basically- you know, restricted to very small parts of the world thanks to vaccines.

(4:28) Vaccines have saved billions of human lives, which um, you know, some people would say, oh, well, you know, overpopulation! Which um... First off, no. Secondly, um, even if that- the truth is that when people- when people aren't losing their kids to communicable diseases, they choose to have fewer children, and population growth slows. It doesn't speed up.

(4:51) Um. So in every possible way, for the world economy, for the lives of individuals, for the lives of families and communities, vaccines have been good. In fact, I think, maybe one of the greatest achievements in the history of the human species...

(5:09) Next to K Sainte Luce's cross that he's about to give! To- oooooh! Doh! Offside! If you'd just- look at this! If he'd just dodged the ball- if he'd just had the ball not hit him, it would have gone directly into the goal. But instead, he makes an incredibly good offside save there. Deeney. Um, not Deeney's best shining moment. That was gonna be a great goal for, I think, Kaz. Who desperately needs some action.

(5:37) Um, both in terms of uh, both in terms of goals and other. Um. He er, he was just- Kaz was just telling us about his trials and tribulations with his virginity. But that's another story! Um. I told him that virginity is a made-up concept and he should get over himself.

(5:56) Uh, can I get a foul please? Can I get- can you call that back? Because there was a f- ohhhh! Anyway. They played the advantage so that I could kick the ball out of bounds.

(6:05) Um. Yeah. Vaccines have saved billions of human lives, and have been one of the great- I mean, I think a bigger public health success than- than antibiotics. I mean, probably the greatest public health success in the history of our species. These viruses that um, that- that were responsible for most deaths, are now basically, you know- we have much less to fear from them.

(6:35) And that goes for everything from- you know, and then we have- we even have vaccines that can cut- cut your risk of cancer. The HPV vaccine um, will save many, many lives um, uh, of people who otherwise would have died of ovarian cancer, or uterine cancer. Um, and these are wonderful things to be celebrated.

(7:02) I think because vaccines are an active intervention, because it's something that we choose to do instead of something that feels passive, not doing anything, there has been a lot of uh, sort of anti- anti-vaccine - or I think this is part of it - there's been a lot of anti-vaccine sort of narratives, over the years. Um...

(7:21) Anyone who's spent any time in the developing world, I think - it's very difficult to argue against measles vaccines and mumps vaccines and these are things that save- you know... If you see a kid die of measles, um, or you see a kid die of- of a diarrheal illness that could be prevented by a rotavirus vaccine, that costs $3.50 and is perfectly safe... Uh, you don't have a lot of sympathy for um. (laughs) I'm in the middle of a very serious thing, Deeney.

(7:56) Uh, you don't have a lot of sympathy for people who make arguments um, that vaccines are unsafe. Because- first off, they are safe! Secondly, rotavirus definitely isn't safe. Beautiful goal from Deeney, by the way. Uh, and it's now three-nil! That was Deeney's hat trick, and I talked over it instead of celebrating with him. And that's gonna hurt his feelings. Probably going to have to get him a birthday cake to cheer him up. Or booze. Well, it'll be a booze-soaked birthday cake. He likes- he likes the rum cake.

(8:24) Um. You know Deeney. I find that he really likes rum drinks, which I just think is disgusting! Off-topic. Um, I just find it's so rich. Like, he's always drinking like, you know, like, piña coladas and stuff. I'm like, how do you stay in shape? He's a bigger gentleman, as professional footballers go. But I just- he's just- yeah.

(8:48) He's not- I have to say, personally, I'm much more like Dicko. You know, like, if I were gonna have- if I were gonna choose to have dinner with someone, I would choose to have dinner with Dicko. In fact, this week, I'm gonna have dinner at Dicko's house, with his wife and kids, which I'm excited about.

(9:01) 'Cause his kids are about the same as I am- and like, I just feel like Dicko and I have very similar lives. Whereas Deeney... You know, like, that's- that's- I never really had his life. But- in so far as I did, it was in my early twenties. To be fair, Deeney's only twenty three, so like, of course, you know... He's out there doing fun stuff.

(9:17) Leonardo Moura, by the way, is exhausted! Can't get back on defense! Leonardo Moura can't- oh man, that's tough to see. Leonardo Moura really suffering defensively. Um. He just doesn't seem to have the speed. That's- that's a shame. But what we need is speed. We have a need for speed on our team, so we're gonna bring in Buckminster Fuller there.

(9:39) We're also gonna um- now that Deeney has his hat trick, we're gonna take off Deeney and Dicko. And we're gonna bring on, maybe for the last time as Wimbly Womblys, these boots were made for Strutton and green eggs and Sheringham, who have been such an important part of our um, of our success as Wimbly Wombly supporters. But, at the same time, both- they both want to move on.

(10:01) They- I'm sorry, Leonardo Moura, but you had a nice- that's a Moura had a really good game back from injury, uh, but he just was slowing up a lot there at the end. And we can't- we can't afford that. So we're gonna make all three substitutions at once, like the pros do. And um. Uh, and see how it goes.

(10:17) Uh, green eggs and Sheringham and Le- and these boots were made for Strutton... Both came to me and requested transfers in the last couple weeks, because they aren't playing, because of the astonishing success of Deeney and Dicko, the amazing, wonderful- and they're very happy for Deeney and Dicko, but they also- they need to be playing football if they're gonna be professional football players.

(10:38) And I am sympathetic to that. And you know, I understand that this is a business as well as a family. So if they wanna move on, they're certainly welcome to. Now, they'll always have a home at the Wimbly Womblys, until and unless they don't play football anymore.

(10:52) Oh gosh! Oh gosh! Everything worked out better than expected. Amankwaa Amankwaa, AFC Wimbledon, uh, academy graduate, with a beautiful save there! That was very- that was Amankwaa-esque, I gotta say, that was reminiscent of when Seb Brown saved two penalties against Manchester City to win us the FA cup. Um. Yeah!

(11:14) So about vaccines though... Um, the- I think sort of the anti-vaccine narrative is um... It also I think, is somewhat about um, vaccines being somehow unnatural, uh, which they are in some ways. But again, when you've seen- when you've seen what rotavirus does in the developing world, like.. A $3.50 rotavirus vaccine is not just a- is not just a good thing. It's a miracle.

(11:46) And that also goes for- I mean, it's astonishing to me to see measles outbreaks and that sort of thing in the US. Uh, we can treat measles, so I guess it's okay, I mean- a child is getting unnecessarily sick, which is always a shame. And there's expenses associated with that, that are far higher than the expenses of just vaccinating. But it's especially a shame in the developing world, because um- there- in a lot of places, measles is much harder to treat. Mumps- measles, you know, measles can be fatal for kids. And it's just a totally unnecessary death. And, you know, seeing people die unnecessarily is infuriating to me.

(12:27) So that's my- that's my argument for vaccines, is that they prevent unnecessary deaths. Especially the unnecessary death of children. Um, which is, you know, forgetting the human cost. Like, I think kind of the most important thing we can do as people is to allow our kids to grow up healthy. Um, and vaccines dramatically increase the chances that your kids will grow up healthy.

(12:51) Uh, whether you're in Ethiopia, like the families I met who were um, you know, who were getting the rotavirus vaccine, or whether you're in- again, I made a save when I was offside. That's my specialty - the offside save. Um, yeah, whether you're like the families I met in Ethiopia who have had to, you know, had to work for decades to get these, to us, very inexpensive vaccines available in their communities. Or whether you're in the US and they're- you know, they're sort of readily available through insurers and extremely inexpensive relative to- relative to, you know, GDP or whatever.

(13:34) So yeah. That's my take. Um, I was really hoping that green eggs and Sheringham or these boots were made for Strutton would get a goal. Um, but let's pause to be grateful for their many gifts to the Wimbly Womblys over the years. It's been a wonderful run. Maybe we'll see them again, but we may not. And if we don't, then we're very grateful for all they did to get us out of league two, into the championship. We wish them the best in their future.

(14:02) A hat trick from beautiful who Deeney. Who? Deeney! Uh, Amankwaa Amankwaa uh, gets a wonderful um, clean sheet. And all is well in the world of the Wimbly Womblys. Thank you for watching! Best wishes.