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Vaccine 12:37 - Apr 14 with 2975 views

Just been jabbed. Credit where its due, brilliantly organised, felt safe as anything and fingers crossed my arm doesn't fall off or I don't grow a second head. Whatever criticism you can throw their way, the government have certainly nailed this bit...

Vaccine on 16:50 - Apr 14 with 1378 views

Timefliesbyintheblue

Vaccine on 14:38 - Apr 14 by Tonytown
Or better still try not to be a cunit.

If that defines a person who lives in Cunit in Catalonia, I am afraid I can not do that. I find it such a charming place and they hold wonderful garden classes there this time of year. Not going of course owing to Covid, but so hope to be back soon. Sorry I can not oblige.

Vaccine on 17:17 - Apr 14 with 1334 views

Tonytown

Vaccine on 16:50 - Apr 14 by Timefliesbyintheblue
If that defines a person who lives in Cunit in Catalonia, I am afraid I can not do that. I find it such a charming place and they hold wonderful garden classes there this time of year. Not going of course owing to Covid, but so hope to be back soon. Sorry I can not oblige.

Or try not to be an apologist for this corrupt incompetent government full of liars.

Don’t drink in Wetherspoons as Tim Martin is gammon in human form. Give your money to other pubs instead.

Brexits not exactly going well either for those in Northern Ireland, fishermen or exporters.

It’s almost as if the people running that campaign were all a bunch of liars.

The remain side were terrible too and also told slightly lower grade lies too.

One thing binds them all of course, all high ranking Tories.

Try to do the right thing in all that you do and you’ll find yourself generally left of centre politically.

Give nurses a decent pay rise, don’t just clap them while getting your mates to benefit from Covid contracts or rushing through planning consent to save your mate £50m that would have gone to the local council to spend for the benefit of the borough.

If a labour mp had done this it would be all over the news and they would have been hounded out and rightly so.

Open your eyes

Vaccine on 17:20 - Apr 14 with 1331 views

happybeingblue

nhs were in charge of this :) not the other mob

Vaccine on 17:21 - Apr 14 with 1327 views

lowhouseblue

Vaccine on 13:25 - Apr 14 by SpruceMoose
Here he is! Weird Post Man appears again!

do you announce yourself like that in real life as well as online?

And so as the loose-bowelled pigeon of time swoops low over the unsuspecting tourist of destiny, and the flatulent skunk of fate wanders into the air-conditioning system of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show

Vaccin on 17:22 - Apr 14 with 1324 views

SpruceMoose

Vaccine on 17:21 - Apr 14 by lowhouseblue
do you announce yourself like that in real life as well as online?

With quips like that, I bet you're a hit with the old dears at the weekly Tea with Vicar session!

	Pronouns: He/Him/His. "Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country."
Poll:	Selectamod

Vaccin on 17:26 - Apr 14 with 1317 views

lowhouseblue

Vaccin on 17:22 - Apr 14 by SpruceMoose
With quips like that, I bet you're a hit with the old dears at the weekly Tea with Vicar session!

ouch. that taught me.

Vaccin on 17:47 - Apr 14 with 1300 views

SpruceMoose

Vaccin on 17:26 - Apr 14 by lowhouseblue
ouch. that taught me.

Doubt it, you never learn!

	Pronouns: He/Him/His. "Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country."
Poll:	Selectamod

Vaccine on 18:25 - Apr 14 with 1274 views

jaykay

Vaccine on 13:25 - Apr 14 by SpruceMoose
Here he is! Weird Post Man appears again!

he seems a benters with a O level in art

forensic experts say footers and spruces fingerprints were not found at the scene after the weekends rows

Vaccine on 18:39 - Apr 14 with 1266 views

Timefliesbyintheblue

Vaccine on 17:17 - Apr 14 by Tonytown

Thank you for your response; strangely enough I do get what you are saying, and if you have read my posts you will be aware that I like millions of others can not wait until there is a decent, genuine left of centre party to which we can return; I voted for Neil Kinnock, so you can imagine how loyal I can be!
I and many like me though, can not and will not stand for the rhetoric and diatribe continually churned out by some on the left who personalise everything and everybody using abusive language along the way.
The very people you are supposed to represent are some of the poorest in society but you are telling them not to drink in a Wetherspoons pub where food and drink is considerable cheaper than most other establishments. All because Tim Martin's politics are different to yours - oh and what is this gammon name calling.
I could spend hours on here bemoaning the lot of 'carers' who work in care homes, in society etc, and often for no more than minimum wage - it is an area that I have been involved in for a long time., so do not preach to me about the ills in society please - I am as aware as you are if not more so of the problems still in our society today.
My eyes have probably been open a lot longer than yours and during that time i have tried (and sometimes got it wrong) to be a decent human being - I believe the type of language you used on me is not decent and paramount to verbal bullying.
I do not post frequently, I do not have the time, but I promise you this: anything I say or post I would willingly say to the contributors face. Not all on here can say the same thing.
You have caught me on a bad day - we all have them!

Vaccine on 18:46 - Apr 14 with 1259 views

Timefliesbyintheblue

Vaccine on 18:25 - Apr 14 by jaykay
he seems a benters with a O level in art

My parents would not let me take art - they thought of it as a waste of a subject. Took TD instead. Please amend your records accordingly; thanks.
Oh and shouldn't it be 'an O'level' - guess you did not take English; I did but wish I hadn't.

Vaccine on 18:50 - Apr 14 with 1261 views

Swansea_Blue

Vaccine on 18:39 - Apr 14 by Timefliesbyintheblue

Everyone should be spoken to with consideration and respect imo, so no arguments there from me.

The rest doesn't make a lot of sense though. You seem to be implying that the views of some outspoken randoms is dictating your political preferences. That seems a bit strange imo. A poster on TWTD isn't actually representing any section of society. The politicians are though, so considering how they behave is a bit more important than worrying about views of fellow civvies.

Anyway, maybe I've jumped in and got the wrong end of the stick.

Poll:

Do you think Pert is key to all of this?

Vaccine on 19:08 - Apr 14 with 1229 views

Timefliesbyintheblue

Vaccine on 18:50 - Apr 14 by Swansea_Blue

I am trying to say that the way the left are behaving is and will stop loads of folk returning. There comes a time when bashing Johnson and the Tories has to be replaced by something positive by the opposition. Unless the infighting, bullying and harassment within the Labour party stops soon it will be too late even for the next general election.
I feel too many on here are just feeding the animal that will stop the labour party from moving forward.
There are folk on here far more knowledgeable than I am. This knowledge should be garnered and used in such a way to perhaps persuade other folk over to their way of thinking.
This thread began with someone being grateful for having the vaccine and stating that the government got it right with this. Then all hell let loose because rightly or wrongly he was praising the government for it. Whow.

Vaccine on 19:34 - Apr 14 with 1212 views

Durovigutum

Vaccine on 19:08 - Apr 14 by Timefliesbyintheblue

Sadly this left v right thing is descending further. The nice cuddly (far) lefties who care passionately about the normal people abuse Tories because "they are evil". Abuse Prince Phillip because he was an "old, privileged racist" and had "dance on Thatcher's grave" parties. When you pull them up, you get the answer "she was evil, I'm allowed to" - if you don't conform to their view therefore you are wrong. Mention that you think a man identifying as a woman shouldn't be allowed to play women's rugby or use a female changing room until they've had "the operation" and again you've put on horns and become the Devil incarnate. This drove the red wall to the Tories - most "normal" people are just right or left of centre, in England more right, the rest of the UK more left. When they see this behaviour they struggle to identify and instead see "comfort" in stuffy old white men with "traditional" values - even if they find fidelity difficult or nepotism acceptable. Who wouldn't give a job to a mate you know can do it, my car needs fixing so do I give it to Bill or someone I don't know?

Labour are two elections away from troubling the Tories. I have this debate with Labour party members frequently - they are more interested in ideological purity than on doing good for the people of the country. They are incapable of compromise. Sadly the Lib Dems were punished for niavity in coilition and therefore we have no real opposition.

TL;DR. Time flies by is right, the vast majority of normal people are struggling to comprehend the current left of politics.

Vaccine on 20:55 - Apr 14 with 1181 views

Lord_Lucan

Vaccine on 17:20 - Apr 14 by happybeingblue
nhs were in charge of this :) not the other mob

At the risk of upsetting you what you are saying is not correct.

The NHS are part of the rollout machine but they were not responsible for the vaccine deals or availability.

There are many reasons why UK has performed outstandingly, not least because UK actually went on a war footing and just went out and secured vaccines at any cost to secure speedy supply rather than others (notably EU) who were bogged down in trying to save 10p a jab.

If you really want a good analysis and I recommend everyone to read this, it is a report from the BMJ and it details things that were going on before we even knew about COVID-19

The UK became the first country in the world to approve a covid-19 vaccine for emergency use in early December. But the groundwork was laid nearly a year earlier, when the Department of Health and Social Care reportedly began planning a mass vaccination programme before confirmation of the first covid-19 case in the UK

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n421

	“Hello, I'm your MP. Actually I'm not. I'm your candidate. Gosh.” Boris Johnson canvassing in Henley, 2005.
Poll:	How will you be celebrating Prince Phils life today

Vaccine on 21:02 - Apr 14 with 1176 views

Churchman

Vaccine on 18:25 - Apr 14 by jaykay
he seems a benters with a O level in art

What’s wrong with O Level Art exactly? I took it. And A Level Art too. It’s a great subject.

You can learn a lot from art. If you for example, look at a Vermeer it will tell you all about his world. Same with say a Pre-Raphaelite painting. All you need to know about the Victorians. I recommend for a start The Hireling Shepherd by William Holman Hunt.

Vaccine on 21:15 - Apr 14 with 1159 views

Seablu

Vaccine on 13:23 - Apr 14 by Timefliesbyintheblue

I am pleased waveneyblue that you had a good vaccine experience, so many of us have.
Please remember though - if it doesn't work, goes wrong, or is worse than other countries, it is the governments fault; or according to several on here, specifically Boris Johnson is to blame.
If it works well, is correct and better than most other countries, then it is down to anyone other than the government or specifically Boris Johnson.
This is on any subject and not just covid related. Oh and any bad news especially that in The Guardian will always be true; but any good news wherever it may be will always be incorrect.
Finally, do not drink at a local Wetherspoons, admit to have voted Brexit and certainly never admit that you voted Conservative.

Thanks for doing that.
It worked like right wing flypaper, just as planned.
Good to be able to update the list of undesirables.
And, of course, thanks in advance to ‘witchdoctor’ for your muted disapproval.
You’re the barometer to ensuring the right people will get breathlessly pink and angry.

Vaccine on 21:34 - Apr 14 with 1138 views

jeera

Vaccine on 13:26 - Apr 14 by Swansea_Blue

For the implementation yes, full credit to the NHS. Hatt Mancock deserves credit though for spread-ordering across all the vaccines early on in the pandemic. It's largely as a result of his early work that we have the vaccines to roll out.

We got off to a great start. Others are catching up now though (and we need them to). India had administered over 100 million vaccines so far, nearly 2.5x as us but obviously to a much smaller percentage of their population.

Wasn't that really down to Vallance and his 'taskforce'?

Poll:

Xmas dinner: Yorkshires or not?

Vaccine on 21:46 - Apr 14 with 1117 views

GlasgowBlue

Vaccine on 13:20 - Apr 14 by HARRY10

What the givernment actually did

"Dido Harding’s test and trace system has swallowed up “unimaginable” amounts of taxpayers’ money with no evidence of any measurable difference on the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, a scathing report by a Westminster spending watchdog has found."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-test-trace-dido-hardi

"Despite its £23bn budget in its first year of operation, test and trace failed in its task of preventing the second and third lockdowns, found the cross-party House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. "

I wonder if we will see those figures on the side of a bus ?

For people who are interested in the facts rather than engaging in tribal political point scoring, then this is a good read.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/secrets-of-the-vaccine-taskforces-success

And if you can’t get past paywall.....

Secrets of the Vaccine Taskforce’s success

Until a few weeks ago, the government’s track record on Covid was one of repeated failure. The death toll, the depth of the recession, the public disapproval of the government: Britain’s figures were among the worst in the world. But with vaccines, things have changed. The UK is now on track to be the first major country in the world to vaccinate its way out of lockdown.

The foreign press coverage has turned from mockery to awe, with Britain having vaccinated more people than France, Germany, Italy and Spain put together. Many of those behind this success are virtually unknown to the public. Their story matters, because the Vaccine Taskforce is already being looked to by ministers as a model for how government should work once the pandemic is over.

Its success starts with a failure: the debacle over PPE. When the virus started, Britain was supposed to unlock the reserves of plastic gloves and gowns prepared for a pandemic by Public Health England. Instead, the fiasco that followed saw the government fleeced by private consultants as countries across the world scrabbled for supply and contracts became meaningless. It was a model of what not to do.

Tensions across government ran high – with Downing Street blaming the Department of Health for the debacle. ‘It was a sh1tshow,’ said a No. 10 aide reflecting on that period. Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, concluded that the search for a vaccine would require a new approach – picking a team of outsiders with heft and expertise.

At first, vaccines were seen as a remote possibility – officials pointed out the millions spent in vain on finding a jab for HIV. ‘It was viewed as one of several work-streams,’ says a government aide who was working in No. 10 at the time. ‘The Prime Minister’s main concern was avoiding another lockdown by whatever means available. Which didn’t work.’

Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, was more optimistic. The example he brought up, however, was the ending of the pandemic film Contagion, where a vaccine is eventually found but there is a scramble to buy it. A reminder, he said, of the need to prepare.

At the time, scientists at Oxford University were working on a vaccine for Mers, an earlier coronavirus. They switched to Covid-19 in early February and looked for a commercial partner: a deal was almost signed with Merck, a US giant, until the small print came up. ‘We needed a cast-iron pledge that they’d supply us exclusively first, but it said “best efforts”,’ says one minister. The fear, then, was that America would ban vaccine exports.

When AstraZeneca came along, the first contract was not good enough – Hancock passed a draft to Downing Street, and Sir Patrick and No. 10 aides spotted a supply problem. It did not give the UK the rights to the vaccine that it now enjoys. They came up with the idea to pay for almost all manufacturing costs in return for secure supply in a British plant. ‘Vallance was hammering the point about onshore manufacturing from early on,’ says an official. ‘He was responsible for that Oxford deal.’

Sir Patrick — backed by Dominic Cummings — went to the Prime Minister and said that a vaccine tsar should be appointed so as to avoid repeating old mistakes. The Chancellor agreed — as a former investor with portfolio he believed a hawkish approach on contracts was necessary, even if it carried risk levels that led Treasury officials to describe it as 'an extremely unusual programme'. ‘They needed someone with immense private expertise – a dealmaker,’ says an aide.

In many ways, Kate Bingham was an obvious choice. An established venture capitalist, she has spent her career investing in pharma companies. But her appointment also led to charges of cronyism: she’s married to Jesse Norman, a Treasury minister, and was at school with Rachel Johnson, the Prime Minister’s sister. ‘Boris picked Kate,’ says one minister. ‘It was his big contribution.’ Given 24 hours to consider, she hesitated on the grounds that she had more expertise in therapeutics than vaccines. But she accepted. The post was unpaid.

Others on the taskforce had already been picked by Sir Patrick – who thought that either vaccines or therapeutics would come off, so it was best to bet big on both. He worried about how little anyone in government knew about vaccines: without importing expertise he feared they were doomed to fail. ‘The briefing notes the civil servants were sending in had basic errors in them,’ says one minister. ‘It was shocking.’ Ian McCubbin, a GlaxoSmithKline veteran, was the first to be hired. He was asked how, if the Oxford vaccine worked, it could be mass-produced.

The Oxford Biomedica plant, where the AZ vaccine is now being made, was identified by the Business department. ‘We effectively commandeered the manufacturing plant,’ says a minister. The big concern was about the ‘fill and finish’ part of the vaccine process, where drugs are put into a vial. An order was quickly put in for Wockhardt Ltd in Wrexham, which was booked for 18 months. (One of the Prime Minister’s jokes is that it is so-named because they like to work hard.) It is now churning out Oxford vials.

The other mainstay of the Vaccine Taskforce was Nick Elliott, a former army bomb disposal engineer who worked on the railways before specialising in defence procurement. His brief was to ‘make things happen’ – specifically negotiating and delivering contracts. Then came Clive Dix, a Brummie pharmaceuticals chief exec who had known Bingham professionally for years. There were civil servants too. One was Ruth Todd, seconded from the Submarine Delivery Agency. She came up with the idea of codenames for the vaccines, in case any official documents leaked and worldwide competitors would know which vaccines Britain was eyeing. Most members of the taskforce never physically met Bingham, with meetings conducted online.

The UK could not rely on one vaccine coming through. Bingham shortened the 120-odd vaccine candidates to a 23-strong shortlist. Orders were placed for seven vaccines in total, of which three have already been approved, with another three expected. (Sanofi, the French offering, looks like it might fail.) A crunch moment came when Clive Dix chose to prioritise Pfizer over Moderna, whose officials had made headway with the government before Bingham started. The bet was that, for all Moderna’s promise, it would arrive later. So it was to prove: the first orders of Pfizer arrived in December. Moderna is not due until the spring.

There were also tensions over the numbers, with Hancock worried that Bingham only wanted to vaccinate half of the population deemed to be ‘at risk’. He upped the order (which now stands at over 400 million doses for a UK population of 67 million). The plan was always to donate spares to the developing world.

Rolling out the vaccines needed military precision – and the military. Soldiers from 101 Logistic Brigade, under the command of Brigadier Phil Prosser, had been embedded in the NHS since the PPE debacle. ‘They used the same principles of logistics that they did in Afghanistan or Iraq,’ says one official. ‘To them, there is no such thing as “Can’t do it”.’

But there were still several near-misses. One came during the port closures following the French response to the Kent strain of Covid. Lorries were stuck on motorways and among them a delivery of Pfizer vaccines that, once loaded, had to be used within ten days. Ruth Todd didn’t sleep for 36 hours as she came up with contingency plans, including an RAF airlift. ‘We got it from Belgium through France, through the tunnel, into the UK, into our warehouse, in the middle of 3,000 lorries being stuck,’ says one involved.

Once the vaccines were ready to go and be distributed to hospitals and care homes, a plan was needed to ensure that this was done speedily – by bringing in the private sector. As Pfizer’s vaccine needs to be transported at temperatures below freezing, a decision was made not to rely on PHE logistics but to go to companies already used to cold-chain medicine – the distribution arms of Boots and Superdrug. One minister describes it as ‘the best decision we made’.

Though Bingham’s gambles were paying off, she started to become the subject of negative press, with a piece in the Sunday Times saying she had spent £670,000 on PR consultants. Some suspected the briefings were from government departments jealous of her profile. Aides deny it. But when she left the Vaccine Taskforce at the end of December without staying on as an adviser, some thought it a result of her treatment. She has now returned to her investment fund.

The story is not over – and it won’t be a true success story until the vaccines issued are proven to work as advertised. If they do, Covid hospital deaths are projected to be 85 per cent lower than they otherwise would be.

But in terms of how things operated, the Vaccine Taskforce is being seen inside government as exemplary. ‘It makes us ask: is it possible to get things done at this speed and with this competence outside of a pandemic?’ says one minister. An unpublished Treasury report on the process is understood to describe it as a blueprint for an industrial strategy in the future.

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Vaccine on 21:46 - Apr 14 with 1117 views

Lord_Lucan

Vaccine on 21:34 - Apr 14 by jeera
Wasn't that really down to Vallance and his 'taskforce'?

Apparently Handcock ignored his recommended limits and as Del Boy said, he went - into "Buy, buy, buy" mode.

	“Hello, I'm your MP. Actually I'm not. I'm your candidate. Gosh.” Boris Johnson canvassing in Henley, 2005.
Poll:	How will you be celebrating Prince Phils life today

Vaccine on 21:54 - Apr 14 with 1106 views

jeera

Vaccine on 21:46 - Apr 14 by Lord_Lucan
Apparently Handcock ignored his recommended limits and as Del Boy said, he went - into "Buy, buy, buy" mode.

Quite. Like the two million antibody tests from China that had to be binned.

It was a scattergun approach but as you say, something got done right in there somewhere.

Even if it was by accident.

Cummings couldn't wait to pounce on this, even if he is a horrible weasel himself, he did publically dismiss Hancock as incompetent.

Poll:

Xmas dinner: Yorkshires or not?

Vaccine on 23:02 - Apr 14 with 1079 views

Lord_Lucan

Vaccine on 21:54 - Apr 14 by jeera
Quite. Like the two million antibody tests from China that had to be binned. It was a scattergun approach but as you say, something got done right in there somewhere. Even if it was by accident. Cummings couldn't wait to pounce on this, even if he is a horrible weasel himself, he did publically dismiss Hancock as incompetent.

I'm not aware of the 2m antibody tests.

Where and when were they procured?

More importantly - where is one to test them before they are shipped to UK?

	“Hello, I'm your MP. Actually I'm not. I'm your candidate. Gosh.” Boris Johnson canvassing in Henley, 2005.
Poll:	How will you be celebrating Prince Phils life today

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