Social Media Buzz: Queen’s Vaccine Honors; Swallowed by a Whale

(Bloomberg) -- What’s buzzing on social media this morning:

Queen Elizabeth II’s official birthday was celebrated on Saturday with a flyover by the Royal Air Force’s acrobatic team and a scaled-back Trooping the Color parade at Windsor Castle. The Queen’s actual birthday, her 95th, was April 21.

In the Queen’s traditional birthday honors, Sarah Gilbert, who led the Oxford University team which helped develop a coronavirus vaccine with AstraZeneca, received a damehood, as did Kate Bingham for her work leading the U.K.’s vaccine task force.

The “Caring Nation” was at the center of the honors after the pandemic year, but entertainers, including the singer Lulu, sports figures, politicians and others were also recognized -- 986 in all.

A commercial lobster diver working in Massachusetts was briefly trapped in the mouth of a humpback whale off the coast of Provincetown on Cape Cod, Boston.com reported.

Michael Packard, 56, of Wellfleet, related the adventure after his release from an area hospital. “All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” Packard recalled.

Unsurprisingly, jokes were flying thick and fast about the biblical tale of Jonah and the Whale. #Jonah was trending on Twitter.

U.S. senator and Covid vaccine skeptic Ron Johnson earned a seven-day suspension from YouTube for violating its “medical misinformation policies” in comments about unproven coronavirus treatments.

The Wisconsin Republican made the remarks during a June 3 speech at the Milwaukee Press Club uploaded to the video site. He spoke about the alleged benefits of hydrochloroquine and ivermectin as treatments or prevention for the coronavirus. The National Institutes of Health has found the drugs don’t provide a benefit for Covid-19 cases.

In a statement, Johnson said that “Big Tech and mainstream media believe they are smarter than medical doctors who have devoted their lives to science.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.