So if vaccine can’t get through because of brexit chaos who will our libertarians turn their wrath on? It’s not the EUs job to ensure supply to the UK will market forces solve the problem? More importantly why will the voters blame. It’s all well and good saying it won’t happen but it could.
How lucky the vaccines are being manufactured in Essex and Oxfordshire
So if vaccine can’t get through because of brexit chaos who will our libertarians turn their wrath on? It’s not the EUs job to ensure supply to the UK will market forces solve the problem? More importantly why will the voters blame. It’s all well and good saying it won’t happen but it could.
How lucky the vaccines are being manufactured in Essex and Oxfordshire
With all components UK sourced? Where did the belief they were imported come from?
Not necessarily - I think he was being optimistic and fully understood why. And I respect the decision to act now that the science has changed - it is almost exactly what is happening eveywhere else in Europe as the onformation changes.
Trying to score cheap political points off the opposition just a few days ago for cancelling Christmas was definitely a low point, even by the clown’s lack of standards.
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
So if vaccine can’t get through because of brexit chaos who will our libertarians turn their wrath on? It’s not the EUs job to ensure supply to the UK will market forces solve the problem? More importantly why will the voters blame. It’s all well and good saying it won’t happen but it could.
How lucky the vaccines are being manufactured in Essex and Oxfordshire
With all components UK sourced? Where did the belief they were imported come from?
These restrictions are tough. CV19 has been hard on my father in law. He was very outgoing, he’s now reticent to get out of the house at all. Spends time in bed, not eating. No daily exercise. In short throughly depressed. Had managed to convince him to do something on Xmas Eve, but now he’s firmly back in his shell. The hidden cost of CV19 is high.
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Sorry but your other reply was gibbering bollocks and shows a complete lack of appreciation for the relative risk / reward profile.
The regulations are odd. Christmas restricted, yet today I have to drive 40 miles to the border of tier 4 for my son to play contact rugby. No problem with that. But a mince pie thoroughly dangerous.
Mr. Jonathan, sorry to hear about your father. Hopefully the vaccine(s) will help him return to his old self.
Thanks, worried about the old chap. He was the life and soul of his family, but now struggling to get out of bed. What is there to live for if you are 80 and can’t see anyone?
Meanwhile my old chap seems as happy as Larry cooped up in his home, which has a social atmosphere and all the gossip that goes with it.
I wonder if depression is being factored in. It’s really hard on elderly couples and singles.
The regulations are odd. Christmas restricted, yet today I have to drive 40 miles to the border of tier 4 for my son to play contact rugby. No problem with that. But a mince pie thoroughly dangerous.
Contact rugby - allowable under the law but doesn't really follow the science tbh.
Mr. Jonathan, a friend of mine and her fellow are having a slightly difficult time of it. He's still got work but it's from home and he's a social chap and misses going in.
It's probably not just age/relationship (or household) status, but also extroversion and introversion. As a massive introvert, that side of things hasn't affected me whatsoever. Worrying about relatives dropping dead, however, has not been fantastic (obviously that's always a risk but most diseases have treatments or cures).
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
Yep. My brother had his Christmas restaurant opening all planned, food ordered, bookings taken, only to have this blown out of the water and all his effort and expense wasted, by the surprise move of Surrey into T3 last week. So as a family we replan our Christmas, they plan to come here to nice safe T1, book ferry crossings, and I buy extra food and prepare to take extra guests for Xmas day. All blown out of the water yesterday.
Is there something a bit odd that the people who wanted to pass the withdrawal agreement without proper scrutiny are the same ones who want to pull emergency covid measures apart giving them proper scrutiny, where do they get their priorities from?
The regulations are odd. Christmas restricted, yet today I have to drive 40 miles to the border of tier 4 for my son to play contact rugby. No problem with that. But a mince pie thoroughly dangerous.
Contact rugby - allowable under the law but doesn't really follow the science tbh.
Team peer pressure trumps science and my son’s concerns.
So if vaccine can’t get through because of brexit chaos who will our libertarians turn their wrath on? It’s not the EUs job to ensure supply to the UK will market forces solve the problem? More importantly why will the voters blame. It’s all well and good saying it won’t happen but it could.
How lucky the vaccines are being manufactured in Essex and Oxfordshire
Thought the Pfizer one was manufactured in Belgium. Surely Pfizer scrapped their manufacturing plants in UK some time ago. Certainly closed the one near Sandwich.
An alarming report posted on CNN during the night:
President Donald Trump convened a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, including lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter said, describing a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump's aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn's more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.
Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden -- an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one of the people said. It wasn't clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.
White House aides who participated in the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Pat Cipollone, also pushed back intensely on the suggestion of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations Trump's own administration has dismissed (or, as seems more feasible, hiring her in the administration for some kind of investigatory role). Powell has focused her conspiracies on voting machines and has floated the notion of having a special counsel inspect the machines for flaws. Another idea floated in the meeting was an executive order that would permit the government to access voting machines to inspect them.
One person described the meeting as "ugly" as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he works to overturn the results of the election.
"It was heated -- people were really fighting it out in the Oval, really forceful about it," one of the sources said. One of the sources described an escalating sense of concern among Trump's aides, even those who have weathered his previous controversies, about what steps he might take next as his term comes to an end.
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
Yep. My brother had his Christmas restaurant opening all planned, food ordered, bookings taken, only to have this blown out of the water and all his effort and expense wasted, by the surprise move of Surrey into T3 last week. So as a family we replan our Christmas, they plan to come here to nice safe T1, book ferry crossings, and I buy extra food and prepare to take extra guests for Xmas day. All blown out of the water yesterday.
There's going to be an unusual amount of spare food up and down the country, and there's a higher amount of people than usual - in fact than for a very long time - really struggling for food. Something should already be underway to co-ordinate this , particularly in and around deprived areas , where the logistics of getting fresh food from residents nearby to people might realistically be easiest.
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
Yep. My brother had his Christmas restaurant opening all planned, food ordered, bookings taken, only to have this blown out of the water and all his effort and expense wasted, by the surprise move of Surrey into T3 last week. So as a family we replan our Christmas, they plan to come here to nice safe T1, book ferry crossings, and I buy extra food and prepare to take extra guests for Xmas day. All blown out of the water yesterday.
There's going to be an unusual amount of spare food up and down the country, and there's a higher amount of people than usual - in fact than for a very long time - really struggling for food. Something should already be underway to co-ordinate this in some way, particularly in the most deprived areas.
Don't worry - the industry did a brilliant job of redistributing food in the March lockdown, it will do the same again this time.
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Despite our head start of almost a week, the US is already up to 272,000 administered doses (with a reporting timelag of 24-72 hours) of the Pfizer compared to our c. 350,000.
Question. That Wazzock Williamson chose to go to war against Greenwich closing schools. Knowing that super pox was there. Within half a week we have gone from his petulant threat to sue them to keep kids in school to instructing all schools to keep kids away for an extra week to that part of the country entering a new lockdown.
Either the Secretary of State for Education has no clue what is happening in education and should be fired. Or he knew what was happening, chose to grandstand for political points in the right wing press, and should be fired.
Question. That Wazzock Williamson chose to go to war against Greenwich closing schools. Knowing that super pox was there. Within half a week we have gone from his petulant threat to sue them to keep kids in school to instructing all schools to keep kids away for an extra week to that part of the country entering a new lockdown.
Either the Secretary of State for Education has no clue what is happening in education and should be fired. Or he knew what was happening, chose to grandstand for political points in the right wing press, and should be fired.
He won't be fired. He'll probably be promoted.
Copying the boss is always a promising strategy for the ambitious.
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
And the government didn’t know
You can criticise them for not being tough enough initially but not for changing their mind when it becomes apparent they weren’t strict enough
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
Yep. My brother had his Christmas restaurant opening all planned, food ordered, bookings taken, only to have this blown out of the water and all his effort and expense wasted, by the surprise move of Surrey into T3 last week. So as a family we replan our Christmas, they plan to come here to nice safe T1, book ferry crossings, and I buy extra food and prepare to take extra guests for Xmas day. All blown out of the water yesterday.
There's going to be an unusual amount of spare food up and down the country, and there's a higher amount of people than usual - in fact than for a very long time - really struggling for food. Something should already be underway to co-ordinate this , particularly in and around deprived areas , where the logistics of getting fresh food from residents nearby to people might realistically be easiest.
The last thing food banks need is hundreds of rotting Turkeys to deal with.
An alarming report posted on CNN during the night:
President Donald Trump convened a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, including lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter said, describing a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump's aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn's more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.
Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden -- an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one of the people said. It wasn't clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.
White House aides who participated in the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Pat Cipollone, also pushed back intensely on the suggestion of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations Trump's own administration has dismissed (or, as seems more feasible, hiring her in the administration for some kind of investigatory role). Powell has focused her conspiracies on voting machines and has floated the notion of having a special counsel inspect the machines for flaws. Another idea floated in the meeting was an executive order that would permit the government to access voting machines to inspect them.
One person described the meeting as "ugly" as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he works to overturn the results of the election.
"It was heated -- people were really fighting it out in the Oval, really forceful about it," one of the sources said. One of the sources described an escalating sense of concern among Trump's aides, even those who have weathered his previous controversies, about what steps he might take next as his term comes to an end.
It's a cliche, but this really does sound like the second half of Downfall ; but with the demagogue still having a little room for manoeuvre.
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Sorry but your other reply was gibbering bollocks and shows a complete lack of appreciation for the relative risk / reward profile.
I’ve spent my working career in vaccine strategy. What’s your expertise?
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Sorry but your other reply was gibbering bollocks and shows a complete lack of appreciation for the relative risk / reward profile.
I’ve spent my working career in vaccine strategy. What’s your expertise?
Well you do, you just chose to gloss over it until the end.
350,000 people in the UK have already received the 1st Pfizer jab. The Oxford one is about to be greenlit. 20 million will have been vaccinated by March. So, yes, there is extremely good news.
This is a temporary setback but we're on the route out of this virus now. It may be a long drive but we've begun it.
What an appallingly insensitive response. This is the second time this year my son has lost his job. His chances of finding another one are low. He has been made unemployed at a moment's notice and was crying with frustration last night. He will get no support. Daughter's business is on the brink of closure. The family is split up. We cannot be together to support each other. I know the strain this can put on families. My nephew killed himself earlier this year.
Even if all goes well with the vaccine, I will not be vaccinated until March.
Meanwhile people with solid jobs are ok. Those who do not have such jobs are thrown on the scrap heap with little hope, little help but the chance to be patronised by the wealthy better off like the couple who came in yesterday before closing and told him that he would be "on holiday" from today. "No, unemployed" he replied and they looked shocked. Still, they bought some Xmas chocolates so that's OK I suppose.
It would be good if some posters on here took the blindfolds off their eyes and looked at how bleak life is for the young.
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
And the government didn’t know
You can criticise them for not being tough enough initially but not for changing their mind when it becomes apparent they weren’t strict enough
The government may not of known about the super virus but they knew what they were doing by relaxing the rules to allow ‘Christmas’ which was in many peoples view stupid anything which increases social mixing makes things worse any fool can see that.
So if vaccine can’t get through because of brexit chaos who will our libertarians turn their wrath on? It’s not the EUs job to ensure supply to the UK will market forces solve the problem? More importantly why will the voters blame. It’s all well and good saying it won’t happen but it could.
How lucky the vaccines are being manufactured in Essex and Oxfordshire
Thought the Pfizer one was manufactured in Belgium. Surely Pfizer scrapped their manufacturing plants in UK some time ago. Certainly closed the one near Sandwich.
I was thinking of AZN
Edit: I’m more bored by doom-mongers who want to shoehorn Brexit into everything
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
Yep. My brother had his Christmas restaurant opening all planned, food ordered, bookings taken, only to have this blown out of the water and all his effort and expense wasted, by the surprise move of Surrey into T3 last week. So as a family we replan our Christmas, they plan to come here to nice safe T1, book ferry crossings, and I buy extra food and prepare to take extra guests for Xmas day. All blown out of the water yesterday.
There's going to be an unusual amount of spare food up and down the country, and there's a higher amount of people than usual - in fact than for a very long time - really struggling for food. Something should already be underway to co-ordinate this , particularly in and around deprived areas , where the logistics of getting fresh food from residents nearby to people might realistically be easiest.
The last thing food banks need is hundreds of rotting Turkeys to deal with.
I was thinking more of faster and locally co-ordinated, person-to-person efforts that might even bypass foodbanks, perhaps also involving the amount of freezing which many families will be doing anyway with their spare food. Much of the spare food will also not be fresh meat, either.
“Prime Minister is your full attention on the pandemic? A follow up question Prime Minister is your full attention on the Brexit negotiations?”
The unforgivable choice the government made was to deal with Brexit at the height of a pandemic. No one could or would have complained if it has been delayed a year.
Despite our head start of almost a week, the US is already up to 272,000 administered doses (with a reporting timelag of 24-72 hours) of the Pfizer compared to our c. 350,000.
The US is five times bigger than us and the vaccine is manufactured there. How much quicker than them should we be?
Observer: The late nature of this decision will cause considerable pain and heartbreak to families who have been encouraged to look forward to Christmas for weeks by a prime minister who, in characteristic form, foolishly over-promised in an attempt to avoid being the bearer of bad news.
For weeks, scientific experts, including members of Sage, have urged caution with respect to Christmas relaxations, given the direction in which infection rates were heading. For weeks, they have warned that it is a question of balance and that relaxing restrictions against a backdrop of rising infection rates could lead to a significant number of avoidable deaths. It is understandable that the government wanted to allow people to see their families at Christmas after the year we have had. But Johnson should have been honest with the public that there was no guarantee of any Christmas relaxation, that it was contingent on the state of the play with the virus. Instead, he gave false reassurances and encouraged families to make and look forward to plans that, for many, will now not come to pass.
This is the latest in a long line of communication errors in which he has blamed individuals, rather than failures of government policy, for increasing infection rates. And he has consistently played politics in response to fair scrutiny from the opposition; days ago, he belittled Keir Starmer for wanting to “cancel Christmas” in response to questions about why he was not acting in light of the variant and increasing infection rates.
People will feel that they have held up their side of the bargain – following difficult and painful rules that have kept them away from loved ones for months – only to be let down by a government that has placed too much emphasis on making bombastic and reckless guarantees and too little on taking the timely action required to halt the spread of the virus.
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Despite our head start of almost a week, the US is already up to 272,000 administered doses (with a reporting timelag of 24-72 hours) of the Pfizer compared to our c. 350,000.
You know the population of the US is about 5x bigger right?
An alarming report posted on CNN during the night:
President Donald Trump convened a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, including lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter said, describing a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump's aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn's more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.
Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden -- an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one of the people said. It wasn't clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.
White House aides who participated in the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Pat Cipollone, also pushed back intensely on the suggestion of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations Trump's own administration has dismissed (or, as seems more feasible, hiring her in the administration for some kind of investigatory role). Powell has focused her conspiracies on voting machines and has floated the notion of having a special counsel inspect the machines for flaws. Another idea floated in the meeting was an executive order that would permit the government to access voting machines to inspect them.
One person described the meeting as "ugly" as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he works to overturn the results of the election.
"It was heated -- people were really fighting it out in the Oval, really forceful about it," one of the sources said. One of the sources described an escalating sense of concern among Trump's aides, even those who have weathered his previous controversies, about what steps he might take next as his term comes to an end.
It's a cliche, but this really does sound like the second half of Downfall ; but with the demagogue still having a little room for manoeuvre.
What would declaring martial law get him? The military hate his guts and both they and the Secret service swear to uphold the Constitution, not the President.
He might have some leverage with the National Guard, but nothing like enough.
All that would happen is he would either be shot, or arrested for treason. Probably the former if the CIA had anything to do with it. Either way, his political career would be over.
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Despite our head start of almost a week, the US is already up to 272,000 administered doses (with a reporting timelag of 24-72 hours) of the Pfizer compared to our c. 350,000.
You know the population of the US is about 5x bigger right?
In the short term when both have an entirely unvaccinated population, that shouldn't make so much difference. Yes, in the medium term they have more staff to do the deploying, but in the short term they have a hell of a lot more transportation to do to get the vaccine into every community.
“Prime Minister is your full attention on the pandemic? A follow up question Prime Minister is your full attention on the Brexit negotiations?”
The unforgivable choice the government made was to deal with Brexit at the height of a pandemic. No one could or would have complained if it has been delayed a year.
one must conclude that they wanted to hide its worst effects under covid.
In the short term when both have an entirely unvaccinated population, that shouldn't make so much difference. Yes, in the medium term they have more staff to do the deploying, but in the short term they have a hell of a lot more transportation to do to get the vaccine into every community.
You don't think they might have started distribution pre-approval?
Well you do, you just chose to gloss over it until the end.
350,000 people in the UK have already received the 1st Pfizer jab. The Oxford one is about to be greenlit. 20 million will have been vaccinated by March. So, yes, there is extremely good news.
This is a temporary setback but we're on the route out of this virus now. It may be a long drive but we've begun it.
What an appallingly insensitive response. This is the second time this year my son has lost his job. His chances of finding another one are low. He has been made unemployed at a moment's notice and was crying with frustration last night. He will get no support. Daughter's business is on the brink of closure. The family is split up. We cannot be together to support each other. I know the strain this can put on families. My nephew killed himself earlier this year.
Even if all goes well with the vaccine, I will not be vaccinated until March.
Meanwhile people with solid jobs are ok. Those who do not have such jobs are thrown on the scrap heap with little hope, little help but the chance to be patronised by the wealthy better off like the couple who came in yesterday before closing and told him that he would be "on holiday" from today. "No, unemployed" he replied and they looked shocked. Still, they bought some Xmas chocolates so that's OK I suppose.
It would be good if some posters on here took the blindfolds off their eyes and looked at how bleak life is for the young.
I’m sorry to hear of your son’s troubles and hope it all goes well for him. I think you are being harsh on that couple though - I suspect they assumed either the shop was closing for Christmas or that he was going on furlough. It may have been thoughtless but I doubt it was intentional
Mr. Jonathan, aye, there was widespread support here for an extension given the plague (provided we weren't lumbered with costs of an EU scheme for COVID recovery or the like).
Unfortunately we have a Prime Minister with the intellectual prowess of a baked potato.
“Prime Minister is your full attention on the pandemic? A follow up question Prime Minister is your full attention on the Brexit negotiations?”
The unforgivable choice the government made was to deal with Brexit at the height of a pandemic. No one could or would have complained if it has been delayed a year.
one must conclude that they wanted to hide its worst effects under covid.
Quite. If you’re in Brussels arguing about fish you are not dealing with Covid. That’s the bottom line.
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Despite our head start of almost a week, the US is already up to 272,000 administered doses (with a reporting timelag of 24-72 hours) of the Pfizer compared to our c. 350,000.
Hi Ian
Where did you get this figure from? Because official sources put it at 130,000 and are trying to explain massive supply chain problems (with apologies included).
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Despite our head start of almost a week, the US is already up to 272,000 administered doses (with a reporting timelag of 24-72 hours) of the Pfizer compared to our c. 350,000.
You know the population of the US is about 5x bigger right?
With vast urban areas. They could probably overtake us using vaccination in just 5 cities.
To some people, our efforts will always be shit.
However, there is a large and growing body of people in this country mightily relieved that they or their aged relatives are going into Christmas with a much reduced fear of Covid.
It's not how we went into Covid that will ultimately be remembered - but how we came out of it.
Mr. Jonathan, aye, there was widespread support here for an extension given the plague (provided we weren't lumbered with costs of an EU scheme for COVID recovery or the like).
Unfortunately we have a Prime Minister with the intellectual prowess of a baked potato.
That’s harsh.
I’ve eaten baked potatoes with far more brains than this lot.
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
And the government didn’t know
You can criticise them for not being tough enough initially but not for changing their mind when it becomes apparent they weren’t strict enough
The government may not of known about the super virus but they knew what they were doing by relaxing the rules to allow ‘Christmas’ which was in many peoples view stupid anything which increases social mixing makes things worse any fool can see that.
Yes. It is a very difficult balance because as others have attested the psychological impact of isolation can be very severe.
I personally think they should have gone with “please don’t travel but if you judge it is essential then it is permitted to do X on Christmas Day only”.
So they made a judgement call on the negative impact of allowing a limited amount of mixing with consequences for infection rates vs the psychological impact (and risk of widespread disobedience). And then back-pedalled when the situation on the ground changed
In the short term when both have an entirely unvaccinated population, that shouldn't make so much difference. Yes, in the medium term they have more staff to do the deploying, but in the short term they have a hell of a lot more transportation to do to get the vaccine into every community.
You don't think they might have started distribution pre-approval?
The first 145 distribution sites received the first shipments from the Michigan factory on Monday last.
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
And the government didn’t know
You can criticise them for not being tough enough initially but not for changing their mind when it becomes apparent they weren’t strict enough
The government may not of known about the super virus but they knew what they were doing by relaxing the rules to allow ‘Christmas’ which was in many peoples view stupid anything which increases social mixing makes things worse any fool can see that.
Yes. It is a very difficult balance because as others have attested the psychological impact of isolation can be very severe.
I personally think they should have gone with “please don’t travel but if you judge it is essential then it is permitted to do X on Christmas Day only”.
So they made a judgement call on the negative impact of allowing a limited amount of mixing with consequences for infection rates vs the psychological impact (and risk of widespread disobedience). And then back-pedalled when the situation on the ground changed
Trying to score points off Starmer 72 hours before doing what he said was needed is never a good look though.
One problem is Johnson just can’t help political point scoring at every opportunity - no matter how crass or cack-handed he looks as a result.
An alarming report posted on CNN during the night:
President Donald Trump convened a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, including lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter said, describing a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump's aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn's more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.
Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden -- an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one of the people said. It wasn't clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.
White House aides who participated in the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Pat Cipollone, also pushed back intensely on the suggestion of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations Trump's own administration has dismissed (or, as seems more feasible, hiring her in the administration for some kind of investigatory role). Powell has focused her conspiracies on voting machines and has floated the notion of having a special counsel inspect the machines for flaws. Another idea floated in the meeting was an executive order that would permit the government to access voting machines to inspect them.
One person described the meeting as "ugly" as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he works to overturn the results of the election.
"It was heated -- people were really fighting it out in the Oval, really forceful about it," one of the sources said. One of the sources described an escalating sense of concern among Trump's aides, even those who have weathered his previous controversies, about what steps he might take next as his term comes to an end.
It's a cliche, but this really does sound like the second half of Downfall ; but with the demagogue still having a little room for manoeuvre.
What would declaring martial law get him? The military hate his guts and both they and the Secret service swear to uphold the Constitution, not the President.
He might have some leverage with the National Guard, but nothing like enough.
All that would happen is he would either be shot, or arrested for treason. Probably the former if the CIA had anything to do with it. Either way, his political career would be over.
It doesn't sound as if he is planning to resign this year!
Carried out in handcuffs on inauguration day, while the Bidens organise an industrial strength deep clean?
How on earth is he ever going to recover from this disaster?
That is a complete misreading of the poll and ignores the fact that nearly 80% say that the Johnson's original assessment was way too opimistic. He's in serious trouble. But as a party loyalist you are, of course, obliged to come on here and give the most positive spin you can on what is, by all accounts, a humiliating climb down.
Lewis drifting badly for SPOTY. Only 4/9 now from about 1/9. Hollies Doyle has come right in. Dont think voting has started yet has it?
In-running odds for Strictly last night definitely looked like insider trading to me. Cant see the betfair price graph but no way from what was on the TV should a dancer have been 1/8 fav after the lines had opened from about 4/5 pre-show.
“I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a Brexit code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Conservative Government – A Conservative Government - stuck in Brussels negotiating about fish, ignoring the pandemic at home then forced to scuttle round the media to cancel Christmas for its own people".
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Despite our head start of almost a week, the US is already up to 272,000 administered doses (with a reporting timelag of 24-72 hours) of the Pfizer compared to our c. 350,000.
You know the population of the US is about 5x bigger right?
In the short term when both have an entirely unvaccinated population, that shouldn't make so much difference. Yes, in the medium term they have more staff to do the deploying, but in the short term they have a hell of a lot more transportation to do to get the vaccine into every community.
You are talking about the short term though
I also believe they - like us - are working on a limited hub strategy for the initial phases of the roll out
The CMO knew about this new strain in September. The PM said yesterday that he was following the science. So what do you mean you only found out last Friday?
Mr. Jonathan, aye, there was widespread support here for an extension given the plague (provided we weren't lumbered with costs of an EU scheme for COVID recovery or the like).
Unfortunately we have a Prime Minister with the intellectual prowess of a baked potato.
That’s a big if
I remember reading somewhere that if we joined the EU scheme we would have had to abandon the Jenner programme
An alarming report posted on CNN during the night:
President Donald Trump convened a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, including lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter said, describing a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump's aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn's more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.
Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden -- an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one of the people said. It wasn't clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.
White House aides who participated in the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Pat Cipollone, also pushed back intensely on the suggestion of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations Trump's own administration has dismissed (or, as seems more feasible, hiring her in the administration for some kind of investigatory role). Powell has focused her conspiracies on voting machines and has floated the notion of having a special counsel inspect the machines for flaws. Another idea floated in the meeting was an executive order that would permit the government to access voting machines to inspect them.
One person described the meeting as "ugly" as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he works to overturn the results of the election.
"It was heated -- people were really fighting it out in the Oval, really forceful about it," one of the sources said. One of the sources described an escalating sense of concern among Trump's aides, even those who have weathered his previous controversies, about what steps he might take next as his term comes to an end.
It's a cliche, but this really does sound like the second half of Downfall ; but with the demagogue still having a little room for manoeuvre.
What would declaring martial law get him? The military hate his guts and both they and the Secret service swear to uphold the Constitution, not the President.
He might have some leverage with the National Guard, but nothing like enough.
All that would happen is he would either be shot, or arrested for treason. Probably the former if the CIA had anything to do with it. Either way, his political career would be over.
It doesn't sound as if he is planning to resign this year!
Carried out in handcuffs on inauguration day, while the Bidens organise an industrial strength deep clean?
Actually, there is a serious point there. I suspect Biden will want the whole White House cleaned and disinfected, plus a new security detail/staffing roster, given his age and the fact COVID is so widespread among Trump’s staff.
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Despite our head start of almost a week, the US is already up to 272,000 administered doses (with a reporting timelag of 24-72 hours) of the Pfizer compared to our c. 350,000.
Hi Ian
Where did you get this figure from? Because official sources put it at 130,000 and are trying to explain massive supply chain problems (with apologies included).
It was reported by CNN four hours ago based on a CDC press release, which made clear that reporting time lags meant the info could be 24-72 hours lagged, varying by location
Mr. Jonathan, aye, there was widespread support here for an extension given the plague (provided we weren't lumbered with costs of an EU scheme for COVID recovery or the like).
Unfortunately we have a Prime Minister with the intellectual prowess of a baked potato.
That’s harsh.
I’ve eaten baked potatoes with far more brains than this lot.
Baked potatoes and brains? I’m not sure the consistency of those two foods would mix well. A little bland probably
Mr. 64, a private betting account I follow on Twitter was also very surprised by Doyle's falling price. Apparently there's a concerted effort to try and get the vote out for her.
Mr. Pioneers, the line of questioning is legitimate, but the decision was made by the PM. A head should roll, and it should be his.
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Despite our head start of almost a week, the US is already up to 272,000 administered doses (with a reporting timelag of 24-72 hours) of the Pfizer compared to our c. 350,000.
Hi Ian
Where did you get this figure from? Because official sources put it at 130,000 and are trying to explain massive supply chain problems (with apologies included).
It was reported by CNN four hours ago based on a CDC press release, which made clear that reporting time lags meant the info could be 24-72 hours lagged, varying by location
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
And the government didn’t know
You can criticise them for not being tough enough initially but not for changing their mind when it becomes apparent they weren’t strict enough
The government may not of known about the super virus but they knew what they were doing by relaxing the rules to allow ‘Christmas’ which was in many peoples view stupid anything which increases social mixing makes things worse any fool can see that.
Yes. It is a very difficult balance because as others have attested the psychological impact of isolation can be very severe.
I personally think they should have gone with “please don’t travel but if you judge it is essential then it is permitted to do X on Christmas Day only”.
So they made a judgement call on the negative impact of allowing a limited amount of mixing with consequences for infection rates vs the psychological impact (and risk of widespread disobedience). And then back-pedalled when the situation on the ground changed
Trying to score points off Starmer 72 hours before doing what he said was needed is never a good look though.
One problem is Johnson just can’t help political point scoring at every opportunity - no matter how crass or cack-handed he looks as a result.
It’s only politicial obsessives who notice that kind of stuff. Real world impact zero.
Mr. Jonathan, aye, there was widespread support here for an extension given the plague (provided we weren't lumbered with costs of an EU scheme for COVID recovery or the like).
Unfortunately we have a Prime Minister with the intellectual prowess of a baked potato.
That’s harsh.
I’ve eaten baked potatoes with far more brains than this lot.
Baked potatoes and brains? I’m not sure the consistency of those two foods would mix well. A little bland probably
Nonsense. A bit of onion and it goes down a treat.
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
And the government didn’t know
You can criticise them for not being tough enough initially but not for changing their mind when it becomes apparent they weren’t strict enough
The government may not of known about the super virus but they knew what they were doing by relaxing the rules to allow ‘Christmas’ which was in many peoples view stupid anything which increases social mixing makes things worse any fool can see that.
Yes. It is a very difficult balance because as others have attested the psychological impact of isolation can be very severe.
I personally think they should have gone with “please don’t travel but if you judge it is essential then it is permitted to do X on Christmas Day only”.
So they made a judgement call on the negative impact of allowing a limited amount of mixing with consequences for infection rates vs the psychological impact (and risk of widespread disobedience). And then back-pedalled when the situation on the ground changed
Trying to score points off Starmer 72 hours before doing what he said was needed is never a good look though.
One problem is Johnson just can’t help political point scoring at every opportunity - no matter how crass or cack-handed he looks as a result.
It’s only politicial obsessives who notice that kind of stuff. Real world impact zero.
That’s what people said about Suez.
And to some extent it was true - the Tories only lost one election by a substantial margin in the following 40 years - but I do wonder about the long term damage Johnson is doing to them right now.
How on earth is he ever going to recover from this disaster?
That is a complete misreading of the poll and ignores the fact that nearly 80% say that the Johnson's original assessment was way too opimistic. He's in serious trouble. But as a party loyalist you are, of course, obliged to come on here and give the most positive spin you can on what is, by all accounts, a humiliating climb down.
How large is the group that believes both:
a) he is right to tighten b) he was NOT too optimistic at first?
I guess that’s the real party loyalists?
I think that if you believe a) then almost a priori you believe he was originally too optimistic
How on earth is he ever going to recover from this disaster?
That is a complete misreading of the poll and ignores the fact that nearly 80% say that the Johnson's original assessment was way too opimistic. He's in serious trouble. But as a party loyalist you are, of course, obliged to come on here and give the most positive spin you can on what is, by all accounts, a humiliating climb down.
How large is the group that believes both:
a) he is right to tighten b) he was NOT too optimistic at first?
I guess that’s the real party loyalists?
I think that if you believe a) then almost a priori you believe he was originally too optimistic
Mr Blue is disingenuous when he says "78% of the population agree with" Johnson. They agree with the ultimate decision but that was not a decision the Prime Minister wanted to take and a decision he only took belatedly. That is not "agreeing" with him.
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Sorry but your other reply was gibbering bollocks and shows a complete lack of appreciation for the relative risk / reward profile.
I’ve spent my working career in vaccine strategy. What’s your expertise?
It’s this aching know it all attitude and over cautiousness that’s got us to the mess we are in.
This is not an ordinary vaccine campaign. Read some of the comments even on here, from the likes of cyclefree or better yet go and speak to a millennial who sees no point in the future. Every month’s delay matters more than many of those sitting in financially comfortable middle age can possibly appreciate.
And even according to the very narrow goal of stopping covid deaths, taking a sliver of risk in the supply chain management makes sense, given we are heading through winter and by a comfortable distance the first few million to be vaccinated are the most likely to die.
What are you worried is going to happen to the promised doses between now and 31st Dec? What odds do you ascribe to that? How long the delay? From a health perspective, it’s totally irrelevant whether someone like me gets vaxxed in March, June or never. But these early days it matters immensely. Hence why the early approval was justifiably lauded. We are wasting precious time.
The CMO knew about this new strain in September. The PM said yesterday that he was following the science. So what do you mean you only found out last Friday?
So if vaccine can’t get through because of brexit chaos who will our libertarians turn their wrath on? It’s not the EUs job to ensure supply to the UK will market forces solve the problem? More importantly why will the voters blame. It’s all well and good saying it won’t happen but it could.
How lucky the vaccines are being manufactured in Essex and Oxfordshire
Thought the Pfizer one was manufactured in Belgium. Surely Pfizer scrapped their manufacturing plants in UK some time ago. Certainly closed the one near Sandwich.
I was thinking of AZN
Edit: I’m more bored by doom-mongers who want to shoehorn Brexit into everything
Yes, the pharmaceutical industry is world-wide, isn't it. Is the AZN Essex factory in Harlow; I thought most oft their places were around Cambridge?
No move on the next PM market on Betfair (still a Starmer-Sunak tie of around 4.2).
Suggests MPs aren't (yet) writing to the Men in Grey Suits.
Sunak's hands are all over this latest mess. As Chancellor he can hide away from the consequences of his decisions in the knowledge that the PM will cop the flak. Should he succeed Johnson, Sunak will discover - like Johnson himself and Gordon Brown as well - that there is no hiding place.
An alarming report posted on CNN during the night:
President Donald Trump convened a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, including lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter said, describing a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump's aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn's more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.
Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden -- an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one of the people said. It wasn't clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.
White House aides who participated in the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Pat Cipollone, also pushed back intensely on the suggestion of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations Trump's own administration has dismissed (or, as seems more feasible, hiring her in the administration for some kind of investigatory role). Powell has focused her conspiracies on voting machines and has floated the notion of having a special counsel inspect the machines for flaws. Another idea floated in the meeting was an executive order that would permit the government to access voting machines to inspect them.
One person described the meeting as "ugly" as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he works to overturn the results of the election.
"It was heated -- people were really fighting it out in the Oval, really forceful about it," one of the sources said. One of the sources described an escalating sense of concern among Trump's aides, even those who have weathered his previous controversies, about what steps he might take next as his term comes to an end.
It's a cliche, but this really does sound like the second half of Downfall ; but with the demagogue still having a little room for manoeuvre.
What would declaring martial law get him? The military hate his guts and both they and the Secret service swear to uphold the Constitution, not the President.
He might have some leverage with the National Guard, but nothing like enough.
All that would happen is he would either be shot, or arrested for treason. Probably the former if the CIA had anything to do with it. Either way, his political career would be over.
It doesn't sound as if he is planning to resign this year!
Carried out in handcuffs on inauguration day, while the Bidens organise an industrial strength deep clean?
Well you do, you just chose to gloss over it until the end.
350,000 people in the UK have already received the 1st Pfizer jab. The Oxford one is about to be greenlit. 20 million will have been vaccinated by March. So, yes, there is extremely good news.
This is a temporary setback but we're on the route out of this virus now. It may be a long drive but we've begun it.
What an appallingly insensitive response. This is the second time this year my son has lost his job. His chances of finding another one are low. He has been made unemployed at a moment's notice and was crying with frustration last night. He will get no support. Daughter's business is on the brink of closure. The family is split up. We cannot be together to support each other. I know the strain this can put on families. My nephew killed himself earlier this year.
Even if all goes well with the vaccine, I will not be vaccinated until March.
Meanwhile people with solid jobs are ok. Those who do not have such jobs are thrown on the scrap heap with little hope, little help but the chance to be patronised by the wealthy better off like the couple who came in yesterday before closing and told him that he would be "on holiday" from today. "No, unemployed" he replied and they looked shocked. Still, they bought some Xmas chocolates so that's OK I suppose.
It would be good if some posters on here took the blindfolds off their eyes and looked at how bleak life is for the young.
I’m sorry to hear of your son’s troubles and hope it all goes well for him. I think you are being harsh on that couple though - I suspect they assumed either the shop was closing for Christmas or that he was going on furlough. It may have been thoughtless but I doubt it was intentional
Furlough is not like being on holiday. You only get 80% of your wages. Describing it as that is thoughtless.
Not that he will get it anyway.
And what is the government doing to help? Nothing. 3 million have had no help at all. Unless you were furloughed before a certain date, you get nothing. All those who lost jobs earlier and got new ones are just being abandoned. The hospitality sector is dying before our eyes.
My son suffered from serious mental health problems. He has - slowly - fought his way back to recovery. He has done volunteer work to help his CV, at your arts place among others. He started a job last year which got canned because of Covid and economic uncertainty. He gets another one. That goes. Now this the third time. What do you think this will do to his confidence? Or his chances of getting another one?
We talk too often on here of the millions getting vaccines, of statistics and polls and numbers. We might usefully remember that behind each number is a person, like my son, like millions like him, and behind them, many worried parents.
I know you have suffered your own personal loss, far worse than losing a job.
But this is not a competition. Just a plea to remember that retail closing in London means him and lots of others being told just like that that they're not wanted and, btw, you can't go meet your friends and family for a bit of comfort.
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
And the government didn’t know
You can criticise them for not being tough enough initially but not for changing their mind when it becomes apparent they weren’t strict enough
The government may not of known about the super virus but they knew what they were doing by relaxing the rules to allow ‘Christmas’ which was in many peoples view stupid anything which increases social mixing makes things worse any fool can see that.
Yes. It is a very difficult balance because as others have attested the psychological impact of isolation can be very severe.
I personally think they should have gone with “please don’t travel but if you judge it is essential then it is permitted to do X on Christmas Day only”.
So they made a judgement call on the negative impact of allowing a limited amount of mixing with consequences for infection rates vs the psychological impact (and risk of widespread disobedience). And then back-pedalled when the situation on the ground changed
Trying to score points off Starmer 72 hours before doing what he said was needed is never a good look though.
One problem is Johnson just can’t help political point scoring at every opportunity - no matter how crass or cack-handed he looks as a result.
It’s only politicial obsessives who notice that kind of stuff. Real world impact zero.
That’s what people said about Suez.
And to some extent it was true - the Tories only lost one election by a substantial margin in the following 40 years - but I do wonder about the long term damage Johnson is doing to them right now.
Johnson is not a good PM for the times we find ourselves in.
But I was responding on the narrow point of point scoring off Starmer at PMQ
Mr. Observer, it's telling that Labour seem to spend as much time knocking Sunak as Johnson.
Regardless of what you think of Sunak, it's hard to believe he would be anything other than a massive improvement (as would be Hunt) over the incumbent cretin.
If the Conservatives have any survival instincts whatsoever they ought to give the PM the Christmas gift of a prolonged period of time in which to contemplate his own magnificence, far away from the onerous burden of high office.
If most of us could see this coming a mile away even if Boris and Nicola couldn’t presumably “most of us” didn’t make any plans that needed to be disrupted? Or is that too obvious?
Alternatively, governments dealing with a fast moving and complex situation got fractionally behind the curve and needed to catch up again. Or is that too simple?
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
And the government didn’t know
You can criticise them for not being tough enough initially but not for changing their mind when it becomes apparent they weren’t strict enough
The government may not of known about the super virus but they knew what they were doing by relaxing the rules to allow ‘Christmas’ which was in many peoples view stupid anything which increases social mixing makes things worse any fool can see that.
Yes. It is a very difficult balance because as others have attested the psychological impact of isolation can be very severe.
I personally think they should have gone with “please don’t travel but if you judge it is essential then it is permitted to do X on Christmas Day only”.
So they made a judgement call on the negative impact of allowing a limited amount of mixing with consequences for infection rates vs the psychological impact (and risk of widespread disobedience). And then back-pedalled when the situation on the ground changed
Trying to score points off Starmer 72 hours before doing what he said was needed is never a good look though.
One problem is Johnson just can’t help political point scoring at every opportunity - no matter how crass or cack-handed he looks as a result.
It’s only politicial obsessives who notice that kind of stuff. Real world impact zero.
Are you kidding? Its been front page news repeatedly that Boris has Saved Christmas. And now he looks like an utter chump.
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Despite our head start of almost a week, the US is already up to 272,000 administered doses (with a reporting timelag of 24-72 hours) of the Pfizer compared to our c. 350,000.
Hi Ian
Where did you get this figure from? Because official sources put it at 130,000 and are trying to explain massive supply chain problems (with apologies included).
It was reported by CNN four hours ago based on a CDC press release, which made clear that reporting time lags meant the info could be 24-72 hours lagged, varying by location
Do you have a link?
It's in the virus live feed, just over four hours back, below the story about Bozo cancelling Xmas
On brighter news my 90 year old Mum due to get her Covid jab at 5.40pm tomorrow.
Took my 94 year old uncle for his today and he gets his 2nd one on 9/1/21
A friend of mine's 80 yr-old mum had her first jab in the week. It's underway.
How did the media last night let the govt get away with portraying only 350k jabs in 10 days as good news?
Because it's a fantastic start and much higher than I was expecting given the requirement to get the logistical gears to mesh into place.
This vaccine is a stunning achievement and the Gov't have done absolutely brilliantly on it.
Sorry no. They’ve had all year to worgame its implementation. It’s too slow. Clearly they’re operating on the basis that so far they have taken delivery of 800k doses, which on the sticker is enough for 400k people (though we now know you can eek out 1/6 more).
So they’re operating on the assumption that they take no new deliveries in the next few weeks. Why is that I wonder...
You are clearly angry with the Government as evidenced by your other later reply. However, letting that anger spill over onto the vaccine rollout is a mistake and demeans yourself and your arguments.
The vaccine development is an astonishing success story. Inside 12 months from virus outbreak to the start of vaccinations is astounding in scientific terms. That the UK Government pre-ordered in bulk SEVEN different developers is one of the most brilliant decisions in political judgement. And I write that as someone left of centre and a deep critic of Boris Johnson.
The Pfizer vaccine requires complex logistics and we have not 'had all year' to know whether it would be efficacious and how it needed to be transported and stored. The early rollout has gone far better than I was anticipating. Next week we will be vaccinating 200,000 people a day. This is a stupendous start.
It's a stellar achievement and the route out of this wretched virus.
I switched off before the very end of the Q&A. Where is the 200k a day figure from? Because I’ve read here all week we’d done 500-800k already.
The scientific achievement of the vaccine is a total game changer and I say that without really thinking about covid but the much wider potential of mRNA vaccines.
The logistics requirement is something that has been known about with the Pfizer vax since the start of the pandemic. They have spent $2bn making it idiot proof for their customers.
It has been clear to those with knowledge beyond that in the wider public domain for many months that Pfizer, Moderna and AZN were likely to have the required efficacy and be first to approval.
It’s a basic question. We’ve got something like 900k useful doses in our possession and have used a little more than a third. Why?
We have 800K official does do enough to vaccinate 400K people
We’ve done 350K. So 85% of the possible.
We’ve also just given discretion to nurses on using a 6th dose (although that will probably have little impact on numbers of vaccines from this batch as used vials will already have been disposed of).
85% in 2 weeks is pretty damn good
That’s a politician’s use of figures, though.
People need two doses, but weeks apart, and we have been told that millions more are due to arrive before New Year. So no excuse for not having done 800,000 already.
The government is responsible for the vaccine’s deployment, not its development. We’ve started with the low hanging fruit - people already in hospital, as patients or staff, and elderly patients of the handful of earmarked GP practices who have been phone-called into their local practice. Whether the whole thing is going to be a brilliant piece of organisation, it is still too early to say.
My other reply explains why it’s better to do 400K not 800K with this first batch
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Sorry but your other reply was gibbering bollocks and shows a complete lack of appreciation for the relative risk / reward profile.
I’ve spent my working career in vaccine strategy. What’s your expertise?
It’s this aching know it all attitude and over cautiousness that’s got us to the mess we are in.
This is not an ordinary vaccine campaign. Read some of the comments even on here, from the likes of cyclefree or better yet go and speak to a millennial who sees no point in the future. Every month’s delay matters more than many of those sitting in financially comfortable middle age can possibly appreciate.
And even according to the very narrow goal of stopping covid deaths, taking a sliver of risk in the supply chain management makes sense, given we are heading through winter and by a comfortable distance the first few million to be vaccinated are the most likely to die.
What are you worried is going to happen to the promised doses between now and 31st Dec? What odds do you ascribe to that? How long the delay? From a health perspective, it’s totally irrelevant whether someone like me gets vaxxed in March, June or never. But these early days it matters immensely. Hence why the early approval was justifiably lauded. We are wasting precious time.
Under your model:
If something goes wrong in the supply chain then you end up with zero vaccinated effectively.
If everything goes right you end up with 800K - assuming the Pfizer vaccines are delivered in schedule (I don’t know the promised dates but 4 weeks is not long to manufacture, deliver, distribute and call in people in the right sequence).
It’s a judgement call - there is no right or wrong - but I don’t believe that the difference between 400k and 800k is significant and the downside of screwing up is massive.
Lots of people think he is right to tighten. Therefore by definition they think his original plans were too optimistic. It would only be damaging if they think he was reckless in formulating his original plans
The problem us the flip-flop. A lot of businesses will now go bust because they orded stock etc based on having some kind of Christmas sales window. They would not have done this if they had known the government would not actually permit that window to open. Remember many businesses are now barely clinging on. Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for. Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
And the government didn’t know
You can criticise them for not being tough enough initially but not for changing their mind when it becomes apparent they weren’t strict enough
The government may not of known about the super virus but they knew what they were doing by relaxing the rules to allow ‘Christmas’ which was in many peoples view stupid anything which increases social mixing makes things worse any fool can see that.
Yes. It is a very difficult balance because as others have attested the psychological impact of isolation can be very severe.
I personally think they should have gone with “please don’t travel but if you judge it is essential then it is permitted to do X on Christmas Day only”.
So they made a judgement call on the negative impact of allowing a limited amount of mixing with consequences for infection rates vs the psychological impact (and risk of widespread disobedience). And then back-pedalled when the situation on the ground changed
Trying to score points off Starmer 72 hours before doing what he said was needed is never a good look though.
One problem is Johnson just can’t help political point scoring at every opportunity - no matter how crass or cack-handed he looks as a result.
It’s only politicial obsessives who notice that kind of stuff. Real world impact zero.
That’s what people said about Suez.
And to some extent it was true - the Tories only lost one election by a substantial margin in the following 40 years - but I do wonder about the long term damage Johnson is doing to them right now.
Johnson is not a good PM for the times we find ourselves in.
But I was responding on the narrow point of point scoring off Starmer at PMQ
Bottom line is he's only a good PM for a time when nothing much needs doing or thinking about, and he can just go around shaking hands and opening stuff. When were things last like that?
Something that has been a article of faith amongst Covid Deniers is that Lockdown has lead to a spike in suicides. They haven't based this on any actual data, it's is just something they have intuited because they don't like lockdown so there must be bad effects.
It takes a fair while to gather data on suicides and the ONS has been cautious about releasing the data due to a backlog of Coroner's cases but we now have a decent look at the previous year, no Q4 data yet obviously. Figures given as raw numbers and age-standardised per 100,000 figure in brackets
5-year average to 2019 Q1 - 1134 (9.5) Q2 - 1195 (9.9) Q3 - 1240 (10.2)
Suicides in general have been trending up over the last 10 years but the key thing is that absolutely massive dip in the 2020 Q2 figures with no "bounce back" in Q3.
Obviously these numbers are subject to revision, 2020's numbers were only recently declared final, but compared to 2019 suicides are down overall so far with lockdown have a positive impact.
A sole and temporary consolation of the first lockdown was that accommodation was found for the homeless. It wasn't out of any consideration for the wellbeing of those who suffer from that demonstrably solvable unsolvable problem. It was to stop the deplorables from infecting the rest of us. Nevertheless this vulnerable group were looked at the basic level for the first time.
I wonder if that accounts for the much lower suicide rate in the Q2 lockdown period.
If most of us could see this coming a mile away even if Boris and Nicola couldn’t presumably “most of us” didn’t make any plans that needed to be disrupted? Or is that too obvious?
Alternatively, governments dealing with a fast moving and complex situation got fractionally behind the curve and needed to catch up again. Or is that too simple?
The basic issue is one I posted on here last night and has been mentioned on Sky this morning. This new variant was identified in September. On Monday Hancock told the House it may be fuelling the rise in new cases. On Wednesday, however, Johnson was grandstanding about Starmer "wanting to cancel Christmas". Then we have yesterday's announcement. I think it is safe to say that on Monday (and perhaps earlier) there were good indications that this was going to be necessary. Yet they waited five days. That is not "fractionally" behind the curve. That is well behind the curve.
So if vaccine can’t get through because of brexit chaos who will our libertarians turn their wrath on? It’s not the EUs job to ensure supply to the UK will market forces solve the problem? More importantly why will the voters blame. It’s all well and good saying it won’t happen but it could.
How lucky the vaccines are being manufactured in Essex and Oxfordshire
Thought the Pfizer one was manufactured in Belgium. Surely Pfizer scrapped their manufacturing plants in UK some time ago. Certainly closed the one near Sandwich.
I was thinking of AZN
Edit: I’m more bored by doom-mongers who want to shoehorn Brexit into everything
Yes, the pharmaceutical industry is world-wide, isn't it. Is the AZN Essex factory in Harlow; I thought most oft their places were around Cambridge?
Something that has been a article of faith amongst Covid Deniers is that Lockdown has lead to a spike in suicides. They haven't based this on any actual data, it's is just something they have intuited because they don't like lockdown so there must be bad effects.
It takes a fair while to gather data on suicides and the ONS has been cautious about releasing the data due to a backlog of Coroner's cases but we now have a decent look at the previous year, no Q4 data yet obviously. Figures given as raw numbers and age-standardised per 100,000 figure in brackets
5-year average to 2019 Q1 - 1134 (9.5) Q2 - 1195 (9.9) Q3 - 1240 (10.2)
Suicides in general have been trending up over the last 10 years but the key thing is that absolutely massive dip in the 2020 Q2 figures with no "bounce back" in Q3.
Obviously these numbers are subject to revision, 2020's numbers were only recently declared final, but compared to 2019 suicides are down overall so far with lockdown have a positive impact.
A sole and temporary consolation of the first lockdown was that accommodation was found for the homeless. It wasn't out of any consideration for the wellbeing of those who suffer from that demonstrably solvable unsolvable problem. It was to stop the deplorables from infecting the rest of us. Nevertheless this vulnerable group were looked at the basic level for the first time.
I wonder if that accounts for the much lower suicide rate in the Q2 lockdown period.
Good point. According to Samaritans, Suicide is the second most common cause of death for homeless people, ONS stats show
Comments
I agree it’s too early to say whether they will make a mess of it. But so far it seems to be going reasonably well.
Brexit January will bring further disasters because UK business has no idea what to plan for.
Alot of people are furious at the abject incompetence that such indecisiveness demonstrates. The Tories will come in for a hell of a lot of flak and rightly so.
Meanwhile my old chap seems as happy as Larry cooped up in his home, which has a social atmosphere and all the gossip that goes with it.
I wonder if depression is being factored in. It’s really hard on elderly couples and singles.
It's probably not just age/relationship (or household) status, but also extroversion and introversion. As a massive introvert, that side of things hasn't affected me whatsoever. Worrying about relatives dropping dead, however, has not been fantastic (obviously that's always a risk but most diseases have treatments or cures).
President Donald Trump convened a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, including lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter said, describing a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump's aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn's more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.
Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden -- an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one of the people said. It wasn't clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.
White House aides who participated in the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Pat Cipollone, also pushed back intensely on the suggestion of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations Trump's own administration has dismissed (or, as seems more feasible, hiring her in the administration for some kind of investigatory role). Powell has focused her conspiracies on voting machines and has floated the notion of having a special counsel inspect the machines for flaws.
Another idea floated in the meeting was an executive order that would permit the government to access voting machines to inspect them.
One person described the meeting as "ugly" as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he works to overturn the results of the election.
"It was heated -- people were really fighting it out in the Oval, really forceful about it," one of the sources said.
One of the sources described an escalating sense of concern among Trump's aides, even those who have weathered his previous controversies, about what steps he might take next as his term comes to an end.
Suggests MPs aren't (yet) writing to the Men in Grey Suits.
Either the Secretary of State for Education has no clue what is happening in education and should be fired. Or he knew what was happening, chose to grandstand for political points in the right wing press, and should be fired.
He won't be fired. He'll probably be promoted.
You can criticise them for not being tough enough initially but not for changing their mind when it becomes apparent they weren’t strict enough
Even if all goes well with the vaccine, I will not be vaccinated until March.
Meanwhile people with solid jobs are ok. Those who do not have such jobs are thrown on the scrap heap with little hope, little help but the chance to be patronised by the wealthy better off like the couple who came in yesterday before closing and told him that he would be "on holiday" from today. "No, unemployed" he replied and they looked shocked. Still, they bought some Xmas chocolates so that's OK I suppose.
It would be good if some posters on here took the blindfolds off their eyes and looked at how bleak life is for the young.
Edit: I’m more bored by doom-mongers who want to shoehorn Brexit into everything
The unforgivable choice the government made was to deal with Brexit at the height of a pandemic. No one could or would have complained if it has been delayed a year.
For weeks, scientific experts, including members of Sage, have urged caution with respect to Christmas relaxations, given the direction in which infection rates were heading. For weeks, they have warned that it is a question of balance and that relaxing restrictions against a backdrop of rising infection rates could lead to a significant number of avoidable deaths. It is understandable that the government wanted to allow people to see their families at Christmas after the year we have had. But Johnson should have been honest with the public that there was no guarantee of any Christmas relaxation, that it was contingent on the state of the play with the virus. Instead, he gave false reassurances and encouraged families to make and look forward to plans that, for many, will now not come to pass.
This is the latest in a long line of communication errors in which he has blamed individuals, rather than failures of government policy, for increasing infection rates. And he has consistently played politics in response to fair scrutiny from the opposition; days ago, he belittled Keir Starmer for wanting to “cancel Christmas” in response to questions about why he was not acting in light of the variant and increasing infection rates.
People will feel that they have held up their side of the bargain – following difficult and painful rules that have kept them away from loved ones for months – only to be let down by a government that has placed too much emphasis on making bombastic and reckless guarantees and too little on taking the timely action required to halt the spread of the virus.
He might have some leverage with the National Guard, but nothing like enough.
All that would happen is he would either be shot, or arrested for treason. Probably the former if the CIA had anything to do with it. Either way, his political career would be over.
https://twitter.com/DavidHenigUK/status/1340572297476890625
https://twitter.com/DavidHenigUK/status/1340574111496548352
Here's my concise season review, including a very exciting graph:
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2020/12/f1-2020-season-review.html
Note: He's only been on 5 seconds.
When the world falls apart some things stay in place.
Matt Hancock's tiers run down his face.
Unfortunately we have a Prime Minister with the intellectual prowess of a baked potato.
Where did you get this figure from? Because official sources put it at 130,000 and are trying to explain massive supply chain problems (with apologies included).
Coronavirus: Trump's Covid vaccine chief admits delivery mistake
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55380288
To some people, our efforts will always be shit.
However, there is a large and growing body of people in this country mightily relieved that they or their aged relatives are going into Christmas with a much reduced fear of Covid.
It's not how we went into Covid that will ultimately be remembered - but how we came out of it.
I’ve eaten baked potatoes with far more brains than this lot.
I personally think they should have gone with “please don’t travel but if you judge it is essential then it is permitted to do X on Christmas Day only”.
So they made a judgement call on the negative impact of allowing a limited amount of mixing with consequences for infection rates vs the psychological impact (and risk of widespread disobedience). And then back-pedalled when the situation on the ground changed
One problem is Johnson just can’t help political point scoring at every opportunity - no matter how crass or cack-handed he looks as a result.
Carried out in handcuffs on inauguration day, while the Bidens organise an industrial strength deep clean?
In-running odds for Strictly last night definitely looked like insider trading to me. Cant see the betfair price graph but no way from what was on the TV should a dancer have been 1/8 fav after the lines had opened from about 4/5 pre-show.
I also believe they - like us - are working on a limited hub strategy for the initial phases of the roll out
The CMO knew about this new strain in September. The PM said yesterday that he was following the science. So what do you mean you only found out last Friday?
I remember reading somewhere that if we joined the EU scheme we would have had to abandon the Jenner programme
So when will he actually move in?
https://twitter.com/RobDotHutton/status/1340580526164307968
Mr. Pioneers, the line of questioning is legitimate, but the decision was made by the PM. A head should roll, and it should be his.
And to some extent it was true - the Tories only lost one election by a substantial margin in the following 40 years - but I do wonder about the long term damage Johnson is doing to them right now.
a) he is right to tighten
b) he was NOT too optimistic at first?
I guess that’s the real party loyalists?
I think that if you believe a) then almost a priori you believe he was originally too optimistic
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1340582035589652481
This is not an ordinary vaccine campaign. Read some of the comments even on here, from the likes of cyclefree or better yet go and speak to a millennial who sees no point in the future. Every month’s delay matters more than many of those sitting in financially comfortable middle age can possibly appreciate.
And even according to the very narrow goal of stopping covid deaths, taking a sliver of risk in the supply chain management makes sense, given we are heading through winter and by a comfortable distance the first few million to be vaccinated are the most likely to die.
What are you worried is going to happen to the promised doses between now and 31st Dec? What odds do you ascribe to that? How long the delay? From a health perspective, it’s totally irrelevant whether someone like me gets vaxxed in March, June or never. But these early days it matters immensely. Hence why the early approval was justifiably lauded. We are wasting precious time.
https://twitter.com/DiabolicalIdea/status/1338436028219199488
Not that he will get it anyway.
And what is the government doing to help? Nothing. 3 million have had no help at all. Unless you were furloughed before a certain date, you get nothing. All those who lost jobs earlier and got new ones are just being abandoned. The hospitality sector is dying before our eyes.
My son suffered from serious mental health problems. He has - slowly - fought his way back to recovery. He has done volunteer work to help his CV, at your arts place among others. He started a job last year which got canned because of Covid and economic uncertainty. He gets another one. That goes. Now this the third time. What do you think this will do to his confidence? Or his chances of getting another one?
We talk too often on here of the millions getting vaccines, of statistics and polls and numbers. We might usefully remember that behind each number is a person, like my son, like millions like him, and behind them, many worried parents.
I know you have suffered your own personal loss, far worse than losing a job.
But this is not a competition. Just a plea to remember that retail closing in London means him and lots of others being told just like that that they're not wanted and, btw, you can't go meet your friends and family for a bit of comfort.
That's all.
But I was responding on the narrow point of point scoring off Starmer at PMQ
Regardless of what you think of Sunak, it's hard to believe he would be anything other than a massive improvement (as would be Hunt) over the incumbent cretin.
If the Conservatives have any survival instincts whatsoever they ought to give the PM the Christmas gift of a prolonged period of time in which to contemplate his own magnificence, far away from the onerous burden of high office.
Alternatively, governments dealing with a fast moving and complex situation got fractionally behind the curve and needed to catch up again. Or is that too simple?
https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-12-20-20/index.html
By the way, here's the US plan, broken down by location, as to how they intend to manage the deployment:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/covid19-vaccination-guidance.html
With a lot more info here: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/index.html
Can anyone find ours?
According to this, they might be getting 5000 doses this year..
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/covid-19-vaccine-ireland-could-get-5-000-doses-by-end-of-year-1.4437841
If something goes wrong in the supply chain then you end up with zero vaccinated effectively.
If everything goes right you end up with 800K - assuming the Pfizer vaccines are delivered in schedule (I don’t know the promised dates but 4 weeks is not long to manufacture, deliver, distribute and call in people in the right sequence).
It’s a judgement call - there is no right or wrong - but I don’t believe that the difference between 400k and 800k is significant and the downside of screwing up is massive.
I wonder if that accounts for the much lower suicide rate in the Q2 lockdown period.
Given men are 90% of the homeless and 75% of suicides, that would seem to line up.