But The Times is reporting that a key member of The University of Oxford vaccine team has questioned whether it would work against the South African variant.
Close.
The.
Fucking.
Borders.
The bigger picture - if this is true - isnt so much this particular mutation from South Africa, but the hugely greater likelihood that Corona becomes like flu and requires new vaccination to be developed as it mutates into new forms. What happens once can and will happen again.
Of course it will, especially as we seem to be hell-bent on maximizing its mutation opportunities.
Nowhere near as much relatively as it was a few years ago. In 2010 the map had a much starker North/South divide.
Now the divide is trending towards city/suburban rather than North South. So the Labour Party secure in Liverpool, Manchester etc in the North like Bolton, London in the South. But the suburban North is trending blue.
From Tom Newton Dunn in the Times. I think Theresa May would have paid for both teas:
"Some time ago, I fetched tea for Boris Johnson every afternoon, and delivered it to him in his glass box of an office. It was my first job in journalism and he was the star columnist on the newspaper we both worked for. Johnson would always insist on paying for his tea and was generous enough to give me his internal payment card so I could buy one for myself too.
To his regular embarrassment, there was never a penny on his card and I would end up paying for both teas.
The other thing I remember is that though his articles were consistently brilliant, they were always late. Very late. Sometimes so late, the man who is now prime minister used to have to barricade himself inside his glass box to keep out the sub-editors, desperate for copy as the printing presses began to whir while he continued to tap away.
So it was with the signing of the EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement."
“to his regular embarrassment” LOL.
Someone still can’t quite see through the charlatan.
I think it's irony mate.
Perhaps. I’d have politely asked him to stop taking the piss after the first couple of times.
But The Times is reporting that a key member of The University of Oxford vaccine team has questioned whether it would work against the South African variant.
Close.
The.
Fucking.
Borders.
The bigger picture - if this is true - isnt so much this particular mutation from South Africa, but the hugely greater likelihood that Corona becomes like flu and requires new vaccination to be developed as it mutates into new forms. What happens once can and will happen again.
Of course it will, especially as we seem to be hell-bent on maximizing its mutation opportunities.
My favourite optimistic hypothesis is that the mutations will tend to reduce the seriousness of the disease and covid will end up as another one of the common cold viruses.
I speak as a working class Conservative who is naturally anti lockdown but I am now calling Keir as correct!
We need an immediate national lockdown including all schools and universities closed until 28 Feb. Let's call it now. Plus vaccinations per my previous posts.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
Once again: how? They ordered vaccine and the manufacturer is slow due to production problems. What do you propose that they do about it?
Illegally nationalize the UK facility and attempt to run it themselves? That a) is unlikely to make it happen faster, and b) would have shall we say unfortunate consequences for the future of the pharma sector in the UK.
Build their own facility? You know it's actually quite complicated and difficult, and can't be done at short notice?
--AS
It’s the government’s job to overcome these problems and anticipate them. Why are we learning this now, when just a few short weeks ago we were reading about stockpiling millions of doses in readiness for MHRA approval?
Why?
I don't think that keeping you in the loop is their main priority.
I cannot understand your desire to blame the government for slow delivery by the manufacturer. It's irrational. I'm sure they were in close contact and offered what help they could, but unforeseen problems occur in manufacturing: it's a delicate business and no amount of huffing and puffing will make it happen faster.
--AS
I'm really not sure how you can absolve the government here. They should have been in constant communication with manufacturers as approvals came online - and adjusted their communication plans to suit.
Whst we have is a population that won't be vaccinated quickly enough and mis-communication in light of the second dose being cancelled.
That's not even scratching the surface of the now non existent test and trace, or the NHS app, or the tier system, or the fiasco with schools.
How many missteps can the government make? More worryingly, it doesn't seem to learn from any of its mistakes
Oh, look, I'm not going to defend the government's communication at all. It's been lamentable from the start and they do not, as you say, learn from their mistakes. (I'm quite sure they have been in constant contact with the manufacturer -- indeed, the regulators must have been -- but they have not kept the public up to date.)
But we should not confuse the communication with the fact of supply. I cannot blame the government for a supplier being late on delivery. Especially not when the manufacturing process is so specialized and there are so many things that can go wrong. If you want to get mad as someone, turn your ire on AstraZeneca!
--AS
Are they late? When you say you have ordered 100m of something that doesn't imply you expect to get all 100m at once.
But The Times is reporting that a key member of The University of Oxford vaccine team has questioned whether it would work against the South African variant.
Close.
The.
Fucking.
Borders.
The bigger picture - if this is true - isnt so much this particular mutation from South Africa, but the hugely greater likelihood that Corona becomes like flu and requires new vaccination to be developed as it mutates into new forms. What happens once can and will happen again.
But until we can get a vaccine for this mutant form, we have to close it down from getting a foothold. The UK is screwed all this year if we have two forms running riot and causing hospital admissions at the same time.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
On topic. If we aren't targeting the Red Wall seats that we lost last time and others like them that we have lost since 2005 then we are not the Labour Party.
But The Times is reporting that a key member of The University of Oxford vaccine team has questioned whether it would work against the South African variant.
The only positive from my chat with an expert on this is that the UK variant is currently outcompeting all others for hosts, even the South African one so it might never take off here.
Is it too late to impeach Trump? This is high crimes and misdemeanours without a doubt. Forcing Republican senators to take a position on this just might free the Republicans from his baleful influence.
No - you could impeach him after leaving office, for example, and prevent his ever holding office again. But as we’ve seen, the likelihood of more than a handful of Republican Senators voting to impeach is exceedingly slim.
I speak as a working class Conservative who is naturally anti lockdown but I am now calling Keir as correct!
We need an immediate national lockdown including all schools and universities closed until 28 Feb. Let's call it now. Plus vaccinations per my previous posts.
I speak as a working class Conservative who is naturally anti lockdown but I am now calling Keir as correct!
We need an immediate national lockdown including all schools and universities closed until 28 Feb. Let's call it now. Plus vaccinations per my previous posts.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
I of course fully agree with maximising vaccination efforts (assuming doses are available), but setting fixed dates for opening up is exactly what got us into the second wave in the first place. The opening up needs to be gradual. Whenever R drops a good way below 1, go down a tier, and then wait three weeks to see how things go and make the next decision.
And right now it's all about getting the epidemic back under control in the first place. Otherwise the vaccines will be too late.
There needs to be a clear timetable to get the 15m in priority groups inoculated. R won’t be as key a metric if the most vulnerable are immune. (Although it should naturally fall too)
R will still be critical. Do not forget that the vaccines only provide partial protection: around 70% according to the AZ trial, and similar is guesstimated for a single Pfizer shot.
So if you let it rip after 15M vaccinated, the health system would still get overloaded. Indeed there'd probably still be far too many serious cases just among the "non-vulnerable".
The vaccines will gradually bring R down (assuming they reduce virus spread as well as disease), and that should be the driver for gradual reopening.
The vast majority of deaths and hospitalisations currently are in the priority groups, so we should be able to reduce restrictions significantly (not completely) once we have worked through the first 15m.
Do not underestimate the power of exponential spread. A 70% reduction in hospitalisations per case is only worth a week and a half at R=2.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
At last count on Thursday the UK had done a million vaccinations, France had done a thousand, and we are the fuck up?
Getting more vaccines out ASAP would be a good thing, and it's good that AZN comes online next week, but besides the Israelis who are absolutely flying through it there doesn't seem to be anywhere else significant doing considerably better.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
Once again: how? They ordered vaccine and the manufacturer is slow due to production problems. What do you propose that they do about it?
Illegally nationalize the UK facility and attempt to run it themselves? That a) is unlikely to make it happen faster, and b) would have shall we say unfortunate consequences for the future of the pharma sector in the UK.
Build their own facility? You know it's actually quite complicated and difficult, and can't be done at short notice?
--AS
It’s the government’s job to overcome these problems and anticipate them. Why are we learning this now, when just a few short weeks ago we were reading about stockpiling millions of doses in readiness for MHRA approval?
Why?
I don't think that keeping you in the loop is their main priority.
I cannot understand your desire to blame the government for slow delivery by the manufacturer. It's irrational. I'm sure they were in close contact and offered what help they could, but unforeseen problems occur in manufacturing: it's a delicate business and no amount of huffing and puffing will make it happen faster.
--AS
I'm really not sure how you can absolve the government here. They should have been in constant communication with manufacturers as approvals came online - and adjusted their communication plans to suit.
Whst we have is a population that won't be vaccinated quickly enough and mis-communication in light of the second dose being cancelled.
That's not even scratching the surface of the now non existent test and trace, or the NHS app, or the tier system, or the fiasco with schools.
How many missteps can the government make? More worryingly, it doesn't seem to learn from any of its mistakes
Oh, look, I'm not going to defend the government's communication at all. It's been lamentable from the start and they do not, as you say, learn from their mistakes. (I'm quite sure they have been in constant contact with the manufacturer -- indeed, the regulators must have been -- but they have not kept the public up to date.)
But we should not confuse the communication with the fact of supply. I cannot blame the government for a supplier being late on delivery. Especially not when the manufacturing process is so specialized and there are so many things that can go wrong. If you want to get mad as someone, turn your ire on AstraZeneca!
--AS
Are they late? When you say you have ordered 100m of something that doesn't imply you expect to get all 100m at once.
Doesn't your question illustrate @AlwaysSinging's point about HMG's lamentable communication. We don't know because HMG aren't keeping the public informed.
I speak as a working class Conservative who is naturally anti lockdown but I am now calling Keir as correct!
We need an immediate national lockdown including all schools and universities closed until 28 Feb. Let's call it now. Plus vaccinations per my previous posts.
I speak as a working class Conservative who is naturally anti lockdown but I am now calling Keir as correct!
We need an immediate national lockdown including all schools and universities closed until 28 Feb. Let's call it now. Plus vaccinations per my previous posts.
But The Times is reporting that a key member of The University of Oxford vaccine team has questioned whether it would work against the South African variant.
Close.
The.
Fucking.
Borders.
The bigger picture - if this is true - isnt so much this particular mutation from South Africa, but the hugely greater likelihood that Corona becomes like flu and requires new vaccination to be developed as it mutates into new forms. What happens once can and will happen again.
But until we can get a vaccine for this mutant form, we have to close it down from getting a foothold. The UK is screwed all this year if we have two forms running riot and causing hospital admissions at the same time.
First, it’s already here, and second, the vaccines probably work against it.
For now we are just talking theoretical possibilities. If you wanted to do something effective, closing schools for the whole of January would do far more,
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
At last count on Thursday the UK had done a million vaccinations, France had done a thousand, and we are the fuck up?
Getting more vaccines out ASAP would be a good thing, and it's good that AZN comes online next week, but besides the Israelis who are absolutely flying through it there doesn't seem to be anywhere else significant doing considerably better.
There must be a really interesting story in the world of French covid vaccinations, I'm desperate to know what it is.
There's only one person qualified to jab and they are going 1 street per day? What is it?
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
Once again: how? They ordered vaccine and the manufacturer is slow due to production problems. What do you propose that they do about it?
Illegally nationalize the UK facility and attempt to run it themselves? That a) is unlikely to make it happen faster, and b) would have shall we say unfortunate consequences for the future of the pharma sector in the UK.
Build their own facility? You know it's actually quite complicated and difficult, and can't be done at short notice?
--AS
It’s the government’s job to overcome these problems and anticipate them. Why are we learning this now, when just a few short weeks ago we were reading about stockpiling millions of doses in readiness for MHRA approval?
Why?
I don't think that keeping you in the loop is their main priority.
I cannot understand your desire to blame the government for slow delivery by the manufacturer. It's irrational. I'm sure they were in close contact and offered what help they could, but unforeseen problems occur in manufacturing: it's a delicate business and no amount of huffing and puffing will make it happen faster.
--AS
I'm really not sure how you can absolve the government here. They should have been in constant communication with manufacturers as approvals came online - and adjusted their communication plans to suit.
Whst we have is a population that won't be vaccinated quickly enough and mis-communication in light of the second dose being cancelled.
That's not even scratching the surface of the now non existent test and trace, or the NHS app, or the tier system, or the fiasco with schools.
How many missteps can the government make? More worryingly, it doesn't seem to learn from any of its mistakes
Oh, look, I'm not going to defend the government's communication at all. It's been lamentable from the start and they do not, as you say, learn from their mistakes. (I'm quite sure they have been in constant contact with the manufacturer -- indeed, the regulators must have been -- but they have not kept the public up to date.)
But we should not confuse the communication with the fact of supply. I cannot blame the government for a supplier being late on delivery. Especially not when the manufacturing process is so specialized and there are so many things that can go wrong. If you want to get mad as someone, turn your ire on AstraZeneca!
--AS
Are they late? When you say you have ordered 100m of something that doesn't imply you expect to get all 100m at once.
I think they are late, yes, but I don't have the sources to hand. There was a definite delay in ramp-up of production. They expected to have something like 30m by the end of last year, although I think not certified and finished. Last I saw the unfinished number is about 20m now, most of that still waiting on sterility testing (let it sit for 2-3 weeks and see if it grows mould, like my last attempt at elderflower wine did).
Certain posters' hysterics to the contrary, AZN aren't massively far behind. Pfizer I think are a little further: they expected 10m by the end of last year and missed by an order of magnitude.
I'm concerned that "officials" are trying to manage expectation for vaccination rates. It would indeed be a government failure if, once they ramp up, they aren't keeping up with supply. We'll have to see how they go with that.
But The Times is reporting that a key member of The University of Oxford vaccine team has questioned whether it would work against the South African variant.
Close.
The.
Fucking.
Borders.
The bigger picture - if this is true - isnt so much this particular mutation from South Africa, but the hugely greater likelihood that Corona becomes like flu and requires new vaccination to be developed as it mutates into new forms. What happens once can and will happen again.
Of course it will, especially as we seem to be hell-bent on maximizing its mutation opportunities.
My favourite optimistic hypothesis is that the mutations will tend to reduce the seriousness of the disease and covid will end up as another one of the common cold viruses.
I don't think that the well recognised tendency of viruses to become less severe over time is to do with the virus, but rather due to human immune systems adapting. It is our natural selection, not theirs.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
Which again tends to argue for a temporary schools closure.
But The Times is reporting that a key member of The University of Oxford vaccine team has questioned whether it would work against the South African variant.
The only positive from my chat with an expert on this is that the UK variant is currently outcompeting all others for hosts, even the South African one so it might never take off here.
For them to compete, it would necessarily be the case that infection with one gave immunity to the other (otherwise they would simply co-infect). Then we could be hopeful that the vaccines also have substantial cross-immunity.
Certain posters' hysterics to the contrary, AZN aren't massively far behind. Pfizer I think are a little further: they expected 10m by the end of last year and missed by an order of magnitude.
--AS
It seems too many posters have got used to AmazonPrime.
I clicked on 100 m COVID vaccines, where are my parcels?
But The Times is reporting that a key member of The University of Oxford vaccine team has questioned whether it would work against the South African variant.
The only positive from my chat with an expert on this is that the UK variant is currently outcompeting all others for hosts, even the South African one so it might never take off here.
For them to compete, it would necessarily be the case that infection with one gave immunity to the other (otherwise they would simply co-infect). Then we could be hopeful that the vaccines also have substantial cross-immunity.
--AS
Indeed, though they didn't come out and say it directly, it's what I inferred.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
Which again tends to argue for a temporary schools closure.
All well and good but if you tie schools reopening to a successful vaccination programme and/or numbers simply dropping off due to weather they might well be shut until the summer
But The Times is reporting that a key member of The University of Oxford vaccine team has questioned whether it would work against the South African variant.
Close.
The.
Fucking.
Borders.
The bigger picture - if this is true - isnt so much this particular mutation from South Africa, but the hugely greater likelihood that Corona becomes like flu and requires new vaccination to be developed as it mutates into new forms. What happens once can and will happen again.
Of course it will, especially as we seem to be hell-bent on maximizing its mutation opportunities.
My favourite optimistic hypothesis is that the mutations will tend to reduce the seriousness of the disease and covid will end up as another one of the common cold viruses.
I don't think that the well recognised tendency of viruses to become less severe over time is to do with the virus, but rather due to human immune systems adapting. It is our natural selection, not theirs.
Agreed. But as you’ve pointed out before, that doesn’t work for all viruses anyway.
I speak as a working class Conservative who is naturally anti lockdown but I am now calling Keir as correct!
We need an immediate national lockdown including all schools and universities closed until 28 Feb. Let's call it now. Plus vaccinations per my previous posts.
I speak as a working class Conservative who is naturally anti lockdown but I am now calling Keir as correct!
We need an immediate national lockdown including all schools and universities closed until 28 Feb. Let's call it now. Plus vaccinations per my previous posts.
Or it's 3000 deaths a day Jan/Feb.
I agree with you.
(There's a first!)
And so good you quoted me twice! 👍
Lol! It's something to do with PB.com not keeping up with my superfast brain.
(Or that's how I understood it when I queried these double blockquotes on the previous thread.)
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
I of course fully agree with maximising vaccination efforts (assuming doses are available), but setting fixed dates for opening up is exactly what got us into the second wave in the first place. The opening up needs to be gradual. Whenever R drops a good way below 1, go down a tier, and then wait three weeks to see how things go and make the next decision.
And right now it's all about getting the epidemic back under control in the first place. Otherwise the vaccines will be too late.
There needs to be a clear timetable to get the 15m in priority groups inoculated. R won’t be as key a metric if the most vulnerable are immune. (Although it should naturally fall too)
R will still be critical. Do not forget that the vaccines only provide partial protection: around 70% according to the AZ trial, and similar is guesstimated for a single Pfizer shot.
So if you let it rip after 15M vaccinated, the health system would still get overloaded. Indeed there'd probably still be far too many serious cases just among the "non-vulnerable".
The vaccines will gradually bring R down (assuming they reduce virus spread as well as disease), and that should be the driver for gradual reopening.
The vast majority of deaths and hospitalisations currently are in the priority groups, so we should be able to reduce restrictions significantly (not completely) once we have worked through the first 15m.
Do not underestimate the power of exponential spread. A 70% reduction in hospitalisations per case is only worth a week and a half at R=2.
90% of deaths are in the 65+ age group. There are 12 million people in that category in the UK, so we ought to be able to get them vaccinated within about 10 weeks. That should reduce the death toll by around 90%.
Certain posters' hysterics to the contrary, AZN aren't massively far behind. Pfizer I think are a little further: they expected 10m by the end of last year and missed by an order of magnitude.
--AS
It seems too many posters have got used to AmazonPrime.
I clicked on 100 m COVID vaccines, where are my parcels?
They are probably left randomly behind the bins without anyone actually knocking on the door, if my experience is anything to go by
(If it had been Royal Mail, they would have been lobbed over the back gate despite the package saying "delicate".)
But The Times is reporting that a key member of The University of Oxford vaccine team has questioned whether it would work against the South African variant.
Close.
The.
Fucking.
Borders.
The bigger picture - if this is true - isnt so much this particular mutation from South Africa, but the hugely greater likelihood that Corona becomes like flu and requires new vaccination to be developed as it mutates into new forms. What happens once can and will happen again.
Of course it will, especially as we seem to be hell-bent on maximizing its mutation opportunities.
My favourite optimistic hypothesis is that the mutations will tend to reduce the seriousness of the disease and covid will end up as another one of the common cold viruses.
I don't think that the well recognised tendency of viruses to become less severe over time is to do with the virus, but rather due to human immune systems adapting. It is our natural selection, not theirs.
Agreed. But as you’ve pointed out before, that doesn’t work for all viruses anyway.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
I of course fully agree with maximising vaccination efforts (assuming doses are available), but setting fixed dates for opening up is exactly what got us into the second wave in the first place. The opening up needs to be gradual. Whenever R drops a good way below 1, go down a tier, and then wait three weeks to see how things go and make the next decision.
And right now it's all about getting the epidemic back under control in the first place. Otherwise the vaccines will be too late.
There needs to be a clear timetable to get the 15m in priority groups inoculated. R won’t be as key a metric if the most vulnerable are immune. (Although it should naturally fall too)
R will still be critical. Do not forget that the vaccines only provide partial protection: around 70% according to the AZ trial, and similar is guesstimated for a single Pfizer shot.
So if you let it rip after 15M vaccinated, the health system would still get overloaded. Indeed there'd probably still be far too many serious cases just among the "non-vulnerable".
The vaccines will gradually bring R down (assuming they reduce virus spread as well as disease), and that should be the driver for gradual reopening.
The vast majority of deaths and hospitalisations currently are in the priority groups, so we should be able to reduce restrictions significantly (not completely) once we have worked through the first 15m.
Do not underestimate the power of exponential spread. A 70% reduction in hospitalisations per case is only worth a week and a half at R=2.
90% of deaths are in the 65+ age group. There are 12 million people in that category in the UK, so we ought to be able to get them vaccinated within about 10 weeks. That should reduce the death toll by around 90%.
Precisely.
So long as hospitalisation rates don't exponentially explode which will result in under-65s who can currently survive with prompt treatment no longer doing so.
Certain posters' hysterics to the contrary, AZN aren't massively far behind. Pfizer I think are a little further: they expected 10m by the end of last year and missed by an order of magnitude.
--AS
It seems too many posters have got used to AmazonPrime.
I clicked on 100 m COVID vaccines, where are my parcels?
They are probably left randomly behind the bins without anyone actually knocking on the door, if my experience is anything to go by
(If it had been Royal Mail, they would have been lobbed over the back gate despite the package saying "delicate".)
--AS
If it had been Hermes they would be left inside the bin. Which is full and out for collection.
Certain posters' hysterics to the contrary, AZN aren't massively far behind. Pfizer I think are a little further: they expected 10m by the end of last year and missed by an order of magnitude.
--AS
It seems too many posters have got used to AmazonPrime.
I clicked on 100 m COVID vaccines, where are my parcels?
Did you get a note through the door that they have been left with your neighbour Mrs Merkel?
Certain posters' hysterics to the contrary, AZN aren't massively far behind. Pfizer I think are a little further: they expected 10m by the end of last year and missed by an order of magnitude.
--AS
It seems too many posters have got used to AmazonPrime.
I clicked on 100 m COVID vaccines, where are my parcels?
As long as it's not like supermarket delivery substitutions.
You ordered 100m covid vaccines, we didn't have them in stock, we substituted with 50m MMR jabs, thank us later.
Certain posters' hysterics to the contrary, AZN aren't massively far behind. Pfizer I think are a little further: they expected 10m by the end of last year and missed by an order of magnitude.
--AS
It seems too many posters have got used to AmazonPrime.
I clicked on 100 m COVID vaccines, where are my parcels?
Maybe HMG ordered them on eBay... from Shanghai Trading Co - based in London (honestly) - and they are now in a container somewhere on the Indian Ocean.
But, tonight, the Trump tape is the story. Just staggering, but the most staggering thing of all is that we're not really surprised. Whatever happened to the United States to get to this?
When the history is written, it’ll begin with Gingrich.
It begins with Nixon.
I think that was a previous political age. The present polarisation dates to the post-Cold War Clinton era.
The GOP were (and still are) furious that Nixon was forced out.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Certain posters' hysterics to the contrary, AZN aren't massively far behind. Pfizer I think are a little further: they expected 10m by the end of last year and missed by an order of magnitude.
--AS
It seems too many posters have got used to AmazonPrime.
I clicked on 100 m COVID vaccines, where are my parcels?
Did you get a note through the door that they have been left with your neighbour Mrs Merkel?
Better than Mr Macron, at least Mrs Merkel might use them!
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
At last count on Thursday the UK had done a million vaccinations, France had done a thousand, and we are the fuck up?
Getting more vaccines out ASAP would be a good thing, and it's good that AZN comes online next week, but besides the Israelis who are absolutely flying through it there doesn't seem to be anywhere else significant doing considerably better.
There must be a really interesting story in the world of French covid vaccinations, I'm desperate to know what it is.
There's only one person qualified to jab and they are going 1 street per day? What is it?
O/T watching CPAN, House coverage is bizarre. They've spent all day carefully social distancing, limiting numbers in the room by voting in batches. And now the whole room is packed with no attempts at social distancing at all!
Labour could only revert to the map of 2005 if it regained its Scottish seats from then currently held by the SNP, there are also a few seats that were Tory in 2005 Labour now hold eg Canterbury, Enfield Southgate and Putney. If it did not regain its Scottish seats it could repeat Cameron's trick in 2010 and be largest party in a hung parliament but it would need SNP support as he relied on LD support.
Given the increasing shift of the white working class to the Tories and graduates to Labour Alistair makes a good point that seats like Beckenham and Wycombe the Tories won even in 1997 are easier targets than the likes of West Bromwich West that Blair won.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
Which again tends to argue for a temporary schools closure.
All well and good but if you tie schools reopening to a successful vaccination programme and/or numbers simply dropping off due to weather they might well be shut until the summer
It’s pretty clear that January is likely to be the toughest, though. There’s the spike thanks to a combination of holiday mixing, and the new variant - and at the same time vaccinations won’t really ramp up until the end of the month.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
I of course fully agree with maximising vaccination efforts (assuming doses are available), but setting fixed dates for opening up is exactly what got us into the second wave in the first place. The opening up needs to be gradual. Whenever R drops a good way below 1, go down a tier, and then wait three weeks to see how things go and make the next decision.
And right now it's all about getting the epidemic back under control in the first place. Otherwise the vaccines will be too late.
There needs to be a clear timetable to get the 15m in priority groups inoculated. R won’t be as key a metric if the most vulnerable are immune. (Although it should naturally fall too)
R will still be critical. Do not forget that the vaccines only provide partial protection: around 70% according to the AZ trial, and similar is guesstimated for a single Pfizer shot.
So if you let it rip after 15M vaccinated, the health system would still get overloaded. Indeed there'd probably still be far too many serious cases just among the "non-vulnerable".
The vaccines will gradually bring R down (assuming they reduce virus spread as well as disease), and that should be the driver for gradual reopening.
The vast majority of deaths and hospitalisations currently are in the priority groups, so we should be able to reduce restrictions significantly (not completely) once we have worked through the first 15m.
Do not underestimate the power of exponential spread. A 70% reduction in hospitalisations per case is only worth a week and a half at R=2.
90% of deaths are in the 65+ age group. There are 12 million people in that category in the UK, so we ought to be able to get them vaccinated within about 10 weeks. That should reduce the death toll by around 90%.
Only if we hold the case levels constant, with continued restrictions until the vaccines reduce R enough to gradually open enough.
And again,.the vaccines don't give 100% protection.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
At last count on Thursday the UK had done a million vaccinations, France had done a thousand, and we are the fuck up?
Getting more vaccines out ASAP would be a good thing, and it's good that AZN comes online next week, but besides the Israelis who are absolutely flying through it there doesn't seem to be anywhere else significant doing considerably better.
There must be a really interesting story in the world of French covid vaccinations, I'm desperate to know what it is.
There's only one person qualified to jab and they are going 1 street per day? What is it?
France has an absolutely massive anti-vax movement.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
Once again: how? They ordered vaccine and the manufacturer is slow due to production problems. What do you propose that they do about it?
Illegally nationalize the UK facility and attempt to run it themselves? That a) is unlikely to make it happen faster, and b) would have shall we say unfortunate consequences for the future of the pharma sector in the UK.
Build their own facility? You know it's actually quite complicated and difficult, and can't be done at short notice?
--AS
Whipping worked for the Pharaohs.
Figures a Conservative would think the old ways are best.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
Once again: how? They ordered vaccine and the manufacturer is slow due to production problems. What do you propose that they do about it?
Illegally nationalize the UK facility and attempt to run it themselves? That a) is unlikely to make it happen faster, and b) would have shall we say unfortunate consequences for the future of the pharma sector in the UK.
Build their own facility? You know it's actually quite complicated and difficult, and can't be done at short notice?
--AS
It’s the government’s job to overcome these problems and anticipate them. Why are we learning this now, when just a few short weeks ago we were reading about stockpiling millions of doses in readiness for MHRA approval?
Why?
I don't think that keeping you in the loop is their main priority.
I cannot understand your desire to blame the government for slow delivery by the manufacturer. It's irrational. I'm sure they were in close contact and offered what help they could, but unforeseen problems occur in manufacturing: it's a delicate business and no amount of huffing and puffing will make it happen faster.
--AS
I'm really not sure how you can absolve the government here. They should have been in constant communication with manufacturers as approvals came online - and adjusted their communication plans to suit.
Whst we have is a population that won't be vaccinated quickly enough and mis-communication in light of the second dose being cancelled.
That's not even scratching the surface of the now non existent test and trace, or the NHS app, or the tier system, or the fiasco with schools.
How many missteps can the government make? More worryingly, it doesn't seem to learn from any of its mistakes
Oh, look, I'm not going to defend the government's communication at all. It's been lamentable from the start and they do not, as you say, learn from their mistakes. (I'm quite sure they have been in constant contact with the manufacturer -- indeed, the regulators must have been -- but they have not kept the public up to date.)
But we should not confuse the communication with the fact of supply. I cannot blame the government for a supplier being late on delivery. Especially not when the manufacturing process is so specialized and there are so many things that can go wrong. If you want to get mad as someone, turn your ire on AstraZeneca!
--AS
Yes, this has been a potential issue all along with Covid, as there is a line to tread between blaming the government for the things it has gotten wrong in response, or in communication, and appearing to blame them for things that are beyond their control. There not been enough of the supply is clearly not their fault. If there would be unable to speed up delivery of it into people's arms even once it is available, or other logistical issues, that is another matter.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
At last count on Thursday the UK had done a million vaccinations, France had done a thousand, and we are the fuck up?
Getting more vaccines out ASAP would be a good thing, and it's good that AZN comes online next week, but besides the Israelis who are absolutely flying through it there doesn't seem to be anywhere else significant doing considerably better.
There must be a really interesting story in the world of French covid vaccinations, I'm desperate to know what it is.
There's only one person qualified to jab and they are going 1 street per day? What is it?
France has an absolutely massive anti-vax movement.
Unarguable, but...still. It's two people going one street per day and being turned down by half the folk? If they've got the supply then they could change their prioritisation to just jab folk who want it.
I presume it's mainly just that they've not even bothered to try through most of the holiday period.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
Hopefully you are right. We knew, on Covid generally, that it would get worse before it gets better, and hopefully that is what this is. It's early days for everyone on vaccination, and Israel appear the only standouts.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
Hopefully you are right. We knew, on Covid generally, that it would get worse before it gets better, and hopefully that is what this is. It's early days for everyone on vaccination, and Israel appear the only standouts.
Israel are in a league of their own, then Bahrain but the UK surely is a stand out too.
I assume the Georgia runoffs will be close, one of them at the very least, so can we expect several months more legal wrangling over those results or are we blessedly fortunate and the processes/legalities can be wrapped up a bit sooner?
But, tonight, the Trump tape is the story. Just staggering, but the most staggering thing of all is that we're not really surprised. Whatever happened to the United States to get to this?
When the history is written, it’ll begin with Gingrich.
It begins with Nixon.
I think that was a previous political age. The present polarisation dates to the post-Cold War Clinton era.
The GOP were (and still are) furious that Nixon was forced out.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Which leads us to now.
Sorry, but most polite way to characterize your view of history here is "revisionist".
Notion that Ronald Reagan was "a Nixon loyalist" is incorrect, to put it mildly.
And whuke SOME in the Republican Party back in 1974 were furious re: Nixon resigning. But please note that it was the REPUBLICANS who forced him to resign, was when his support among Congressional Republicans collapsed after the release of the "smoking gun" tape.
OF course that was before criminal scum like Ailes and Trump took over the GOP, in much the same way that Al Capone cornered bootlegging in Chicago.
Motive for many of today's Republicans like to rail about Nixon being "forced out" and the like, is similar to that of Germans propagating the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".
Some of the same folks will tell you that Herbert Hoover was also "forced out"! Which has a LOT more truth to it!
I think the only person surprised by such a response is Trump himself. The others are probably just playing a game.
It’s still potentially dangerous, as it’s as much a strategy on Trump’s side to discredit the legal system. Some of his base will follow him in any idiocy, but I just hope he starts to lose a significant part of his support now.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
Hopefully you are right. We knew, on Covid generally, that it would get worse before it gets better, and hopefully that is what this is. It's early days for everyone on vaccination, and Israel appear the only standouts.
Israel are in a league of their own, then Bahrain but the UK surely is a stand out too.
But, tonight, the Trump tape is the story. Just staggering, but the most staggering thing of all is that we're not really surprised. Whatever happened to the United States to get to this?
When the history is written, it’ll begin with Gingrich.
It begins with Nixon.
I think that was a previous political age. The present polarisation dates to the post-Cold War Clinton era.
The GOP were (and still are) furious that Nixon was forced out.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Which leads us to now.
Sorry, but most polite way to characterize your view of history here is "revisionist".
Notion that Ronald Reagan was "a Nixon loyalist" is incorrect, to put it mildly.
And whuke SOME in the Republican Party back in 1974 were furious re: Nixon resigning. But please note that it was the REPUBLICANS who forced him to resign, was when his support among Congressional Republicans collapsed after the release of the "smoking gun" tape.
OF course that was before criminal scum like Ailes and Trump took over the GOP, in much the same way that Al Capone cornered bootlegging in Chicago.
Motive for many of today's Republicans like to rail about Nixon being "forced out" and the like, is similar to that of Germans propagating the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".
Some of the same folks will tell you that Herbert Hoover was also "forced out"! Which has a LOT more truth to it!
Reagan was of course Nixon's main rival for the 1968 GOP nomination and also challenged Nixon's VP and successor as President Gerald Ford for the 1976 nomination.
It is fair to say Reagan was significantly to the right of Nixon, certainly as far as domestic policy was concerned, while Nixon emerged under the wing of Eisenhower, Reagan was very much a pupil of Goldwater
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
I think there are 20 million AZN doses almost ready to go, and that sound like they could all be ready in three-four weeks. I'm more worried about the logistics side of things. Take this quote from a rather unambitious official, for example
But a health source warned The Telegraph that people should not expect huge numbers overnight, saying: "We have never said we will do two million jabs a week. We have to manage expectations. You cannot vaccinate two million people a week from nothing. People will be underwhelmed by the figures if expectation is set too high."
Quite why it can't start from 2m is beyond me.
Will probably look an awful lot like the testing pledge.
We've effectively had the date set as the end of March. Slow initial ramp up, and two weeks out from that it will probably look nigh on impossible to meet, but some very large effort in the final fortnight coupled with some reasonably creative accounting (something like X million folk haven't had the vaccine by 31 March but have had an SMS message or letter through the post that says you can get it Y days from now) will be sufficient to broadly meet the pledge, if you squint a lot and don't think about it too much.
Or something.
It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence from here. Someone gets to get a grip and show how it can be done, and do it.
And yet... the UK is now doing testing pretty well.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
Hopefully you are right. We knew, on Covid generally, that it would get worse before it gets better, and hopefully that is what this is. It's early days for everyone on vaccination, and Israel appear the only standouts.
Israel are in a league of their own, then Bahrain but the UK surely is a stand out too.
I think the only person surprised by such a response is Trump himself. The others are probably just playing a game.
It’s still potentially dangerous, as it’s as much a strategy on Trump’s side to discredit the legal system. Some of his base will follow him in any idiocy, but I just hope he starts to lose a significant part of his support now.
Dispiriting about the number of Senators still planning to play silly buggers, but that surely represents the last gasp for the elected officials feeding his fantasies I would hope. I cannot see why they feel they need to still be demonstrating their loyalty to the point of jettisoning their integrity, but once this week's activities are done, sure a bit of mouthing off, but what would be the point of anything major? It's like expecting Mitch or the Justices to aid him out of loyalty, when even if they wanted to there's nothing in it for them now.
But, tonight, the Trump tape is the story. Just staggering, but the most staggering thing of all is that we're not really surprised. Whatever happened to the United States to get to this?
When the history is written, it’ll begin with Gingrich.
It begins with Nixon.
I think that was a previous political age. The present polarisation dates to the post-Cold War Clinton era.
The GOP were (and still are) furious that Nixon was forced out.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Which leads us to now.
Sorry, but most polite way to characterize your view of history here is "revisionist".
Notion that Ronald Reagan was "a Nixon loyalist" is incorrect, to put it mildly.
And whuke SOME in the Republican Party back in 1974 were furious re: Nixon resigning. But please note that it was the REPUBLICANS who forced him to resign, was when his support among Congressional Republicans collapsed after the release of the "smoking gun" tape.
OF course that was before criminal scum like Ailes and Trump took over the GOP, in much the same way that Al Capone cornered bootlegging in Chicago.
Motive for many of today's Republicans like to rail about Nixon being "forced out" and the like, is similar to that of Germans propagating the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".
Some of the same folks will tell you that Herbert Hoover was also "forced out"! Which has a LOT more truth to it!
It’s quite true to say that Reagan defended Nixon throughout Watergate, even when others gave him up as a crook.
I can't believe his legal term let him attend these things himself and do so much of the talking. I guess they cannot stop him. But just from the snippets heard it is so much worse than any transcript. You can hear the bafflement, anger and petulance in his voice, when he breaks in to mutter 'Oh, but it's ok to have fraudulent elections?' sarcastically (or words to that effect) when he is calmly told the data doesn't show what he says and he cannot have them overturn it tomorrow just because.
Certain posters' hysterics to the contrary, AZN aren't massively far behind. Pfizer I think are a little further: they expected 10m by the end of last year and missed by an order of magnitude.
--AS
It seems too many posters have got used to AmazonPrime.
I clicked on 100 m COVID vaccines, where are my parcels?
They are probably left randomly behind the bins without anyone actually knocking on the door, if my experience is anything to go by
(If it had been Royal Mail, they would have been lobbed over the back gate despite the package saying "delicate".)
--AS
If it had been Hermes they would be left inside the bin. Which is full and out for collection.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Hermes are the worst delivery company in all existence for all time.
But, tonight, the Trump tape is the story. Just staggering, but the most staggering thing of all is that we're not really surprised. Whatever happened to the United States to get to this?
When the history is written, it’ll begin with Gingrich.
It begins with Nixon.
I think that was a previous political age. The present polarisation dates to the post-Cold War Clinton era.
The GOP were (and still are) furious that Nixon was forced out.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Which leads us to now.
Sorry, but most polite way to characterize your view of history here is "revisionist".
Notion that Ronald Reagan was "a Nixon loyalist" is incorrect, to put it mildly.
And whuke SOME in the Republican Party back in 1974 were furious re: Nixon resigning. But please note that it was the REPUBLICANS who forced him to resign, was when his support among Congressional Republicans collapsed after the release of the "smoking gun" tape.
OF course that was before criminal scum like Ailes and Trump took over the GOP, in much the same way that Al Capone cornered bootlegging in Chicago.
Motive for many of today's Republicans like to rail about Nixon being "forced out" and the like, is similar to that of Germans propagating the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".
Some of the same folks will tell you that Herbert Hoover was also "forced out"! Which has a LOT more truth to it!
Ah yes, he must have put forward Bork by mistake then. Maybe he was unfamiliar with his earlier work?
The more i think about the US election, the more i think the original plan hadn't been to cry "fraud" over mail in ballots (that was the back up). The original plan had been to discourage all Republicans from using mail in (when they had previously quite liked in), on the basis of them being insecure, but then get the post office to cripple the delivery. That is one reason why they made such a big fuss early on in Pennsylvania about the deadlines for receipt of ballots.
And what they hadn't anticipated was the widespread use of drop boxes, which cut out the post office completely (and of course the back up that they had forgotten that crippling the post office meant many other crucial things eg. drug deliveries got caught up and forced a backlash.
Also the fact that the did NOT succeed in "crippling" the post office.
For example, note that in WA State and number of other states, nearly all of the ballots cast in this election, where first sent to voters via USPS.
Thus the Trumpsky-Putinist-GOP plot was foiled by the Deep Quasi-State. By postal workers and administrators inspired by Ben Franklin.
When Reagan called Nixon deep into watergate to say that he was still behind him at that Watergate would blow over it must have been a slip of the tongue or maybe a wrong number.
But, tonight, the Trump tape is the story. Just staggering, but the most staggering thing of all is that we're not really surprised. Whatever happened to the United States to get to this?
When the history is written, it’ll begin with Gingrich.
It begins with Nixon.
I think that was a previous political age. The present polarisation dates to the post-Cold War Clinton era.
The GOP were (and still are) furious that Nixon was forced out.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Which leads us to now.
Sorry, but most polite way to characterize your view of history here is "revisionist".
Notion that Ronald Reagan was "a Nixon loyalist" is incorrect, to put it mildly.
And whuke SOME in the Republican Party back in 1974 were furious re: Nixon resigning. But please note that it was the REPUBLICANS who forced him to resign, was when his support among Congressional Republicans collapsed after the release of the "smoking gun" tape.
OF course that was before criminal scum like Ailes and Trump took over the GOP, in much the same way that Al Capone cornered bootlegging in Chicago.
Motive for many of today's Republicans like to rail about Nixon being "forced out" and the like, is similar to that of Germans propagating the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".
Some of the same folks will tell you that Herbert Hoover was also "forced out"! Which has a LOT more truth to it!
It’s quite true to say that Reagan defended Nixon throughout Watergate, even when others gave him up as a crook.
That was political calculation. NOT same thing as political loyalty.
Nixon was NOT conservative enough - not by a long shot - for the likes of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, John Ashcroft, William F. Buckley and most of the rest of the core of late-mid 20th century American conservatism.
When Reagan called Nixon deep into watergate to say that he was still behind him at that Watergate would blow over it must have been a slip of the tongue or maybe a wrong number.
Politics, politics, politics. On more than one level.
For example, people HAVE been know to tell people in power NOT what they themselves think, but what they think the powerful one wants to hear.
But, tonight, the Trump tape is the story. Just staggering, but the most staggering thing of all is that we're not really surprised. Whatever happened to the United States to get to this?
When the history is written, it’ll begin with Gingrich.
It begins with Nixon.
I think that was a previous political age. The present polarisation dates to the post-Cold War Clinton era.
The GOP were (and still are) furious that Nixon was forced out.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Which leads us to now.
Sorry, but most polite way to characterize your view of history here is "revisionist".
Notion that Ronald Reagan was "a Nixon loyalist" is incorrect, to put it mildly.
And whuke SOME in the Republican Party back in 1974 were furious re: Nixon resigning. But please note that it was the REPUBLICANS who forced him to resign, was when his support among Congressional Republicans collapsed after the release of the "smoking gun" tape.
OF course that was before criminal scum like Ailes and Trump took over the GOP, in much the same way that Al Capone cornered bootlegging in Chicago.
Motive for many of today's Republicans like to rail about Nixon being "forced out" and the like, is similar to that of Germans propagating the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".
Some of the same folks will tell you that Herbert Hoover was also "forced out"! Which has a LOT more truth to it!
It’s quite true to say that Reagan defended Nixon throughout Watergate, even when others gave him up as a crook.
That was political calculation. NOT same thing as political loyalty.
Nixon was NOT conservative enough - not by a long shot - for the likes of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, John Ashcroft, William F. Buckley and most of the rest of the core of late-mid 20th century American conservatism.
Which is why Reagan ran against him in the primaries.
But The Times is reporting that a key member of The University of Oxford vaccine has questioned whether it would work against the South African variant.
Did they say which member? Today's comments were by John Bell who some might say has a habit of expressing strong opinions not always entirely backed up by evidence. If it's his quote I wouldn't worry too much. It's definitely one to keep an eye on, though.
--AS
I'm just going off the front page of The Times, they don't mention a name, I'd expect the name to be mentioned in detail, but tomorrow's edition usually goes live around 00.15 on The Times website.
Hmm. Even at my obscure level I've been reluctant to say much about my critical view of the Oxford trial, becuase even if it's not wonderful, it's what we've got lots of and I don't want to put anyone off. For someone close to the vaccine team to express doubts is either very important (if he's pretty sure there's a problem) or very unhelpful (if he's jsut vaguely speculating thaty there might be). The media love to hype up problems.
I think the only person surprised by such a response is Trump himself. The others are probably just playing a game.
It’s still potentially dangerous, as it’s as much a strategy on Trump’s side to discredit the legal system. Some of his base will follow him in any idiocy, but I just hope he starts to lose a significant part of his support now.
Dispiriting about the number of Senators still planning to play silly buggers, but that surely represents the last gasp for the elected officials feeding his fantasies I would hope. I cannot see why they feel they need to still be demonstrating their loyalty to the point of jettisoning their integrity, but once this week's activities are done, sure a bit of mouthing off, but what would be the point of anything major? It's like expecting Mitch or the Justices to aid him out of loyalty, when even if they wanted to there's nothing in it for them now.
Think that actions by Hawley, Cruz et al are NOT about feeding Trumpsky's fantasies, but about claiming his mantle.
Frankly, I blame the DEMOCRATS for some of this, in particular the way so many of them screamed bloody murder about Ohio 2004 - when they did NOT have FACTS to back up their wild assertions of massive electoral fraud.
Can well remember arguing with many of them shortly thereafter that their "arguments" were not just a crock of lukewarm piss, but also a HORRIBLE precedent for the future. Which is now.
But, tonight, the Trump tape is the story. Just staggering, but the most staggering thing of all is that we're not really surprised. Whatever happened to the United States to get to this?
When the history is written, it’ll begin with Gingrich.
It begins with Nixon.
I think that was a previous political age. The present polarisation dates to the post-Cold War Clinton era.
The GOP were (and still are) furious that Nixon was forced out.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Which leads us to now.
Sorry, but most polite way to characterize your view of history here is "revisionist".
Notion that Ronald Reagan was "a Nixon loyalist" is incorrect, to put it mildly.
And whuke SOME in the Republican Party back in 1974 were furious re: Nixon resigning. But please note that it was the REPUBLICANS who forced him to resign, was when his support among Congressional Republicans collapsed after the release of the "smoking gun" tape.
OF course that was before criminal scum like Ailes and Trump took over the GOP, in much the same way that Al Capone cornered bootlegging in Chicago.
Motive for many of today's Republicans like to rail about Nixon being "forced out" and the like, is similar to that of Germans propagating the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".
Some of the same folks will tell you that Herbert Hoover was also "forced out"! Which has a LOT more truth to it!
Ah yes, he must have put forward Bork by mistake then. Maybe he was unfamiliar with his earlier work?
But, tonight, the Trump tape is the story. Just staggering, but the most staggering thing of all is that we're not really surprised. Whatever happened to the United States to get to this?
When the history is written, it’ll begin with Gingrich.
It begins with Nixon.
I think that was a previous political age. The present polarisation dates to the post-Cold War Clinton era.
The GOP were (and still are) furious that Nixon was forced out.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Which leads us to now.
Sorry, but most polite way to characterize your view of history here is "revisionist".
Notion that Ronald Reagan was "a Nixon loyalist" is incorrect, to put it mildly.
And whuke SOME in the Republican Party back in 1974 were furious re: Nixon resigning. But please note that it was the REPUBLICANS who forced him to resign, was when his support among Congressional Republicans collapsed after the release of the "smoking gun" tape.
OF course that was before criminal scum like Ailes and Trump took over the GOP, in much the same way that Al Capone cornered bootlegging in Chicago.
Motive for many of today's Republicans like to rail about Nixon being "forced out" and the like, is similar to that of Germans propagating the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".
Some of the same folks will tell you that Herbert Hoover was also "forced out"! Which has a LOT more truth to it!
Ah yes, he must have put forward Bork by mistake then. Maybe he was unfamiliar with his earlier work?
Sorry, am not understanding your point re: Bork, who was a VERY conservative judge. Are you saying that he and Ronnie were ideologically incompatible or something like that?
Re: Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork for SCOTUS, from Bork's wiki entry:
"President Reagan nominated Bork for associate justice of the Supreme Court on July 1, 1987, to replace retiring Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.. A hotly contested United States Senate debate over Bork's nomination ensued. Opposition was partly fueled by civil rights and women's rights groups, concerned about Bork's opposition to the authority claimed by the federal government to impose standards of voting fairness upon states (at his confirmation hearings for the position of solicitor general, he supported the rights of Southern states to impose a poll tax), and his stated desire to roll back civil rights decisions of the Warren and Burger courts. Bork is one of only four Supreme Court nominees (along with William Rehnquist, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh) to have been opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union.[23][24] Bork was also criticized for being an "advocate of disproportionate powers for the executive branch of Government, almost executive supremacy," most notably, according to critics, for his role in the 'Saturday Night Massacre'. . . . .
To pro-choice rights legal groups, Bork's originalist views and his belief that the Constitution did not contain a general "right to privacy" were viewed as a clear signal that, should he become a justice of the Supreme Court, he would vote to reverse the Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. Accordingly, a large number of groups mobilized to press for Bork's rejection, and the resulting 1987 Senate confirmation hearings became an intensely partisan battle.
Any new measures must be coupled with a clear timeline for vaccination of the vulnerable.
Show us how we reach 15m in 7-9 weeks, by the end of the winter. Then explain how the country will be opened up in early spring.
Call for a nationwide volunteer drive to increase vaccination rates.
Even school closures all winter will be tolerated if there is a clear timetable and end goal.
Why do I fear the government will be incapable of building such a strategy?
They've had nine bloody months to build a vaccination strategy. Maybe we will see some serious action tomorrow.
It’s simply pathetic that having ordered 100m AZ doses, they start off tomorrow with just 500k, and we have only learned of this in the last few days. They need to step everything up, and fast. Get this done.
Once again: how? They ordered vaccine and the manufacturer is slow due to production problems. What do you propose that they do about it?
Illegally nationalize the UK facility and attempt to run it themselves? That a) is unlikely to make it happen faster, and b) would have shall we say unfortunate consequences for the future of the pharma sector in the UK.
Build their own facility? You know it's actually quite complicated and difficult, and can't be done at short notice?
--AS
It’s the government’s job to overcome these problems and anticipate them. Why are we learning this now, when just a few short weeks ago we were reading about stockpiling millions of doses in readiness for MHRA approval?
Why?
I don't think that keeping you in the loop is their main priority.
I cannot understand your desire to blame the government for slow delivery by the manufacturer. It's irrational. I'm sure they were in close contact and offered what help they could, but unforeseen problems occur in manufacturing: it's a delicate business and no amount of huffing and puffing will make it happen faster.
--AS
I'm really not sure how you can absolve the government here. They should have been in constant communication with manufacturers as approvals came online - and adjusted their communication plans to suit.
Whst we have is a population that won't be vaccinated quickly enough and mis-communication in light of the second dose being cancelled.
That's not even scratching the surface of the now non existent test and trace, or the NHS app, or the tier system, or the fiasco with schools.
How many missteps can the government make? More worryingly, it doesn't seem to learn from any of its mistakes
Oh, look, I'm not going to defend the government's communication at all. It's been lamentable from the start and they do not, as you say, learn from their mistakes. (I'm quite sure they have been in constant contact with the manufacturer -- indeed, the regulators must have been -- but they have not kept the public up to date.)
But we should not confuse the communication with the fact of supply. I cannot blame the government for a supplier being late on delivery. Especially not when the manufacturing process is so specialized and there are so many things that can go wrong. If you want to get mad as someone, turn your ire on AstraZeneca!
--AS
Are they late? When you say you have ordered 100m of something that doesn't imply you expect to get all 100m at once.
I think they are late, yes, but I don't have the sources to hand. There was a definite delay in ramp-up of production. They expected to have something like 30m by the end of last year, although I think not certified and finished. Last I saw the unfinished number is about 20m now, most of that still waiting on sterility testing (let it sit for 2-3 weeks and see if it grows mould, like my last attempt at elderflower wine did).
Certain posters' hysterics to the contrary, AZN aren't massively far behind. Pfizer I think are a little further: they expected 10m by the end of last year and missed by an order of magnitude.
I'm concerned that "officials" are trying to manage expectation for vaccination rates. It would indeed be a government failure if, once they ramp up, they aren't keeping up with supply. We'll have to see how they go with that.
--AS
History suggests all things take longer than you expect to get going, but when they do get going, they exceed even the most optimistic of assumptions.
Look at industrial production in the World Wars: it took ages to get going... but when it got going...
The same will be true here. Vaccine production will face hitch after hitch after hitch. But we'll keep building facilities and we'll keep solving those hitches. And in a year we'll be able to vaccinate the entire world every year,
Alastair, just took the time to read you post above, it is excellent! And think that it speaks, not just to the prospects and paths (hopefully forward) for Labour in the UK, but also for the Democrats in the US.
My own feeling is that there should be a blending of your options #2 and #3.
"Make new friends / But keep the old / One is silver / And the other gold"
Alastair, just took the time to read you post above, it is excellent! And think that it speaks, not just to the prospects and paths (hopefully forward) for Labour in the UK, but also for the Democrats in the US.
My own feeling is that there should be a blending of your options #2 and #3.
"Make new friends / But keep the old / One is silver / And the other gold"
Agreed with all that. Though whether Starmer can pull it off is another matter.
What do you make of the letter from the former US Defence Secretaries ? I don’t think the military are going to do anything stupid, but for Cheney and Rumsfeld to feel the need to put their names to it, they must surely think it’s not now completely outside the bounds of possibility ?
I hadn’t quite realised that the entire current leadership of the Defence Department, most of them unconfirmed by Congress, was quite such a mix of the ridiculous/scary. https://www.balloon-juice.com/2021/01/03/someone-in-the-pentagon-got-a-message-out-all-10-living-former-secretaries-of-defense-issue-a-warning/ ... Someone is very worried that the Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, his Chief of Staff Kash Patel (who really works for Devin Nunes and was once thrown out of a Federal courtroom in Texas for being an ass and sanctioned by the judge in the case with an order of ineptitude), the Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Acting as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations & Low Intensity Conflict Ezra Cohen-Watnick (who is the protege of LTG Flynn, Michael Ledeen, and Safra Catz and who has been completely unqualified for every position he’s been appointed to in the Trump administration), the Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Anthony Tata (a noted racist, anti-Semite, Islamophone, homophobe, and all around bigot), and the Special Advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense Douglas MacGregor (noted extremist kook) are up to something dangerous....
Retired footballers proving themselves just as stupid as current players:
Paul Scholes had an NYE party at his house in Tier 4 Oldham - and seemingly forget to tell his kids and their friends not to post pictures of it on social media!
But, tonight, the Trump tape is the story. Just staggering, but the most staggering thing of all is that we're not really surprised. Whatever happened to the United States to get to this?
When the history is written, it’ll begin with Gingrich.
It begins with Nixon.
I think that was a previous political age. The present polarisation dates to the post-Cold War Clinton era.
The GOP were (and still are) furious that Nixon was forced out.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Which leads us to now.
Sorry, but most polite way to characterize your view of history here is "revisionist".
Notion that Ronald Reagan was "a Nixon loyalist" is incorrect, to put it mildly.
And whuke SOME in the Republican Party back in 1974 were furious re: Nixon resigning. But please note that it was the REPUBLICANS who forced him to resign, was when his support among Congressional Republicans collapsed after the release of the "smoking gun" tape.
OF course that was before criminal scum like Ailes and Trump took over the GOP, in much the same way that Al Capone cornered bootlegging in Chicago.
Motive for many of today's Republicans like to rail about Nixon being "forced out" and the like, is similar to that of Germans propagating the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".
Some of the same folks will tell you that Herbert Hoover was also "forced out"! Which has a LOT more truth to it!
It’s quite true to say that Reagan defended Nixon throughout Watergate, even when others gave him up as a crook.
That was political calculation. NOT same thing as political loyalty.
Nixon was NOT conservative enough - not by a long shot - for the likes of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, John Ashcroft, William F. Buckley and most of the rest of the core of late-mid 20th century American conservatism.
I don’t disagree - but it’s hardly revisionist history to say that the degradation of the conservative movement started with Nixon. As did their adoption of the theory of executive supremacy.
There's not much about Trump that invites the word 'extraordinary' but this one does. He has gone all Richard Nixon on us whose last days at the White House were seemingly mental. Nixon infamously made his close aids kneel together in the oval office in prayer to the Almighty, including Henry Kissinger.
The Trump telephone call should, I think, help Warnock and Ossoff whose chances at the moment are looking rather good in the latest polling.
We just have to hope that Trump doesn't seek to press the nuclear button on some country over the next 16 days.
But, tonight, the Trump tape is the story. Just staggering, but the most staggering thing of all is that we're not really surprised. Whatever happened to the United States to get to this?
When the history is written, it’ll begin with Gingrich.
It begins with Nixon.
I think that was a previous political age. The present polarisation dates to the post-Cold War Clinton era.
The GOP were (and still are) furious that Nixon was forced out.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Which leads us to now.
Sorry, but most polite way to characterize your view of history here is "revisionist".
Notion that Ronald Reagan was "a Nixon loyalist" is incorrect, to put it mildly.
And whuke SOME in the Republican Party back in 1974 were furious re: Nixon resigning. But please note that it was the REPUBLICANS who forced him to resign, was when his support among Congressional Republicans collapsed after the release of the "smoking gun" tape.
OF course that was before criminal scum like Ailes and Trump took over the GOP, in much the same way that Al Capone cornered bootlegging in Chicago.
Motive for many of today's Republicans like to rail about Nixon being "forced out" and the like, is similar to that of Germans propagating the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".
Some of the same folks will tell you that Herbert Hoover was also "forced out"! Which has a LOT more truth to it!
It’s quite true to say that Reagan defended Nixon throughout Watergate, even when others gave him up as a crook.
That was political calculation. NOT same thing as political loyalty.
Nixon was NOT conservative enough - not by a long shot - for the likes of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, John Ashcroft, William F. Buckley and most of the rest of the core of late-mid 20th century American conservatism.
I don’t disagree - but it’s hardly revisionist history to say that the degradation of the conservative movement started with Nixon. As did their adoption of the theory of executive supremacy.
The biggest issue now, is how does everyone walk back from this hyperpartisanship?
It’s the Prisoners’ Dilemma - if one side does it, they win, but if both sides do it, everybody loses.
It’s possible Biden reaches out to centrist Republicans at the expense of his own left wing, but I can’t see it happening with actions rather than words. Happy to say I was wrong in a couple of years’ time though.
Spectator’s data team are pulling together what they can about hospital admissions, occupancy rates and critical care beds, from public sources. Looks like a useful resource.
That is a step forward for citizens assemblies and such like around the West. We need much more of that Athenian particpatory democracy.
Because Socrates, and the Mitylenians, had it coming? The history of Athens is one great warning against direct democracy.
I don't agreee with that at all. We very rarely reproduce historical models literally, but in gradually adapted form, otherwise they would fail. Ireland's success with citizens assembies didn't result in mob rule.
Apart from suggesting Macron's brain has been damaged by his recent illness the big issue is why is the 'strategy group' just being created now rather than 6 months ago? Presumable they need a Madam de Farge to knit while choosing who gets the prick!
Athenian democracy did lead to an imperial protection racket and the mob executing a dozen or so admirals after they won a notable battle, which had the perhaps expected impact of proving more helpful to the enemy than the Athenians.
I can't stand this Politics for All account. They never share a link to an actual legitimate news source or story. I don't understand what it up with these guys?
This seems shocking but upon Googling to find a legitimate English speaking news article about this I'm coming up blank. Does anyone have one?
Athenian democracy did lead to an imperial protection racket and the mob executing a dozen or so admirals after they won a notable battle, which had the perhaps expected impact of proving more helpful to the enemy than the Athenians.
Good morning.
On the point of Athenian democracy ; however, if we'd reproduced its structure, social context and failings literally, or those of classical science, drama and much else, we'd have no civilisation to speak of. We've been adapting rather than cloning Classical ideas for 700 years.
Athenian democracy did lead to an imperial protection racket and the mob executing a dozen or so admirals after they won a notable battle, which had the perhaps expected impact of proving more helpful to the enemy than the Athenians.
Good morning.
However, if we'd reproduced its structure, social context and failings literally, or those of classical science, drama and much else, we'd have no civilisation to speak of. We've all been adapting rather than cloning Classical ideas for 700 years.
Yes. We have evolved a democracy that works over a thousand years. No need to reinvent the wheel.
Comments
Now the divide is trending towards city/suburban rather than North South. So the Labour Party secure in Liverpool, Manchester etc in the North like Bolton, London in the South. But the suburban North is trending blue.
I’d have politely asked him to stop taking the piss after the first couple of times.
I speak as a working class Conservative who is naturally anti lockdown but I am now calling Keir as correct!
We need an immediate national lockdown including all schools and universities closed until 28 Feb. Let's call it now. Plus vaccinations per my previous posts.
Or it's 3000 deaths a day Jan/Feb.
I predict vaccinations will look like a f*ck-up through most of January but then really get going in Feb and thereafter.
LibDems with a red rosette we are not.
But as we’ve seen, the likelihood of more than a handful of Republican Senators voting to impeach is exceedingly slim.
(There's a first!)
Getting more vaccines out ASAP would be a good thing, and it's good that AZN comes online next week, but besides the Israelis who are absolutely flying through it there doesn't seem to be anywhere else significant doing considerably better.
For now we are just talking theoretical possibilities. If you wanted to do something effective, closing schools for the whole of January would do far more,
There's only one person qualified to jab and they are going 1 street per day? What is it?
Certain posters' hysterics to the contrary, AZN aren't massively far behind. Pfizer I think are a little further: they expected 10m by the end of last year and missed by an order of magnitude.
I'm concerned that "officials" are trying to manage expectation for vaccination rates. It would indeed be a government failure if, once they ramp up, they aren't keeping up with supply. We'll have to see how they go with that.
--AS
--AS
I clicked on 100 m COVID vaccines, where are my parcels?
But as you’ve pointed out before, that doesn’t work for all viruses anyway.
(Or that's how I understood it when I queried these double blockquotes on the previous thread.)
(If it had been Royal Mail, they would have been lobbed over the back gate despite the package saying "delicate".)
--AS
So long as hospitalisation rates don't exponentially explode which will result in under-65s who can currently survive with prompt treatment no longer doing so.
You ordered 100m covid vaccines, we didn't have them in stock, we substituted with 50m MMR jabs, thank us later.
When they came to select their next Presidential Candidate they selected a Nixon loyalist in Reagan.
Reagan then selected and promoted Nixon lackeys. He put for Bork for the SC! The GOP still bring up Bork being rejected to this day.
The GOP then go apoplectic when Clinton beats Bush (who spends his time pardoning the shit out of the Iran Contra crew) which leads to Gingrich.
In the interim Stone/Ailes is founding Fox News. Its stated aim is to prevent a sitting GOP president from being forced out like Nixon was, no matter what the crime.
Which leads us to now.
Given the increasing shift of the white working class to the Tories and graduates to Labour Alistair makes a good point that seats like Beckenham and Wycombe the Tories won even in 1997 are easier targets than the likes of West Bromwich West that Blair won.
There’s the spike thanks to a combination of holiday mixing, and the new variant - and at the same time vaccinations won’t really ramp up until the end of the month.
And again,.the vaccines don't give 100% protection.
I presume it's mainly just that they've not even bothered to try through most of the holiday period.
https://twitter.com/RMFifthCircuit/status/1345543889244069888
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccination-doses-per-capita?tab=table&stackMode=absolute&time=earliest..latest®ion=World
Notion that Ronald Reagan was "a Nixon loyalist" is incorrect, to put it mildly.
And whuke SOME in the Republican Party back in 1974 were furious re: Nixon resigning. But please note that it was the REPUBLICANS who forced him to resign, was when his support among Congressional Republicans collapsed after the release of the "smoking gun" tape.
OF course that was before criminal scum like Ailes and Trump took over the GOP, in much the same way that Al Capone cornered bootlegging in Chicago.
Motive for many of today's Republicans like to rail about Nixon being "forced out" and the like, is similar to that of Germans propagating the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".
Some of the same folks will tell you that Herbert Hoover was also "forced out"! Which has a LOT more truth to it!
It is fair to say Reagan was significantly to the right of Nixon, certainly as far as domestic policy was concerned, while Nixon emerged under the wing of Eisenhower, Reagan was very much a pupil of Goldwater
https://twitter.com/carlbernstein/status/1345845260602155009
(Mike, that is - and also IanB2, just to be safe.)
For example, note that in WA State and number of other states, nearly all of the ballots cast in this election, where first sent to voters via USPS.
Thus the Trumpsky-Putinist-GOP plot was foiled by the Deep Quasi-State. By postal workers and administrators inspired by Ben Franklin.
Nixon was NOT conservative enough - not by a long shot - for the likes of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, John Ashcroft, William F. Buckley and most of the rest of the core of late-mid 20th century American conservatism.
For example, people HAVE been know to tell people in power NOT what they themselves think, but what they think the powerful one wants to hear.
Frankly, I blame the DEMOCRATS for some of this, in particular the way so many of them screamed bloody murder about Ohio 2004 - when they did NOT have FACTS to back up their wild assertions of massive electoral fraud.
Can well remember arguing with many of them shortly thereafter that their "arguments" were not just a crock of lukewarm piss, but also a HORRIBLE precedent for the future. Which is now. Sorry, am not understanding your point re: Bork, who was a VERY conservative judge. Are you saying that he and Ronnie were ideologically incompatible or something like that?
"President Reagan nominated Bork for associate justice of the Supreme Court on July 1, 1987, to replace retiring Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.. A hotly contested United States Senate debate over Bork's nomination ensued. Opposition was partly fueled by civil rights and women's rights groups, concerned about Bork's opposition to the authority claimed by the federal government to impose standards of voting fairness upon states (at his confirmation hearings for the position of solicitor general, he supported the rights of Southern states to impose a poll tax), and his stated desire to roll back civil rights decisions of the Warren and Burger courts. Bork is one of only four Supreme Court nominees (along with William Rehnquist, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh) to have been opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union.[23][24] Bork was also criticized for being an "advocate of disproportionate powers for the executive branch of Government, almost executive supremacy," most notably, according to critics, for his role in the 'Saturday Night Massacre'. . . . .
To pro-choice rights legal groups, Bork's originalist views and his belief that the Constitution did not contain a general "right to privacy" were viewed as a clear signal that, should he become a justice of the Supreme Court, he would vote to reverse the Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. Accordingly, a large number of groups mobilized to press for Bork's rejection, and the resulting 1987 Senate confirmation hearings became an intensely partisan battle.
Look at industrial production in the World Wars: it took ages to get going... but when it got going...
The same will be true here. Vaccine production will face hitch after hitch after hitch. But we'll keep building facilities and we'll keep solving those hitches. And in a year we'll be able to vaccinate the entire world every year,
My own feeling is that there should be a blending of your options #2 and #3.
"Make new friends / But keep the old / One is silver / And the other gold"
Technology has exacerbated difference and atomised lives
BY TIMANDRA HARKNESS"
https://unherd.com/2021/01/the-pandemic-didnt-shatter-society-zoom-did/
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/pence-welcomes-republican-lawmakers-electoral-certification.html
Clearly not wishing to alienate the Trumpian base and spoil his chances in 2024.
Craven stuff.
https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1345938733460295681?s=21
What do you make of the letter from the former US Defence Secretaries ?
I don’t think the military are going to do anything stupid, but for Cheney and Rumsfeld to feel the need to put their names to it, they must surely think it’s not now completely outside the bounds of possibility ?
I hadn’t quite realised that the entire current leadership of the Defence Department, most of them unconfirmed by Congress, was quite such a mix of the ridiculous/scary.
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2021/01/03/someone-in-the-pentagon-got-a-message-out-all-10-living-former-secretaries-of-defense-issue-a-warning/
... Someone is very worried that the Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, his Chief of Staff Kash Patel (who really works for Devin Nunes and was once thrown out of a Federal courtroom in Texas for being an ass and sanctioned by the judge in the case with an order of ineptitude), the Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Acting as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations & Low Intensity Conflict Ezra Cohen-Watnick (who is the protege of LTG Flynn, Michael Ledeen, and Safra Catz and who has been completely unqualified for every position he’s been appointed to in the Trump administration), the Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Anthony Tata (a noted racist, anti-Semite, Islamophone, homophobe, and all around bigot), and the Special Advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense Douglas MacGregor (noted extremist kook) are up to something dangerous....
Paul Scholes had an NYE party at his house in Tier 4 Oldham - and seemingly forget to tell his kids and their friends not to post pictures of it on social media!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9108451/Paul-Scholes-angers-neighbours-children-flouted-Covid-rules-holding-New-Years-Eve-party.html
As did their adoption of the theory of executive supremacy.
The Trump telephone call should, I think, help Warnock and Ossoff whose chances at the moment are looking rather good in the latest polling.
We just have to hope that Trump doesn't seek to press the nuclear button on some country over the next 16 days.
It’s the Prisoners’ Dilemma - if one side does it, they win, but if both sides do it, everybody loses.
It’s possible Biden reaches out to centrist Republicans at the expense of his own left wing, but I can’t see it happening with actions rather than words. Happy to say I was wrong in a couple of years’ time though.
https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/nhs
Athenian democracy did lead to an imperial protection racket and the mob executing a dozen or so admirals after they won a notable battle, which had the perhaps expected impact of proving more helpful to the enemy than the Athenians.
This seems shocking but upon Googling to find a legitimate English speaking news article about this I'm coming up blank. Does anyone have one?
On the point of Athenian democracy ; however, if we'd reproduced its structure, social context and failings literally, or those of classical science, drama and much else, we'd have no civilisation to speak of. We've been adapting rather than cloning Classical ideas for 700 years.