I think we're all actually agreeing, as we're not complete narcissists! that public facing (Including teachers) should probably get some degree of priority. The question is where. Ahead of groups 1 - 4 is right out. So are they 4.5, 5.5, 6.5, 7.5, 8.5 or group 10 ? That's the real question. Continually putting myself back in the queue here
Suggestion:
55 year old teacher gets the vaccine at the same time as a 65 year old non teacher. 45 year old teacher gets the vaccine at the same time as a 55 year old non teacher. 35 year old teacher gets the vaccine at the same time as a 45 year old non teacher. 25 year old teacher gets the vaccine at the same time as a 35 year old non teacher.
Why? If (as above) the evidence is that there is greater medical benefit in focusing on the more vulnerable.
Once you start picking and choosing between professions, you're on a slippery slope, and soon need to start considering lifestyle factors, and then we'll all be forced to disclose information we don't need to, and you've created a monster.
Presumably the argument has already been made that it might make sense to prioritise the vaccination of those whose job involves contact with many people (such as teachers) in order to slow the spread of the virus and protect the population in general, rather than particularly to protect those who are vaccinated?
If that's the case then we need to give teachers the 12 week gap with AZ as that's the only vaccine where we have early evidence from the trial that it prevents spreading of the virus at week 15.
Its interesting that the EU officials still keep saying they haven't had a 'plausible explanation' for problems with vaccine delivery.
The 'plausible explanation' is easy - the vaccines haven't been made yet and no matter what threats and tantrums are made will not magic them into existence.
We all know how EU discussion proceed - endless bickering, extended deadlines and then the triumphant agreement at the last minute.
But a new and complex production process in the real world doesn't work like that.
The Commissioner is busy taking "solidarity to new heights".
Its interesting that the EU officials still keep saying they haven't had a 'plausible explanation' for problems with vaccine delivery.
The 'plausible explanation' is easy - the vaccines haven't been made yet and no matter what threats and tantrums are made will not magic them into existence.
We all know how EU discussion proceed - endless bickering, extended deadlines and then the triumphant agreement at the last minute.
But a new and complex production process in the real world doesn't work like that.
The Commissioner is busy taking "solidarity to new heights".
Oh dear - I'm sure this person has talents but really think she'd better employed doing a Nana Mouskouri tribute act - she is well out of her depth here.
It seems some people think that a 30 year old teacher should not be vaccinated before a 45 year old project manager at all costs.
My argument is that once the very high risk have been vaccinated, teachers should absolutely be prioritised along with police and bus drivers and supermarket workers etc. To get the best bang for our buck when it comes to herd immunity.
I don’t think by the time we get to that stage that’s going to be the issue. Once they start on the under 50s, it will probably be by health status, not age.
For example, I am 37 and have no underlying health conditions. OK, so I teach in a school and that’s a high risk environment. But should I therefore be vaccinated ahead of my sister, aged 39 and with two school age children, who is an asthmatic as well as obese from the side effects of various drugs she has to take for a mobility issue?
I know who I think is more at risk in the event of schools going back. And it isn’t me.
37. So wise, for one so young.
That popping noise you heard was my head swelling.
I'd also thought you were older, but maybe that's just because my history teachers at school were generally old enough to be primary sources for the material they taught!
Isn't it that when we were at school teachers seemed ancient?
And why does everyone hate teachers?
Because we hated them when we were at school.
Aww, big hugs @ydoethur - we don't hate teachers (and neither did I hate them when at school). Not like/hate, but teachers are even amongst the most trusted:
Ok, I do hate you slightly for being more trusted than scientists Although probably not significantly more...
Makes sense to vaccinate teachers/key workers ahead of others in same risk category who can work from home.
But vaccinating all teachers - as I understand Keir is calling for - is unjustified and Mike is right that it would likely lead to further unnecessary deaths. Disastrous idea from Starmer.
Maybe it's popular, but it would be the wrong thing to do.
The only thing vaccinating teachers does is ensure they stay in school while the pupils spread it amongst themselves and potentially to their families.
It's a plan but it will be trading some teaching for some deaths.
Worse the teaching will be as stop start as it was last term as cohorts of children are forced to isolate and classes are 50% in school and 50% remote.
Then why have we vaccinated young nurses, doctors, care home staff etc?
There has been no bleating about them taking away jabs from the vulnerable, which is exactly what they have done?
Why is it different for teachers?
Because they're superspreaders to the extremely vulnerable patients that they work with. A fifth of all deaths and hospitalisations come from care homes. Hospital acquired infections are mammoth too. Plus its going from patient to staff to patient - not direct patient to patient mixing.
Completely different from schools where there are compared to care homes next to no direct deaths and infections coming from schools, the issue with schools is that they are spreading it within the community as kids pass it to each other asymptomatically.
We don’t know what effect the vaccines have on transmission so that doesn’t hold water I’m afraid.
And if the vaccine does prevent transmission, then the priority is getting it into as many arms as possible as quickly as possible without these stupid arguments. If it’s more efficient to take a few vaccines to one place, like a school (which it is) and vaccinate everyone, we should do that.
Instead we have selfish older people demanding their vaccines first above all else.
I think it is OK to do it by age ... because it gives another argument that, when the bill comes in, old people are expected to make sacrifices for the young.
We did the vaccines so that the old were prioritised, now it is the older generations turn to give back.
The problem with promoting the teachers is obvious from the Mirror's table. Why not promote "Other staff working in emergency services" or "Police officers"? Once the teachers have advanced their case and won it, there will many more special interest groups who need priority. It will become a squabbling, complicated mess.
I think it really is best to just keep it simple and get it done really quickly, as OGH suggests.
I also think it would make sense to take the vaccine to police stations, fire stations, supermarkets, etc to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible. If the vaccine does stop transmission then herd immunity protects everyone, and herd immunity relies on numbers, and especially those in public facing positions.
I say this as someone who is higher risk, I’m immune suppressed, despite being young-ish.
But distribution is not the issue. Supply is.
If distribution ever becomes the issue then absolutely other stuff will be done.
If you're immuno-suppresed then surely you should be on the priority list. If not in Group 4, then Group 6. Diverting supplies now from continuing with the priority list means delaying when people in Group 6 get their vaccine.
You’re all missing the point. I’m not advocating for teachers to be vaccinated *now*, I’m talking about the next stage when deaths are right down as the very high risk have already been vaccinated and deaths should start to plummet.
We will then be discussing the vaccination strategy of those of low risk and those with slightly higher risk.
@ydoethur all the high risk parents will have already been vaccinated.
I think we can all agree teachers should be vaccinated in the future when there's unlimited supply and the vulnerable have been done. Everyone should be.
The question being discussed is whether teachers should be vaccinated *now* as called for ludicrously by Keir Starmer and the Daily Mirror poll, but wisely rejected by the teachers unions.
The high risk won't be done until all 9 priority groups have been done. Making key workers priority group 10 may be reasonable - putting teachers before priority groups 5-9 is not.
My compromise is that some teachers, with vulnerable families or personal conditions should be vaccinated before they return to the classroom.
The issue with that is how to identify those people. For example a teacher which is obese might be in a danger group more, but do you send out a questionnaire asking if teachers are fat or not?
One reason why broad blocks work rather then tailoring to an individuals.
Oh my. This reminds me of a piece of biology homework that got me a detention.
I was about 11 and we were learning about "keys", for classifying plants into species etc. The homework was to produce a certain kind of key for classifying our schoolteachers.
To get my biology teacher you had to go through the following questions: Does he have a high-pitched voice? Yes Is he bald? Yes Is he fat? Yes
His response? "How dare you, boy? Detention!" (delivered, of course, in a high-pitched voice).
Offices have had more clusters of cases of Covid-19 than other workplaces, a BBC investigation has found.
Public Health England figures, obtained via a Freedom of Information request, reveal there were more than 60 suspected clusters of cases in offices in the first two weeks of the current lockdown in England.
The government has urged firms to help employees work from home.
The data also shows there were more than 500 outbreaks, or suspected outbreaks, in offices in the second half of 2020 - more than in supermarkets, construction sites, warehouses, restaurants and cafes combined.
Perhaps office workers should be given priority as well.
I think they are overhyping this.
500 outbreaks in 6 months in all the offices in the UK, even with furlough etc, when an outbreak iirc is "2 or more cases", does not seem earth-shattering. What is that as a percentage?
Beginning to see the issue here (h/t David Allen Green, obvs).
The issue is that as far as can be assumed, the agreement with the EU did have that best efforts clause but that related to manufacturing capacity. It likely made no mention of prioritisation of the product. It seems that AZN does have sufficient manufacturing capacity for the EU order in isolation.
Hence, the EU is behaving as though its agreement is the only one on the planet. AZN, meanwhile, probably realising that they didn't explicitly set out the allocation schedule, has said that the UK ordered first (which it did) and therefore the obligation is to the UK.
But the EU seemingly doesn't care about other contracts it cares about its own contract. AZN has the manufacturing ability hence the EU believes that as that is the only best efforts constraint, the EU should receive its full allocation.
I expect to repost this several times today so I shall label this v1.0.
But the best efforts definition used (according to DAG, in the other contract, so probably in this one too) explicitly did refer to commitments to others.
AZN's commitments to earlier contracts falls under that surely?
Even if it isn't expressed, if it says "reasonable" it isn't reasonable to expect breaches of existing contracts with other parties. And if it doesn't say reasonable, a court is not going to construe a contract as obliging a party to breach a contract with another party unless it absolutely has to.
Indeed.
The EU side didn’t know (and wouldn’t have expected to know at the time) the nature of the contracts AZ has with other countries.
As far as AZ are concerned, the EU were more interested in price than delivery date, they have priority contracts with early investors such as the UK and India, and are trying to increase capacity as quickly as possible.
Where do you get that AZN thought that the EU were more interested in price than delivery date?
The EU ‘leaked’ price list from a while ago, where they were subtly boasting about prices paid for the various vaccines.
While other countries were subtly boasting about their delivery schedules.
I'm not sure that is relevant.
I’m pretty sure it’s incredibly relevant.
UK priorities appear to have been factories, speed of approval and fast delivery. EU priorities appear to be been price and liability.
Whatever wasn’t the priority hasn’t happened - so the UK has had to eat price and liability, whereas the EU has had to eat timescale and production capability.
Well I'm not going to spend all day on this but as we haven't seen the contract we don't know the circumstances.
From what we do know and have seen in the past it seems likely that the EU believes it is due its delivery (regardless of price, which has not seemed a relevant factor in this particular issue) with no regard for whatever other contracts AZN has in place.
AZN, I imagine, will, as per @Ishmael_Z's post, argue that the general definition of best efforts, which includes taking into account other purchasers, is relevant and hence they are on firm ground not to fulfil the EU's order in isolation. The EU, meanwhile, might say, following DAG, that that definition, as placed, is not an "operative provision".
I think we're all actually agreeing, as we're not complete narcissists! that public facing (Including teachers) should probably get some degree of priority. The question is where. Ahead of groups 1 - 4 is right out. So are they 4.5, 5.5, 6.5, 7.5, 8.5 or group 10 ? That's the real question. Continually putting myself back in the queue here
Suggestion:
55 year old teacher gets the vaccine at the same time as a 65 year old non teacher. 45 year old teacher gets the vaccine at the same time as a 55 year old non teacher. 35 year old teacher gets the vaccine at the same time as a 45 year old non teacher. 25 year old teacher gets the vaccine at the same time as a 35 year old non teacher.
Why? If (as above) the evidence is that there is greater medical benefit in focusing on the more vulnerable.
Once you start picking and choosing between professions, you're on a slippery slope, and soon need to start considering lifestyle factors, and then we'll all be forced to disclose information we don't need to, and you've created a monster.
Presumably the argument has already been made that it might make sense to prioritise the vaccination of those whose job involves contact with many people (such as teachers) in order to slow the spread of the virus and protect the population in general, rather than particularly to protect those who are vaccinated?
Apparently it has been modelled, and giving the same vaccine to medically vulnerable people directly saves more lives.
If you think through the implications, that finding is a point in support of the "shield the elderly, let everyone else live" argument.
For me, the lockdown argument is a finely balanced one - and I was pleased that this came out from last night's union debate (the absence of jokes and playing to the gallery actually made the online debate more mature than I remember CUS debates being when I was in the audience as a student). The deciding factor is that the NHS cannot cope with waves of younger people on ventilators, even if they are a small proportion of the total infected population and many of them survive.
It seems some people think that a 30 year old teacher should not be vaccinated before a 45 year old project manager at all costs.
My argument is that once the very high risk have been vaccinated, teachers should absolutely be prioritised along with police and bus drivers and supermarket workers etc. To get the best bang for our buck when it comes to herd immunity.
I don’t think by the time we get to that stage that’s going to be the issue. Once they start on the under 50s, it will probably be by health status, not age.
For example, I am 37 and have no underlying health conditions. OK, so I teach in a school and that’s a high risk environment. But should I therefore be vaccinated ahead of my sister, aged 39 and with two school age children, who is an asthmatic as well as obese from the side effects of various drugs she has to take for a mobility issue?
I know who I think is more at risk in the event of schools going back. And it isn’t me.
37. So wise, for one so young.
That popping noise you heard was my head swelling.
I'd also thought you were older, but maybe that's just because my history teachers at school were generally old enough to be primary sources for the material they taught!
Isn't it that when we were at school teachers seemed ancient?
And why does everyone hate teachers?
Because we hated them when we were at school.
Aww, big hugs @ydoethur - we don't hate teachers (and neither did I hate them when at school). Not like/hate, but teachers are even amongst the most trusted:
Ok, I do hate you slightly for being more trusted than scientists Although probably not significantly more...
What ever did engineers do to get so high up the list?
Boris Johnson had almost nothing left in his armoury to combat the Covid Pandemic. He had not had a good Coronavirus crisis.He had bet the house and all that was left was one solitary blue chip, and he bet that chip on a vaccination. He won, he bet his winnings on another, he won, and another, he couldn't lose. It was probably more through, last throw of the dice luck, than judgement, but he won nonetheless.
The "Vietnam" moniker stemmed from Operation Diem, the name of the police investigation into Mr Salmond.
Mr MacAskill said: "It apparently came about because the police operation against Alex Salmond was termed Diem, which is obviously the Latin for 'day'. Someone seems to have misunderstood Diem as a reference to a former president of Vietnam."
My understanding is that the JCVI is advising the government on vaccination priorities, and that the government has said it will accept whatever the JCVI recommends. I also understand that the JCVI will continually review priorities once the first 4 priority groups have been vaccinated.
So I don't see any harm in Labour, the government, or anybody else, making suggestions. Presumably the JCVI will arrive at an independent decision, taking into account current progress, data on infection case rates (overall and by groups), hospitalisations, etc, and vaccine supply. The government will thus follow the scientific advice.
I don't really see what all the fuss is about. Leave it to the JCVI, and trust them to be objective.
In that spirit, can I suggest skiers get on the priority list, the snow will be melting by April!
To our SNP friends, can you explain just what the 'Vietnam' whats app group is, how close is it to Nicola, and what was their activities v Alex Salmond
Mind you Malc may be able to elucidate the controversy
Haven’t a clue. I’m sure an expert will be along shortly.
It seems some people think that a 30 year old teacher should not be vaccinated before a 45 year old project manager at all costs.
My argument is that once the very high risk have been vaccinated, teachers should absolutely be prioritised along with police and bus drivers and supermarket workers etc. To get the best bang for our buck when it comes to herd immunity.
I don’t think by the time we get to that stage that’s going to be the issue. Once they start on the under 50s, it will probably be by health status, not age.
For example, I am 37 and have no underlying health conditions. OK, so I teach in a school and that’s a high risk environment. But should I therefore be vaccinated ahead of my sister, aged 39 and with two school age children, who is an asthmatic as well as obese from the side effects of various drugs she has to take for a mobility issue?
I know who I think is more at risk in the event of schools going back. And it isn’t me.
37. So wise, for one so young.
That popping noise you heard was my head swelling.
I'd also thought you were older, but maybe that's just because my history teachers at school were generally old enough to be primary sources for the material they taught!
Isn't it that when we were at school teachers seemed ancient?
And why does everyone hate teachers?
Because we hated them when we were at school.
Aww, big hugs @ydoethur - we don't hate teachers (and neither did I hate them when at school). Not like/hate, but teachers are even amongst the most trusted:
Ok, I do hate you slightly for being more trusted than scientists Although probably not significantly more...
What ever did engineers do to get so high up the list?
Offices have had more clusters of cases of Covid-19 than other workplaces, a BBC investigation has found.
Public Health England figures, obtained via a Freedom of Information request, reveal there were more than 60 suspected clusters of cases in offices in the first two weeks of the current lockdown in England.
The government has urged firms to help employees work from home.
The data also shows there were more than 500 outbreaks, or suspected outbreaks, in offices in the second half of 2020 - more than in supermarkets, construction sites, warehouses, restaurants and cafes combined.
Perhaps office workers should be given priority as well.
I think they are overhyping this.
500 outbreaks in 6 months in all the offices in the UK, even with furlough etc, when an outbreak iirc is "2 or more cases", does not seem earth-shattering. What is that as a percentage?
I have no time for Young but that's not a fair point; he doesn't (or at least didn't, in the debate) deny the problem. The debate yesterday was about whether the short and longterm costs of lockdown outweigh the benefits. That's a fair question to ask - and it was a good and balanced discussion.
I was prevented from watching it by my wife who insisted on Spiral - we're deep into series 4 - but this morning I awoke to the shock news that Toby prevailed. Touch of the Man U Sheff U upset about that for me. Glad there wasn't a betfair market on it, I'd have dropped a packet. But what I'm curious to know if you saw it. Did Young & Co identify a realistic alternative toolkit that could have been used which excluded lockdowns?
The "Vietnam" moniker stemmed from Operation Diem, the name of the police investigation into Mr Salmond.
Mr MacAskill said: "It apparently came about because the police operation against Alex Salmond was termed Diem, which is obviously the Latin for 'day'. Someone seems to have misunderstood Diem as a reference to a former president of Vietnam."
I presume that the errrrr.. removal of Diem suggested this, to those who believed it was a conspiracy against Mr Salmond.
I have no time for Young but that's not a fair point; he doesn't (or at least didn't, in the debate) deny the problem. The debate yesterday was about whether the short and longterm costs of lockdown outweigh the benefits. That's a fair question to ask - and it was a good and balanced discussion.
I was prevented from watching it by my wife who insisted on Spiral - we're deep into series 4 - but this morning I awoke to the shock news that Toby and the Tobes prevailed. Touch of the Man U Sheff U upset about that for me. Glad there wasn't a betfair market on it, I'd have dropped a packet. But what I'm curious to know if you watched it. Did the Young & Co side put forward any realistic alternative toolkit that could have been used that did not include lockdowns?
Yes, I saw it all, and it was a good discussion. And yes, the proposers all advanced an alternative - essentially, 'shield the vulnerable, let everyone else live'.
If you read through yesterday evening's thread, you'll see that I summarised each of the six speeches live.
Spiral is great. I enjoyed the closing series, although I know others haven't. Then you can watch The Bureau, if you haven't seen it!
Boris Johnson had almost nothing left in his armoury to combat the Covid Pandemic. He had not had a good Coronavirus crisis.He had bet the house and all that was left was one solitary blue chip, and he bet that chip on a vaccination. He won, he bet his winnings on another, he won, and another, he couldn't lose. It was probably more through, last throw of the dice luck, than judgement, but he won nonetheless.
He who dares wins, Rodney. He who dares wins.
He's been lucky (again), as it is clear from this morning's Bingham interview that the key decisions were taken early, and mostly voluntarily, by the industry, and had little to do with the government.
It seems some people think that a 30 year old teacher should not be vaccinated before a 45 year old project manager at all costs.
My argument is that once the very high risk have been vaccinated, teachers should absolutely be prioritised along with police and bus drivers and supermarket workers etc. To get the best bang for our buck when it comes to herd immunity.
I don’t think by the time we get to that stage that’s going to be the issue. Once they start on the under 50s, it will probably be by health status, not age.
For example, I am 37 and have no underlying health conditions. OK, so I teach in a school and that’s a high risk environment. But should I therefore be vaccinated ahead of my sister, aged 39 and with two school age children, who is an asthmatic as well as obese from the side effects of various drugs she has to take for a mobility issue?
I know who I think is more at risk in the event of schools going back. And it isn’t me.
37. So wise, for one so young.
That popping noise you heard was my head swelling.
I'd also thought you were older, but maybe that's just because my history teachers at school were generally old enough to be primary sources for the material they taught!
Isn't it that when we were at school teachers seemed ancient?
And why does everyone hate teachers?
Because we hated them when we were at school.
Aww, big hugs @ydoethur - we don't hate teachers (and neither did I hate them when at school). Not like/hate, but teachers are even amongst the most trusted:
Ok, I do hate you slightly for being more trusted than scientists Although probably not significantly more...
Full-time PB posters doesn't show on there, so it must have been cut off - below even advertising executives.
To our SNP friends, can you explain just what the 'Vietnam' whats app group is, how close is it to Nicola, and what was their activities v Alex Salmond
Mind you Malc may be able to elucidate the controversy
Haven’t a clue. I’m sure an expert will be along shortly.
Offices have had more clusters of cases of Covid-19 than other workplaces, a BBC investigation has found.
Public Health England figures, obtained via a Freedom of Information request, reveal there were more than 60 suspected clusters of cases in offices in the first two weeks of the current lockdown in England.
The government has urged firms to help employees work from home.
The data also shows there were more than 500 outbreaks, or suspected outbreaks, in offices in the second half of 2020 - more than in supermarkets, construction sites, warehouses, restaurants and cafes combined.
Perhaps office workers should be given priority as well.
I think they are overhyping this.
500 outbreaks in 6 months in all the offices in the UK, even with furlough etc, when an outbreak iirc is "2 or more cases", does not seem earth-shattering. What is that as a percentage?
They were hyping that story up this morning on the radio. "There were more outbreaks in offices than in supermarkets or cafes!" Now I don't have any figures to hand, but I would think that offices far outnumber those retail establishments, so wouldn't you expect there to be more outbreaks there?
This kind of zero context reporting of "facts" always drives me nuts, my personal bugbear are stories of the form "X is at the highest/lowest level for Y years", such stories are essentially meaningless, as there will always be a highest/lowest number in a set, that doesn't mean it has any significance. But groups like charities put out press releases along those lines and the press lap it up, and love to report it as though something has gone horribly wrong.
Boris Johnson had almost nothing left in his armoury to combat the Covid Pandemic. He had not had a good Coronavirus crisis.He had bet the house and all that was left was one solitary blue chip, and he bet that chip on a vaccination. He won, he bet his winnings on another, he won, and another, he couldn't lose. It was probably more through, last throw of the dice luck, than judgement, but he won nonetheless.
I think the main issue with allowing queue jumping is that every man and his dog suddenly has a reason for queue jumping. Teachers are worthy, so are police, so are firemen, so are retail workers, so are restaurant workers and delivery people, what about me say warehouse fulfillment people.
It all starts to get very messy and it's better for the government to just push capacity up to a level where it no longer matters.
Boris Johnson had almost nothing left in his armoury to combat the Covid Pandemic. He had not had a good Coronavirus crisis.He had bet the house and all that was left was one solitary blue chip, and he bet that chip on a vaccination. He won, he bet his winnings on another, he won, and another, he couldn't lose. It was probably more through, last throw of the dice luck, than judgement, but he won nonetheless.
He who dares wins, Rodney. He who dares wins.
had little to do with the government.
Bingham in the December VTF report complimented Civil Servants and Ministers for taking tough decisions at pace - so it had plenty to do with the government.
It seems some people think that a 30 year old teacher should not be vaccinated before a 45 year old project manager at all costs.
My argument is that once the very high risk have been vaccinated, teachers should absolutely be prioritised along with police and bus drivers and supermarket workers etc. To get the best bang for our buck when it comes to herd immunity.
I don’t think by the time we get to that stage that’s going to be the issue. Once they start on the under 50s, it will probably be by health status, not age.
For example, I am 37 and have no underlying health conditions. OK, so I teach in a school and that’s a high risk environment. But should I therefore be vaccinated ahead of my sister, aged 39 and with two school age children, who is an asthmatic as well as obese from the side effects of various drugs she has to take for a mobility issue?
I know who I think is more at risk in the event of schools going back. And it isn’t me.
37. So wise, for one so young.
That popping noise you heard was my head swelling.
I'd also thought you were older, but maybe that's just because my history teachers at school were generally old enough to be primary sources for the material they taught!
Isn't it that when we were at school teachers seemed ancient?
And why does everyone hate teachers?
Because we hated them when we were at school.
Aww, big hugs @ydoethur - we don't hate teachers (and neither did I hate them when at school). Not like/hate, but teachers are even amongst the most trusted:
Ok, I do hate you slightly for being more trusted than scientists Although probably not significantly more...
Full-time PB posters doesn't show on there, so it must have been cut off - below even advertising executives.
That's a bit mean; it's a veracity index, and in general we're a truthful bunch. There's only one person I can think of who actively peddles lies, and making stuff up is his job.
The "Vietnam" moniker stemmed from Operation Diem, the name of the police investigation into Mr Salmond.
Mr MacAskill said: "It apparently came about because the police operation against Alex Salmond was termed Diem, which is obviously the Latin for 'day'. Someone seems to have misunderstood Diem as a reference to a former president of Vietnam."
More a case of now you Diem, now you don't in this case.
(To explain, in Vietnamese 'Diem' is pronounced 'See em.')
Beginning to see the issue here (h/t David Allen Green, obvs).
The issue is that as far as can be assumed, the agreement with the EU did have that best efforts clause but that related to manufacturing capacity. It likely made no mention of prioritisation of the product. It seems that AZN does have sufficient manufacturing capacity for the EU order in isolation.
Hence, the EU is behaving as though its agreement is the only one on the planet. AZN, meanwhile, probably realising that they didn't explicitly set out the allocation schedule, has said that the UK ordered first (which it did) and therefore the obligation is to the UK.
But the EU seemingly doesn't care about other contracts it cares about its own contract. AZN has the manufacturing ability hence the EU believes that as that is the only best efforts constraint, the EU should receive its full allocation.
I expect to repost this several times today so I shall label this v1.0.
But the best efforts definition used (according to DAG, in the other contract, so probably in this one too) explicitly did refer to commitments to others.
AZN's commitments to earlier contracts falls under that surely?
Well IANAL, obvs, but according to DAG that is the general description and then it is applied, specifically, to two scenarios which creates the actual obligation.
‘(i) to obtain EU marketing authorisation for the Product and (ii) to establish sufficient manufacturing capacities to enable the manufacturing and supply of the contractually agreed volumes of the Product to the participating Member States in accordance with the estimated delivery schedule set out below in Article I.11 once at least a conditional EU marketing authorisation has been granted.’
It is DAG's contention that the general description is without meaning or force unless it is further refined, as it is in 1.3 (i).
"sufficient" = "sufficient taking our other obligations into account."
DAG did a tweet in 2016 saying the NEC was going to win the challenge over eligibility to vote in the leadership elections, and (I paraphrase) "I know this because I am a Big Important Lawyer and the rest of you look like little ants to me." The NEC lost, the tweet got deleted. Ignore.
Well that is a bold claim to ignore his point. IANAL but do you/they really add phantom phrases to explicit contracts to suit their (client's) needs?
Well, you can't gloss everything in the contract. If the UK is entitled to 100 things a day and the EU also wants 100 things a day and I have one factory which can produce a maximum of 100 things a day, then on one view I have sufficient capacity to satisfy the EU and on another I haven't. So lawyers argue about which was really meant, and courts decide.
Boris Johnson had almost nothing left in his armoury to combat the Covid Pandemic. He had not had a good Coronavirus crisis.He had bet the house and all that was left was one solitary blue chip, and he bet that chip on a vaccination. He won, he bet his winnings on another, he won, and another, he couldn't lose. It was probably more through, last throw of the dice luck, than judgement, but he won nonetheless.
He who dares wins, Rodney. He who dares wins.
had little to do with the government.
Bingham in the December VTF report complimented Civil Servants and Ministers for taking tough decisions at pace - so it had plenty to do with the government.
Trying to remember which French WWI General who, when asked if he had been responsible for pushing the Germans back in 1914, paused, thought, then said that he was quite sure he would have been blamed for a defeat.
I think the main issue with allowing queue jumping is that every man and his dog suddenly has a reason for queue jumping. Teachers are worthy, so are police, so are firemen, so are retail workers, so are restaurant workers and delivery people, what about me say warehouse fulfillment people.
It all starts to get very messy and it's better for the government to just push capacity up to a level where it no longer matters.
Exactly, I mentioned last week about half a dozen groups that I'd heard representatives of making the argument for priority for their members. You obviously can't have everyone as first in the queue. Which is why it's better left to the vaccination and public health experts, they will know what is the right way to use vaccines as more become avaiable. Anyway, fingers crossed, we should be in a good position on vaccines come the spring, so the problem is likely to become delivery not supply, and in particular getting to those harder to reach and vaccine wary groups.
I have no time for Young but that's not a fair point; he doesn't (or at least didn't, in the debate) deny the problem. The debate yesterday was about whether the short and longterm costs of lockdown outweigh the benefits. That's a fair question to ask - and it was a good and balanced discussion.
I was prevented from watching it by my wife who insisted on Spiral - we're deep into series 4 - but this morning I awoke to the shock news that Toby and the Tobes prevailed. Touch of the Man U Sheff U upset about that for me. Glad there wasn't a betfair market on it, I'd have dropped a packet. But what I'm curious to know if you watched it. Did the Young & Co side put forward any realistic alternative toolkit that could have been used that did not include lockdowns?
Yes, I saw it all, and it was a good discussion. And yes, the proposers all advanced an alternative - essentially, 'shield the vulnerable, let everyone else live'.
If you read through yesterday evening's thread, you'll see that I summarised each of the six speeches live.
Spiral is great. I enjoyed the closing series, although I know others haven't. Then you can watch The Bureau, if you haven't seen it!
Ah the Barrington got another airing then. Ok. Not for me. At a stretch, and being generous, I could envisage that an element of the thinking underlying that could possibly have been incorporated to lighten the lockdowns, but that is me at my most emollient. Spiral is good, yes. Compelling set of characters and a fascinating insight into the French judicial system if it's realistic (which I hope it isn't). Thanks for "Bureau" tip. Have quite a list of dramas to watch but there's room for another.
Boris Johnson had almost nothing left in his armoury to combat the Covid Pandemic. He had not had a good Coronavirus crisis.He had bet the house and all that was left was one solitary blue chip, and he bet that chip on a vaccination. He won, he bet his winnings on another, he won, and another, he couldn't lose. It was probably more through, last throw of the dice luck, than judgement, but he won nonetheless.
He who dares wins, Rodney. He who dares wins.
had little to do with the government.
Bingham in the December VTF report complimented Civil Servants and Ministers for taking tough decisions at pace - so it had plenty to do with the government.
Was Bingham saying she felt ‘hung out to dry’ by Number 10 plenty to do with government?
We can be generous, sure. But the cost ship sailed months ago. We put the cash down. We took the gamble.
Why should the Swiss or the Canadians be able to pay "cost". If they wanted to skip the queue with AZN, do you think they'd be paying cost?
Canada is a bit of an odd case. It has ordered huge quantities of vaccines, more per capita than any other country, but is amongst the worst performers of advanced Western economies in actually jabbing people, so far at least.
No, I've never seen a green tractor either. They are the sexy ones, according to the made-up story on a satirical news site.
There again I've never understood the attraction of vacuum cleaners. Either a lot of people in A&E misunderstand how blow jobs work or I am badly missing out.
It seems some people think that a 30 year old teacher should not be vaccinated before a 45 year old project manager at all costs.
My argument is that once the very high risk have been vaccinated, teachers should absolutely be prioritised along with police and bus drivers and supermarket workers etc. To get the best bang for our buck when it comes to herd immunity.
I don’t think by the time we get to that stage that’s going to be the issue. Once they start on the under 50s, it will probably be by health status, not age.
For example, I am 37 and have no underlying health conditions. OK, so I teach in a school and that’s a high risk environment. But should I therefore be vaccinated ahead of my sister, aged 39 and with two school age children, who is an asthmatic as well as obese from the side effects of various drugs she has to take for a mobility issue?
I know who I think is more at risk in the event of schools going back. And it isn’t me.
37. So wise, for one so young.
That popping noise you heard was my head swelling.
I'd also thought you were older, but maybe that's just because my history teachers at school were generally old enough to be primary sources for the material they taught!
Isn't it that when we were at school teachers seemed ancient?
And why does everyone hate teachers?
Because we hated them when we were at school.
Aww, big hugs @ydoethur - we don't hate teachers (and neither did I hate them when at school). Not like/hate, but teachers are even amongst the most trusted:
Ok, I do hate you slightly for being more trusted than scientists Although probably not significantly more...
Delighted and surprised to find lawyers mid-table.
Boris Johnson had almost nothing left in his armoury to combat the Covid Pandemic. He had not had a good Coronavirus crisis.He had bet the house and all that was left was one solitary blue chip, and he bet that chip on a vaccination. He won, he bet his winnings on another, he won, and another, he couldn't lose. It was probably more through, last throw of the dice luck, than judgement, but he won nonetheless.
He who dares wins, Rodney. He who dares wins.
had little to do with the government.
Bingham in the December VTF report complimented Civil Servants and Ministers for taking tough decisions at pace - so it had plenty to do with the government.
Yes, in the full interview she does spell out other key factors - such as the UK ability to recruit volunteers for the vaccine trials exceptionally quickly because of the NHS database launched early in 2020 which signed up hundreds and thousands of people, and the support and co-ordination role that her task force has played since last summer.
But this is also a direct quote: "actually, the work to scale up the manufacturing had started months before that ([the contract negotiations]), and it is that early work [in February] that was done by the industry - voluntarily, not based on contracts or requirements - but a voluntary coalition of the different companies; that is what has made ultimately the difference as to why we are so far ahead on manufacturing"
I wish the EU's political bureaucrats would make up their mind. Are they trying to enforce their malign interpretation of their legal contract rights in order to appropriate production of AZ jabs from UK plants, or are they trying to throw undisputed legal contract rights out of the window in order to seize Pfizer jabs destined for the UK from EU-based Pfizer plants? They seem to want both. Saying that they want to have their cake and eat it is too generous to them, because it's not even their cake.
And let's bear in mind that neither set of jabs would be there to seize in the first place if the UK had not acted many months before the EU and born the risks to get production off the ground.
No, I've never seen a green tractor either. They are the sexy ones, according to the made-up story on a satirical news site.
There again I've never understood the attraction of vacuum cleaners. Either a lot of people in A&E misunderstand how blow jobs work or I am badly missing out.
Noting the satire, but "John Deere green" is famously a colour for tractors (in the US particularly). So makes snese.
Boris Johnson had almost nothing left in his armoury to combat the Covid Pandemic. He had not had a good Coronavirus crisis.He had bet the house and all that was left was one solitary blue chip, and he bet that chip on a vaccination. He won, he bet his winnings on another, he won, and another, he couldn't lose. It was probably more through, last throw of the dice luck, than judgement, but he won nonetheless.
He who dares wins, Rodney. He who dares wins.
had little to do with the government.
Bingham in the December VTF report complimented Civil Servants and Ministers for taking tough decisions at pace - so it had plenty to do with the government.
Yes, in the full interview she does spell out other key factors - such as the UK ability to recruit volunteers for the vaccine trials exceptionally quickly because of the NHS database launched early in 2020 which signed up hundreds and thousands of people, and the support and co-ordination role that her task force has played since last summer.
But this is also a direct quote: "actually, the work to scale up the manufacturing had started months before that ([the contract negotiations]), and it is that early work [in February] that was done by the industry - voluntarily, not based on contracts or requirements - but a voluntary coalition of the different companies; that is what has made ultimately the difference as to why we are so far ahead on manufacturing"
Had vaccination gone wrong the government would have been widely criticised, doubly so if they tried to blame industry. To say they had no/little role isn't really a fair assessment.
It's a hellish decision. It is in everyone's interest for the virus to be snubbed out and if schools do spread it (no one seems to know conclusively) and they are closed, then we get nearer to that point.
Given the enormous misinformation campaign they’ve put out I’m confident the government know schools spread it.
They just don’t want to admit (a) their strategy has failed and (b) they’ve lied to everyone at every turn.
From what I've seen from dropping my kids off at primary school the risks are not on the school side. School bubbles were made, social distancing adhered to very well, staged entrance by year group.
The groups of gabbing and socialising parents however stunned me. I spent as little time as possible there but even when I turned up to drop off my youngest slightly early I was amazed to see parents queued up in wrong year groups because they had turned up 20 mins early with their only child!!!
I think I noted yesterday that primary teachers were less likely than the general population to get Covid - does that mean they get done last????? Surely the current scientific model takes into account all risks - it's not anti teacher to say this.
Fascinating chart, note how both Tory voters and Labour voters are now left on economics but authoritarian on social values, that is particularly true of Labour to Tory switchers in 2019.
Tory voters now significantly more economically left than Tory MPs and councillors and Labour voters now ssignificantly more authoritarian than Labour MPs and councillors.
That is good news for social democrats and rightwing populists, bad news for liberals and libertarians
There was a recurring Yoon meme about the regional papers such as the P&J and the Courier being much better at holding the Nats to account. It has presumably crawled away to die.
Still, they have Andrew Neil and GB news in the hammer the Nats corner now
Beginning to see the issue here (h/t David Allen Green, obvs).
The issue is that as far as can be assumed, the agreement with the EU did have that best efforts clause but that related to manufacturing capacity. It likely made no mention of prioritisation of the product. It seems that AZN does have sufficient manufacturing capacity for the EU order in isolation.
Hence, the EU is behaving as though its agreement is the only one on the planet. AZN, meanwhile, probably realising that they didn't explicitly set out the allocation schedule, has said that the UK ordered first (which it did) and therefore the obligation is to the UK.
But the EU seemingly doesn't care about other contracts it cares about its own contract. AZN has the manufacturing ability hence the EU believes that as that is the only best efforts constraint, the EU should receive its full allocation.
I expect to repost this several times today so I shall label this v1.0.
But the best efforts definition used (according to DAG, in the other contract, so probably in this one too) explicitly did refer to commitments to others.
AZN's commitments to earlier contracts falls under that surely?
Well IANAL, obvs, but according to DAG that is the general description and then it is applied, specifically, to two scenarios which creates the actual obligation.
‘(i) to obtain EU marketing authorisation for the Product and (ii) to establish sufficient manufacturing capacities to enable the manufacturing and supply of the contractually agreed volumes of the Product to the participating Member States in accordance with the estimated delivery schedule set out below in Article I.11 once at least a conditional EU marketing authorisation has been granted.’
It is DAG's contention that the general description is without meaning or force unless it is further refined, as it is in 1.3 (i).
"sufficient" = "sufficient taking our other obligations into account."
DAG did a tweet in 2016 saying the NEC was going to win the challenge over eligibility to vote in the leadership elections, and (I paraphrase) "I know this because I am a Big Important Lawyer and the rest of you look like little ants to me." The NEC lost, the tweet got deleted. Ignore.
Well that is a bold claim to ignore his point. IANAL but do you/they really add phantom phrases to explicit contracts to suit their (client's) needs?
Well, you can't gloss everything in the contract. If the UK is entitled to 100 things a day and the EU also wants 100 things a day and I have one factory which can produce a maximum of 100 things a day, then on one view I have sufficient capacity to satisfy the EU and on another I haven't. So lawyers argue about which was really meant, and courts decide.
Yes absolutely - as I noted in my subsequent post. It is going to turn on exactly that.
AZN will say but we told you we would take into account other purchasers; and the EU will say we don't care about other purchasers, the "operative provision" relates only to manufacturing capacity alone.
Boris Johnson had almost nothing left in his armoury to combat the Covid Pandemic. He had not had a good Coronavirus crisis.He had bet the house and all that was left was one solitary blue chip, and he bet that chip on a vaccination. He won, he bet his winnings on another, he won, and another, he couldn't lose. It was probably more through, last throw of the dice luck, than judgement, but he won nonetheless.
He who dares wins, Rodney. He who dares wins.
had little to do with the government.
Bingham in the December VTF report complimented Civil Servants and Ministers for taking tough decisions at pace - so it had plenty to do with the government.
Yes, in the full interview she does spell out other key factors - such as the UK ability to recruit volunteers for the vaccine trials exceptionally quickly because of the NHS database launched early in 2020 which signed up hundreds and thousands of people, and the support and co-ordination role that her task force has played since last summer.
But this is also a direct quote: "actually, the work to scale up the manufacturing had started months before that ([the contract negotiations]), and it is that early work [in February] that was done by the industry - voluntarily, not based on contracts or requirements - but a voluntary coalition of the different companies; that is what has made ultimately the difference as to why we are so far ahead on manufacturing"
Had vaccination gone wrong the government would have been widely criticised, doubly so if they tried to blame industry. To say they had no/little role isn't really a fair assessment.
Especially if the shoes were reversed and European rollout was going apace and the UK was floundering.
Fascinating chart, note how both Tory voters and Labour voters have now shifted left on economics but are authoritarian on social values, that is particularly true of Labour to Tory switchers in 2019.
Tory voters now significantly more economically left than Tory MPs and councillors and Labour voters now ssignificantly more authoritarian than Labour MPs and councillors.
That is good news for social democrats and rightwing populists, bad news for liberals and libertarians
Aside from my observation about Tory MPs above, you'd really need a scatter diagram showing the distribution before jumping to conclusions. A single dot showing the median for all voters is only part of the story.
Also interesting is this comment - no votes to lose in NI: but what about the UK end of trade? As with seed potatoes in Scotland (which hit a very important Tory element where it hurts).
I wish the EU's political bureaucrats would make up their mind. Are they trying to enforce their malign interpretation of their legal contract rights in order to appropriate production of AZ jabs from UK plants, or are they trying to throw undisputed legal contract rights out of the window in order to seize Pfizer jabs destined for the UK from EU-based Pfizer plants? They seem to want both. Saying that they want to have their cake and eat it is too generous to them, because it's not even their cake.
And let's bear in mind that neither set of jabs would be there to seize in the first place if the UK had not acted many months before the EU and born the risks to get production off the ground.
They are playing politics, it is not about the law. It is pressure on the drug companies, and to show their public "something is being done". Politicians playing politics is hardly surprising, its generally bad and unhelpful as it is in this case, but if the tables were flipped our government would be doing the same.
It's a hellish decision. It is in everyone's interest for the virus to be snubbed out and if schools do spread it (no one seems to know conclusively) and they are closed, then we get nearer to that point.
Given the enormous misinformation campaign they’ve put out I’m confident the government know schools spread it.
They just don’t want to admit (a) their strategy has failed and (b) they’ve lied to everyone at every turn.
From what I've seen from dropping my kids off at primary school the risks are not on the school side. School bubbles were made, social distancing adhered to very well, staged entrance by year group.
The groups of gabbing and socialising parents however stunned me. I spent as little time as possible there but even when I turned up to drop off my youngest slightly early I was amazed to see parents queued up in wrong year groups because they had turned up 20 mins early with their only child!!!
I think I noted yesterday that primary teachers were less likely than the general population to get Covid - does that mean they get done last????? Surely the current scientific model takes into account all risks - it's not anti teacher to say this.
They may be slightly less likely to die of it, although the figures are to put it mildly unreliable, but such data as we have suggests they are more likely to *get* it.
Edit - but again, I haven't even seen an attempt to evaluate the data for parents of school age children.
I've found that documentary on the Royal Family. Wasn't even aware of it till I saw a Crick tweet about it this morning. Watched by over 37 million in 1969 and never once mentioned by the BBC ! Anne and Charles being flung between ships at the moment.
That graph is wrong. The sort of Labour members who joined to vote for Corbyn are generally far more inclined to take ridiculously liberal stances than Labour MPs. The idea that there should be worldwide open borders and that sort of thing. Starmer and his team meanwhile recognise the danger given the stance of 2019 Lab to Con switchers and will be adopting policy positions on social issues closer to those of voters in general.
There was a recurring Yoon meme about the regional papers such as the P&J and the Courier being much better at holding the Nats to account. It has presumably crawled away to die.
Still, they have Andrew Neil and GB news in the hammer the Nats corner now
As I said before, why is it only the SNP that has to be "held to account"? And not, say, Mr Johnson?
I've found that documentary on the Royal Family. Wasn't even aware of it till I saw a Crick tweet about it this morning. Watched by over 37 million in 1969 and never once mentioned by the BBC ! Anne and Charles being flung between ships at the moment.
Boris Johnson had almost nothing left in his armoury to combat the Covid Pandemic. He had not had a good Coronavirus crisis.He had bet the house and all that was left was one solitary blue chip, and he bet that chip on a vaccination. He won, he bet his winnings on another, he won, and another, he couldn't lose. It was probably more through, last throw of the dice luck, than judgement, but he won nonetheless.
He who dares wins, Rodney. He who dares wins.
had little to do with the government.
Bingham in the December VTF report complimented Civil Servants and Ministers for taking tough decisions at pace - so it had plenty to do with the government.
Yes, in the full interview she does spell out other key factors - such as the UK ability to recruit volunteers for the vaccine trials exceptionally quickly because of the NHS database launched early in 2020 which signed up hundreds and thousands of people, and the support and co-ordination role that her task force has played since last summer.
But this is also a direct quote: "actually, the work to scale up the manufacturing had started months before that ([the contract negotiations]), and it is that early work [in February] that was done by the industry - voluntarily, not based on contracts or requirements - but a voluntary coalition of the different companies; that is what has made ultimately the difference as to why we are so far ahead on manufacturing"
They hired tla world leading expert in pharmaceutical procurement. Even if that's the only part they played, it's an absolute blinder.
Even so, I think there was a lot of involvement and from her interview the strategy of getting people with industry links involved to get the UK "in the room" was really, really important. We were able to, as a medium sized player, get priority supply contracts signed with the same schedules as the US and much, much better than anything the EU has been able to do.
I also think ministerial sign off was one of the major advantages we had, the politicians seemed to not get in their way at all and helped where they could with fast contract signings and releasing funds before contracts were signed to get manufacturing off the ground.
It was, IMO, a best in class example of how the public and private sector can work together. That's vs PPE which is a worst in class one. The difference here is that there's no middle man for vaccines. There's no dodgy company former yesterday saying they can get 100m vaccine doses.
It goes to show that we need to work better with industry and have a strategic manufacturing reserve even if it means a higher baseline cost for some goods.
There was a recurring Yoon meme about the regional papers such as the P&J and the Courier being much better at holding the Nats to account. It has presumably crawled away to die.
Still, they have Andrew Neil and GB news in the hammer the Nats corner now
I think that is still true in general. Clegg turned from an interesting Twitter follow to an absolute SNPbad bore the moment he moved from the Record to head the Courier.
Beginning to see the issue here (h/t David Allen Green, obvs).
The issue is that as far as can be assumed, the agreement with the EU did have that best efforts clause but that related to manufacturing capacity. It likely made no mention of prioritisation of the product. It seems that AZN does have sufficient manufacturing capacity for the EU order in isolation.
Hence, the EU is behaving as though its agreement is the only one on the planet. AZN, meanwhile, probably realising that they didn't explicitly set out the allocation schedule, has said that the UK ordered first (which it did) and therefore the obligation is to the UK.
But the EU seemingly doesn't care about other contracts it cares about its own contract. AZN has the manufacturing ability hence the EU believes that as that is the only best efforts constraint, the EU should receive its full allocation.
I expect to repost this several times today so I shall label this v1.0.
But the best efforts definition used (according to DAG, in the other contract, so probably in this one too) explicitly did refer to commitments to others.
AZN's commitments to earlier contracts falls under that surely?
Well IANAL, obvs, but according to DAG that is the general description and then it is applied, specifically, to two scenarios which creates the actual obligation.
‘(i) to obtain EU marketing authorisation for the Product and (ii) to establish sufficient manufacturing capacities to enable the manufacturing and supply of the contractually agreed volumes of the Product to the participating Member States in accordance with the estimated delivery schedule set out below in Article I.11 once at least a conditional EU marketing authorisation has been granted.’
It is DAG's contention that the general description is without meaning or force unless it is further refined, as it is in 1.3 (i).
"sufficient" = "sufficient taking our other obligations into account."
DAG did a tweet in 2016 saying the NEC was going to win the challenge over eligibility to vote in the leadership elections, and (I paraphrase) "I know this because I am a Big Important Lawyer and the rest of you look like little ants to me." The NEC lost, the tweet got deleted. Ignore.
Well that is a bold claim to ignore his point. IANAL but do you/they really add phantom phrases to explicit contracts to suit their (client's) needs?
Well, you can't gloss everything in the contract. If the UK is entitled to 100 things a day and the EU also wants 100 things a day and I have one factory which can produce a maximum of 100 things a day, then on one view I have sufficient capacity to satisfy the EU and on another I haven't. So lawyers argue about which was really meant, and courts decide.
Yes absolutely - as I noted in my subsequent post. It is going to turn on exactly that.
AZN will say but we told you we would take into account other purchasers; and the EU will say we don't care about other purchasers, the "operative provision" relates only to manufacturing capacity alone.
I think it gets interesting if there is anything in the contract about where things will be manufactured - but for the moment it's an issue of "you can't have things that don't exist no matter how much you scream".
Posting this after having read last nights thread, and in defence of Kinabalu! Because what leap out, those quick to result to abuse and be rude shows a lot about the abusers and their argument really.
Hey? What are you doing down there? Have you tripped over? Here’s a hand.
this fundamental first building block to being able to coexist together. Why? Because time passes, the situation can be reversed, and remembered if the hand was there or not.
I know some of you are 100% convinced the hand wouldn’t be offered to us if the other way round. But that’s just emotional rambling not fact, so we are quite rightly not paying attention to that.
As Kin was saying, it’s a cold intellectual argument stripped of previous, present, or emotional attachments. Cashing in a bit at time of advantage, to strengthen us in those future needy moments is the difference between good government and bad government, just the same way as working for tomorrow’s headlines will eventually prove bad government. It’s simply wise to have mind to the future, today. Fix roof when sun is shining.
You can come to the same place as Kinabalu through emotional arguments as well, if you are living the Christian life for example where you never pass by on the other side of the road, even if the person in trouble is clearly of sect or Nation who slaughtered your family. Or even if the person in trouble is wealthy enough to have hired bodyguards if they weren’t so tight-fisted, so pass by because you convince yourself there are more deserving cases for your help.
Additionally, emotively, if we can transport PB back a mere 176 years, not a shred of doubt in my mind, not a boil mash or chip of doubt, the same nationalist reactionary posters on here would be posting we have legal watertight contracts on these potatoes, we are so clever to have seen the scarcity of potatoes coming and acted so wise and the quickest, and charity always begins at home.
It's a hellish decision. It is in everyone's interest for the virus to be snubbed out and if schools do spread it (no one seems to know conclusively) and they are closed, then we get nearer to that point.
Given the enormous misinformation campaign they’ve put out I’m confident the government know schools spread it.
They just don’t want to admit (a) their strategy has failed and (b) they’ve lied to everyone at every turn.
From what I've seen from dropping my kids off at primary school the risks are not on the school side. School bubbles were made, social distancing adhered to very well, staged entrance by year group.
The groups of gabbing and socialising parents however stunned me. I spent as little time as possible there but even when I turned up to drop off my youngest slightly early I was amazed to see parents queued up in wrong year groups because they had turned up 20 mins early with their only child!!!
I think I noted yesterday that primary teachers were less likely than the general population to get Covid - does that mean they get done last????? Surely the current scientific model takes into account all risks - it's not anti teacher to say this.
Anecdote, n=1 and everything else. But. Eldest Grandson is a primary school teacher. He has had several Covid-19 tests, including for antibodies, all negative. However he did have something suspiciously similar to Covid-19 at Christmas 2019. And his secondary school teacher wife has, in the last month, tested positive and indeed had enough of the symptoms. Curious.
I've found that documentary on the Royal Family. Wasn't even aware of it till I saw a Crick tweet about it this morning. Watched by over 37 million in 1969 and never once mentioned by the BBC ! Anne and Charles being flung between ships at the moment.
Posting this after having read last nights thread, and in defence of Kinabalu! Because what leap out, those quick to result to abuse and be rude shows a lot about the abusers and their argument really.
Hey? What are you doing down there? Have you tripped over? Here’s a hand.
this fundamental first building block to being able to coexist together. Why? Because time passes, the situation can be reversed, and remembered if the hand was there or not.
I know some of you are 100% convinced the hand wouldn’t be offered to us if the other way round. But that’s just emotional rambling not fact, so we are quite rightly not paying attention to that.
As Kin was saying, it’s a cold intellectual argument stripped of previous, present, or emotional attachments. Cashing in a bit at time of advantage, to strengthen us in those future needy moments is the difference between good government and bad government, just the same way as working for tomorrow’s headlines will eventually prove bad government. It’s simply wise to have mind to the future, today. Fix roof when sun is shining.
You can come to the same place as Kinabalu through emotional arguments as well, if you are living the Christian life for example where you never pass by on the other side of the road, even if the person in trouble is clearly of sect or Nation who slaughtered your family. Or even if the person in trouble is wealthy enough to have hired bodyguards if they weren’t so tight-fisted, so pass by because you convince yourself there are more deserving cases for your help.
Additionally, emotively, if we can transport PB back a mere 176 years, not a shred of doubt in my mind, not a boil mash or chip of doubt, the same nationalist reactionary posters on here would be posting we have legal watertight contracts on these potatoes, we are so clever to have seen the scarcity of potatoes coming and acted so wise and the quickest, and charity always begins at home.
The EU's attitude towards Covax shows they are not interested at all in showing the helping hand, unlike the UK. The EU is rich enough to help itself.
Boris Johnson had almost nothing left in his armoury to combat the Covid Pandemic. He had not had a good Coronavirus crisis.He had bet the house and all that was left was one solitary blue chip, and he bet that chip on a vaccination. He won, he bet his winnings on another, he won, and another, he couldn't lose. It was probably more through, last throw of the dice luck, than judgement, but he won nonetheless.
He who dares wins, Rodney. He who dares wins.
had little to do with the government.
Bingham in the December VTF report complimented Civil Servants and Ministers for taking tough decisions at pace - so it had plenty to do with the government.
Yes, in the full interview she does spell out other key factors - such as the UK ability to recruit volunteers for the vaccine trials exceptionally quickly because of the NHS database launched early in 2020 which signed up hundreds and thousands of people, and the support and co-ordination role that her task force has played since last summer.
But this is also a direct quote: "actually, the work to scale up the manufacturing had started months before that ([the contract negotiations]), and it is that early work [in February] that was done by the industry - voluntarily, not based on contracts or requirements - but a voluntary coalition of the different companies; that is what has made ultimately the difference as to why we are so far ahead on manufacturing"
Had vaccination gone wrong the government would have been widely criticised, doubly so if they tried to blame industry. To say they had no/little role isn't really a fair assessment.
For sure, in politics the government is always to blame.
It isn't yet clear how people will come to weigh the outcomes. Being a few months ahead on vaccinations is a big plus point - but on most other metrics, we're among the worst in the world (to date). And the other long-term consequences have yet to come clear.
Most people can also see that almost everything Boris has touched personally hasn't been handled well. His luck usually depends on being able to take credit for the work of others.
The EU's performance on infections and deaths from the spring onwards may well benefit - as last year - when the warm weather returns and social life in much of Europe moves outdoors once again, even if the rate of vaccination is slower than here. In 2020, from March/early April onwards the improvements in Europe were dramatic, without a single vaccination.
I wish the EU's political bureaucrats would make up their mind. Are they trying to enforce their malign interpretation of their legal contract rights in order to appropriate production of AZ jabs from UK plants, or are they trying to throw undisputed legal contract rights out of the window in order to seize Pfizer jabs destined for the UK from EU-based Pfizer plants? They seem to want both. Saying that they want to have their cake and eat it is too generous to them, because it's not even their cake.
And let's bear in mind that neither set of jabs would be there to seize in the first place if the UK had not acted many months before the EU and born the risks to get production off the ground.
They are playing politics, it is not about the law. It is pressure on the drug companies, and to show their public "something is being done". Politicians playing politics is hardly surprising, its generally bad and unhelpful as it is in this case, but if the tables were flipped our government would be doing the same.
Yes, of course they are playing politics and it's a fig leaf. That's the point - the contradiction in their positions re AZ and Pfizer exposes it very clearly. Moreover it just confirms that while they claim to be an organisation which supposedly sets such a high premium on following the legal letter of rules and treaties, in practice they drop that when it suits them to do the opposite.
So much for legal obligation, international law, treaties and all that. Let's just accept that in practice we're back to a medieval international order where outcomes depend on which party has seized the King's daughter and is holding her as hostage to good conduct.
I've found that documentary on the Royal Family. Wasn't even aware of it till I saw a Crick tweet about it this morning. Watched by over 37 million in 1969 and never once mentioned by the BBC ! Anne and Charles being flung between ships at the moment.
It featured in The Crown. The DofE's brainwave, iirc.
Comments
Ok, I do hate you slightly for being more trusted than scientists
40 kilos in 40 days it is then.
I was about 11 and we were learning about "keys", for classifying plants into species etc. The homework was to produce a certain kind of key for classifying our schoolteachers.
To get my biology teacher you had to go through the following questions:
Does he have a high-pitched voice? Yes
Is he bald? Yes
Is he fat? Yes
His response? "How dare you, boy? Detention!" (delivered, of course, in a high-pitched voice).
--AS
500 outbreaks in 6 months in all the offices in the UK, even with furlough etc, when an outbreak iirc is "2 or more cases", does not seem earth-shattering. What is that as a percentage?
Context: compare it eg with the nearly 7000 suspected / confirmed outbreaks in just care homes in 4 months March to July.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/903085/COVID19_Care_Homes_22_July.pdf
From what we do know and have seen in the past it seems likely that the EU believes it is due its delivery (regardless of price, which has not seemed a relevant factor in this particular issue) with no regard for whatever other contracts AZN has in place.
AZN, I imagine, will, as per @Ishmael_Z's post, argue that the general definition of best efforts, which includes taking into account other purchasers, is relevant and hence they are on firm ground not to fulfil the EU's order in isolation. The EU, meanwhile, might say, following DAG, that that definition, as placed, is not an "operative provision".
Good discussing all - I have stuff to do!
If you think through the implications, that finding is a point in support of the "shield the elderly, let everyone else live" argument.
For me, the lockdown argument is a finely balanced one - and I was pleased that this came out from last night's union debate (the absence of jokes and playing to the gallery actually made the online debate more mature than I remember CUS debates being when I was in the audience as a student). The deciding factor is that the NHS cannot cope with waves of younger people on ventilators, even if they are a small proportion of the total infected population and many of them survive.
He who dares wins, Rodney. He who dares wins.
https://twitter.com/ExStrategist/status/1355062175753240577?s=20
The "Vietnam" moniker stemmed from Operation Diem, the name of the police investigation into Mr Salmond.
Mr MacAskill said: "It apparently came about because the police operation against Alex Salmond was termed Diem, which is obviously the Latin for 'day'. Someone seems to have misunderstood Diem as a reference to a former president of Vietnam."
And lo, an expert came forth.
But it does put into perspective how few outbreaks there were at supermarkets, construction sites, warehouses, restaurants and cafes.
https://joinzoe.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=48d605e2453cb0ad3892e077d&id=63f7a305bf&e=ada2b5dc8d
If you read through yesterday evening's thread, you'll see that I summarised each of the six speeches live.
Spiral is great. I enjoyed the closing series, although I know others haven't. Then you can watch The Bureau, if you haven't seen it!
"when Mark Drakeford looks like a more competent leader than Starmer, you know it’s been a bad week for Labour…"
https://twitter.com/WelshGovernment/status/1354839458743513093
https://twitter.com/jillongovt/status/1355092827647201280?s=20
Restrained and few hostages to fortune - a little bit of speculation about schools' reopening aside.
This kind of zero context reporting of "facts" always drives me nuts, my personal bugbear are stories of the form "X is at the highest/lowest level for Y years", such stories are essentially meaningless, as there will always be a highest/lowest number in a set, that doesn't mean it has any significance. But groups like charities put out press releases along those lines and the press lap it up, and love to report it as though something has gone horribly wrong.
It all starts to get very messy and it's better for the government to just push capacity up to a level where it no longer matters.
26:20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RKLFuae8s8
Perhaps we're off the top?
(To explain, in Vietnamese 'Diem' is pronounced 'See em.')
I had understood it was broadly in favour of Brexit, all things considered.
Well, that's a new one on me.......
Joffre?
Spiral is good, yes. Compelling set of characters and a fascinating insight into the French judicial system if it's realistic (which I hope it isn't). Thanks for "Bureau" tip. Have quite a list of dramas to watch but there's room for another.
There are various reasons for this, see:
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canada-s-vaccine-rollout-hits-snags-despite-huge-orders-1.1551780
There again I've never understood the attraction of vacuum cleaners. Either a lot of people in A&E misunderstand how blow jobs work or I am badly missing out.
But this is also a direct quote: "actually, the work to scale up the manufacturing had started months before that ([the contract negotiations]), and it is that early work [in February] that was done by the industry - voluntarily, not based on contracts or requirements - but a voluntary coalition of the different companies; that is what has made ultimately the difference as to why we are so far ahead on manufacturing"
And let's bear in mind that neither set of jabs would be there to seize in the first place if the UK had not acted many months before the EU and born the risks to get production off the ground.
Seriously? Wowsers. 🤦🏻♂️
https://twitter.com/davieclegg/status/1355048029896601601?s=19
The groups of gabbing and socialising parents however stunned me. I spent as little time as possible there but even when I turned up to drop off my youngest slightly early I was amazed to see parents queued up in wrong year groups because they had turned up 20 mins early with their only child!!!
I think I noted yesterday that primary teachers were less likely than the general population to get Covid - does that mean they get done last????? Surely the current scientific model takes into account all risks - it's not anti teacher to say this.
Tory voters now significantly more economically left than Tory MPs and councillors and Labour voters now ssignificantly more authoritarian than Labour MPs and councillors.
That is good news for social democrats and rightwing populists, bad news for liberals and libertarians
Still, they have Andrew Neil and GB news in the hammer the Nats corner now
AZN will say but we told you we would take into account other purchasers; and the EU will say we don't care about other purchasers, the "operative provision" relates only to manufacturing capacity alone.
https://twitter.com/SJAMcBride/status/1354904294886166538
Edit - but again, I haven't even seen an attempt to evaluate the data for parents of school age children.
Anne and Charles being flung between ships at the moment.
Even so, I think there was a lot of involvement and from her interview the strategy of getting people with industry links involved to get the UK "in the room" was really, really important. We were able to, as a medium sized player, get priority supply contracts signed with the same schedules as the US and much, much better than anything the EU has been able to do.
I also think ministerial sign off was one of the major advantages we had, the politicians seemed to not get in their way at all and helped where they could with fast contract signings and releasing funds before contracts were signed to get manufacturing off the ground.
It was, IMO, a best in class example of how the public and private sector can work together. That's vs PPE which is a worst in class one. The difference here is that there's no middle man for vaccines. There's no dodgy company former yesterday saying they can get 100m vaccine doses.
It goes to show that we need to work better with industry and have a strategic manufacturing reserve even if it means a higher baseline cost for some goods.
He still has moments of honesty like this though.
Hey? What are you doing down there? Have you tripped over? Here’s a hand.
this fundamental first building block to being able to coexist together. Why? Because time passes, the situation can be reversed, and remembered if the hand was there or not.
I know some of you are 100% convinced the hand wouldn’t be offered to us if the other way round. But that’s just emotional rambling not fact, so we are quite rightly not paying attention to that.
As Kin was saying, it’s a cold intellectual argument stripped of previous, present, or emotional attachments. Cashing in a bit at time of advantage, to strengthen us in those future needy moments is the difference between good government and bad government, just the same way as working for tomorrow’s headlines will eventually prove bad government. It’s simply wise to have mind to the future, today. Fix roof when sun is shining.
You can come to the same place as Kinabalu through emotional arguments as well, if you are living the Christian life for example where you never pass by on the other side of the road, even if the person in trouble is clearly of sect or Nation who slaughtered your family. Or even if the person in trouble is wealthy enough to have hired bodyguards if they weren’t so tight-fisted, so pass by because you convince yourself there are more deserving cases for your help.
Additionally, emotively, if we can transport PB back a mere 176 years, not a shred of doubt in my mind, not a boil mash or chip of doubt, the same nationalist reactionary posters on here would be posting we have legal watertight contracts on these potatoes, we are so clever to have seen the scarcity of potatoes coming and acted so wise and the quickest, and charity always begins at home.
But.
Eldest Grandson is a primary school teacher. He has had several Covid-19 tests, including for antibodies, all negative. However he did have something suspiciously similar to Covid-19 at Christmas 2019. And his secondary school teacher wife has, in the last month, tested positive and indeed had enough of the symptoms.
Curious.
It isn't yet clear how people will come to weigh the outcomes. Being a few months ahead on vaccinations is a big plus point - but on most other metrics, we're among the worst in the world (to date). And the other long-term consequences have yet to come clear.
Most people can also see that almost everything Boris has touched personally hasn't been handled well. His luck usually depends on being able to take credit for the work of others.
The EU's performance on infections and deaths from the spring onwards may well benefit - as last year - when the warm weather returns and social life in much of Europe moves outdoors once again, even if the rate of vaccination is slower than here. In 2020, from March/early April onwards the improvements in Europe were dramatic, without a single vaccination.
So much for legal obligation, international law, treaties and all that. Let's just accept that in practice we're back to a medieval international order where outcomes depend on which party has seized the King's daughter and is holding her as hostage to good conduct.