So, coronavirus...

[Openside]

The SA variant found in Surrey with people who have not travelled or knowingly met people who have.

A massive door to door testing effort is going to be started in the affected areas. T&T is supposed to be working reasonably well now - I guess we will see.

Juan, the poolboy, has gone into hiding.

He better get back to work or a hiding is exactly what he’ll get!!

[Sandstorm]

What sort of political push does he have to have had 2 jabs when aged just 46?

He’s on Maui. Teacher. Frontline worker. There’s only 130k on the island and the Hawaiian governor is on the ball.

Bugger - good for him but my mate in Birmingham is going to have to just stay home.

Thanks

Same for me, mate. No use moaning about being young.

[Sards]

Reminds me of an event I organised years ago for the Overseas Territories at the FCO. An hour before the audience arrived the couriers delivered the investment guides. We were all cooing over what a great job the designer had done - Cayman Islands illustrated with nice beaches and palm trees, Tristan da Cunha with their prized lobsters etc - when a scream came from the Falklands group... the designer had used a fucking fighter jet to promote them.

What did he want, a penguin on a barren rock?

Could have been a particularly glamorous sheep.

[fishfoodie]

Reminds me of an event I organised years ago for the Overseas Territories at the FCO. An hour before the audience arrived the couriers delivered the investment guides. We were all cooing over what a great job the designer had done - Cayman Islands illustrated with nice beaches and palm trees, Tristan da Cunha with their prized lobsters etc - when a scream came from the Falklands group... the designer had used a fucking fighter jet to promote them.

What did he want, a penguin on a barren rock?

Could have been a particularly glamorous sheep.

Miss Falklands 2020

[Saint]

So, the Russians finally have some trial data to report on Sputnik V - 92% effective. Just as well given that they've already given it to a lot of people.....

It also speaks well to the expected results of mixing different vaccines for the 2nd dose, as Sputnik V is effectively 2 different vaccines........

[Saint]

And in other news Ursula has moved on from trying to take UK vaccine stocks to trying to strengthen the UK anti-vax brigade

[Raggs]

And in other news Ursula has moved on from trying to take UK vaccine stocks to trying to strengthen the UK anti-vax brigade

?

[Lobby]

And in other news Ursula has moved on from trying to take UK vaccine stocks to trying to strengthen the UK anti-vax brigade

?

The vaccination programme in the UK has enjoyed a head start through compromising on “safety and efficacy” safeguards, the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has claimed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ine-safety

She’s not alone, and there now seems to be a concerted effort by EU ministers to claim the UK vaccination programme is unsafe. As well as earlier comments from Macron and Mark Rutte, we now have this from France's Europe minister, Clément Beaune:

The UK has taken 'a lot of risks' in its vaccine programme, Beaune told reporters:

'The British are in an extremely difficult health situation. They are taking many risks in this vaccination campaign. And I can understand it, but they are taking many risks. They have spaced – and the scientists have told us not to – they have massively spaced the two injections apart…They mainly depend on one vaccine, AstraZeneca.

[Biffer]

35,000 vaccinations recorded in Scotland yesterday. Not sure if some of that is a lag in reporting, or how much it’s the opening of mass centres in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Edinburgh NHS also saying that their numbers have been under reported for some reason, by about 25,000.

[Raggs]

And in other news Ursula has moved on from trying to take UK vaccine stocks to trying to strengthen the UK anti-vax brigade

?

The vaccination programme in the UK has enjoyed a head start through compromising on “safety and efficacy” safeguards, the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has claimed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ine-safety

Same swipe as the US took at us, before walking back if I recall.

Have to say, as they then go on to approve it, with the same trial data, it surely just makes them look slow? However, I do get your point in terms of trying to erode trust.

[GogLais]

NHS doesn't do IT does it. We received letters today telling us we could book the vaccine on-line. Yippeeee!. Well no. You select a time, go through the rest of the process asap and get told that that slot is no longer available. I had to do this three times before I succeeded, I suppose you're effectively in a booking race with other punters.
It then tells me again that my attempt has failed but it doesn't say whether it's the first or second booking that's been unsuccessful so you start again from scratch even though the first booking might be ok. I eventually ended up with a screen telling me my second jab is in Chester and an email telling me it's in Liverpool. It's so much easier to book a holiday.
In fairness the person I spoke to on 119 sorted it out quickly. However, he asked Ms GL whether she identified as female or male but not me. Funny that.

[GogLais]

What did he want, a penguin on a barren rock?

Could have been a particularly glamorous sheep.

Miss Falklands 2020

Too young.

[Saint]

And in other news Ursula has moved on from trying to take UK vaccine stocks to trying to strengthen the UK anti-vax brigade

?

The vaccination programme in the UK has enjoyed a head start through compromising on “safety and efficacy” safeguards, the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has claimed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ine-safety

She’s not alone, and there now seems to be a concerted effort by EU ministers to claim the UK vaccination programme is unsafe. As well as earlier comments from Macron and Mark Rutte, we now have this from France's Europe minister, Clément Beaune:

The UK has taken 'a lot of risks' in its vaccine programme, Beaune told reporters:

'The British are in an extremely difficult health situation. They are taking many risks in this vaccination campaign. And I can understand it, but they are taking many risks. They have spaced – and the scientists have told us not to – they have massively spaced the two injections apart…They mainly depend on one vaccine, AstraZeneca.

Hadn't seen the second quote. You have to laugh at "They mainly depend on one vaccine", as if there were a multitude of options open to us right now. We're actively jabbing 2 out of the 3 UK (and EU) approved vaccines - the only reason it's not 3 is that Moderna won't arrive in the UK till April. We'll likely have Novovax approved and be jabbing that by then, while the EU don;t even have an order for that.

I know that the French in particular have a problem with getting take-up rates up - but doing it by actively denigrating the UK is a pretty poor strategy, especially as they've actually now approved exactly the same set of vaccines

[Saint]

NHS doesn't do IT does it. We received letters today telling us we could book the vaccine on-line. Yippeeee!. Well no. You select a time, go through the rest of the process asap and get told that that slot is no longer available. I had to do this three times before I succeeded, I suppose you're effectively in a booking race with other punters.
It then tells me again that my attempt has failed but it doesn't say whether it's the first or second booking that's been unsuccessful so you start again from scratch even though the first booking might be ok. I eventually ended up with a screen telling me my second jab is in Chester and an email telling me it's in Liverpool. It's so much easier to book a holiday.
In fairness the person I spoke to on 119 sorted it out quickly. However, he asked Ms GL whether she identified as female or male but not me. Funny that.

It;s a platform that's been thrown together at short notice to support a nationwide programme when the NHS simply isn't built like that. I'm slightly surprised that they got the DNS correctly registered tbh

[GogLais]

NHS doesn't do IT does it. We received letters today telling us we could book the vaccine on-line. Yippeeee!. Well no. You select a time, go through the rest of the process asap and get told that that slot is no longer available. I had to do this three times before I succeeded, I suppose you're effectively in a booking race with other punters.
It then tells me again that my attempt has failed but it doesn't say whether it's the first or second booking that's been unsuccessful so you start again from scratch even though the first booking might be ok. I eventually ended up with a screen telling me my second jab is in Chester and an email telling me it's in Liverpool. It's so much easier to book a holiday.
In fairness the person I spoke to on 119 sorted it out quickly. However, he asked Ms GL whether she identified as female or male but not me. Funny that.

It;s a platform that's been thrown together at short notice to support a nationwide programme when the NHS simply isn't built like that. I'm slightly surprised that they got the DNS correctly registered tbh

Well yes but. I know people are under pressure but we’ve known since last March that a mass vaccination programme was almost certainly going to be needed. Some might say that we should have had a national plan for mass vaccination in place all along. Perhaps we did, I don’t know.

[tc27]

35,000 vaccinations recorded in Scotland yesterday. Not sure if some of that is a lag in reporting, or how much it’s the opening of mass centres in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Edinburgh NHS also saying that their numbers have been under reported for some reason, by about 25,000.

Looking at Scotland's numbers I am sure some reporting lag is happening but its good to get a big number - my rough estimation is that Scotland needs an average daily rate of about 30k to hit the mid February target.

[Sandstorm]

NHS doesn't do IT does it. We received letters today telling us we could book the vaccine on-line. Yippeeee!. Well no. You select a time, go through the rest of the process asap and get told that that slot is no longer available. I had to do this three times before I succeeded, I suppose you're effectively in a booking race with other punters.
It then tells me again that my attempt has failed but it doesn't say whether it's the first or second booking that's been unsuccessful so you start again from scratch even though the first booking might be ok. I eventually ended up with a screen telling me my second jab is in Chester and an email telling me it's in Liverpool. It's so much easier to book a holiday.
In fairness the person I spoke to on 119 sorted it out quickly. However, he asked Ms GL whether she identified as female or male but not me. Funny that.

It;s a platform that's been thrown together at short notice to support a nationwide programme when the NHS simply isn't built like that. I'm slightly surprised that they got the DNS correctly registered tbh

Well yes but. I know people are under pressure but we’ve known since last March that a mass vaccination programme was almost certainly going to be needed. Some might say that we should have had a national plan for mass vaccination in place all along. Perhaps we did, I don’t know.

Easyjet holidays are basically dead, should have asked Stelios to manage the jab schedule instead.

[Saint]

So, 353K doses delivered yesterday, up from 282K the week before.

7 day average is 402K per day - 2.8 million per week

[tc27]

Good news:

[SaintK]

Good news:

Is this in general or a specific one?

[tc27]

So, 353K doses delivered yesterday, up from 282K the week before.

7 day average is 402K per day - 2.8 million per week

Contrasted with a real slowdown in EU wide deliveries anticipated over the next few weeks - I wonder what the anti UK rhetoric is going to be then.

[tc27]

More info from the Oxford study.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-02-02-ox ... h-interval

Its really good news

Analyses reveal single standard dose efficacy from day 22 to day 90 post vaccination of 76% with protection not falling in this three-month period
After the second dose vaccine efficacy from two standard doses is 82.4% with the 3-month interval being used in the UK. (82.4% effective, with a 95% confidence interval of 62.7% - 91.7% at 12+ weeks)
Data supports the 4-12 week prime-boost dosing interval recommended by many global regulators
Analyses of PCR positive swabs in UK population suggests vaccine may have substantial effect on transmission of the virus with 67% reduction in positive swabs among those vaccinated

[Saint]

Lots of good news today. Really wasn't expecting the reduction in transmissibility - I was more or less resigned to this becoming background. It suggest that 2-3 years of booster vaccines (adjusted for strains) could really bring this under control

[Dinsdale Piranha]

Lots of good news today. Really wasn't expecting the reduction in transmissibility - I was more or less resigned to this becoming background. It suggest that 2-3 years of booster vaccines (adjusted for strains) could really bring this under control

The confirmed effect on transmissiblity is a massive boost. It gets the R number of the newer variants back to something manageable

[Biffer]

[Saint]

Lots of good news today. Really wasn't expecting the reduction in transmissibility - I was more or less resigned to this becoming background. It suggest that 2-3 years of booster vaccines (adjusted for strains) could really bring this under control

The confirmed effect on transmissiblity is a massive boost. It gets the R number of the newer variants back to something manageable

Yeah. The route out of this looks much more viable now. Another 6-7 months to get the adult population fully vaccinated, at 70% vaccination rate and 60%+ reduced transmission we could get the r below 1 long term.

[Raggs]

76% against symptomatic, means only 1 in 6 (if my maths is correct) will get any symptoms.

What really interested me though is the effect on long covid.

[Biffer]

[Lobby]

And yet in Europe, Germany, France and Sweden won’t use it for anyone over 65; Poland won’t use it for anyone over 60; and Italy won’t use it for anyone over 55. At their current rate of vaccination, I’m not sure they’ll actually need any AZ doses until the Autumn.

[Saint]

And yet in Europe, Germany, France and Sweden won’t use it for anyone over 65; Poland won’t use it for anyone over 60; and Italy won’t use it for anyone over 55. At their current rate of vaccination, I’m not sure they’ll actually need any AZ doses until the Autumn.

Which then leave you wondering what all the fuss was about - unless it was to divert attention from something else?

[Slick]

And yet in Europe, Germany, France and Sweden won’t use it for anyone over 65; Poland won’t use it for anyone over 60; and Italy won’t use it for anyone over 55. At their current rate of vaccination, I’m not sure they’ll actually need any AZ doses until the Autumn.

Which then leave you wondering what all the fuss was about - unless it was to divert attention from something else?

Don’t understand this

[Saint]

And yet in Europe, Germany, France and Sweden won’t use it for anyone over 65; Poland won’t use it for anyone over 60; and Italy won’t use it for anyone over 55. At their current rate of vaccination, I’m not sure they’ll actually need any AZ doses until the Autumn.

Which then leave you wondering what all the fuss was about - unless it was to divert attention from something else?

Don’t understand this

Which bit?

[Slick]

Which then leave you wondering what all the fuss was about - unless it was to divert attention from something else?

Don’t understand this

Which bit?

All of it actually, although I’m guessing Lobbys bit is about some countries not using the vaccine on older people?

[Saint]

Don’t understand this

Which bit?

All of it actually, although I’m guessing Lobbys bit is about some countries not using the vaccine on older people?

Given that they're not going to use AZ on their at risk populations, you've got to ask why all the anguish that AZ was going to fall short on their initial deliveries

[Slick]

Which bit?

All of it actually, although I’m guessing Lobbys bit is about some countries not using the vaccine on older people?

Given that they're not going to use AZ on their at risk populations, you've got to ask why all the anguish that AZ was going to fall short on their initial deliveries

Ahh, the EU? Apologies, genuinely just being daft.

[Saint]

All of it actually, although I’m guessing Lobbys bit is about some countries not using the vaccine on older people?

Given that they're not going to use AZ on their at risk populations, you've got to ask why all the anguish that AZ was going to fall short on their initial deliveries

Ahh, the EU? Apologies, genuinely just being daft.

No worries

[dpedin]

And yet in Europe, Germany, France and Sweden won’t use it for anyone over 65; Poland won’t use it for anyone over 60; and Italy won’t use it for anyone over 55. At their current rate of vaccination, I’m not sure they’ll actually need any AZ doses until the Autumn.

This is fantastic news and offers a route out of this shitstorm. However we need to be using this time to get TTT up to speed, put in place better support for those asked to isolate and properly close borders to avoid importing dodgy mutations. Whilst out track record in vaccination development and roll out - thanks to scientists and NHS - is top class out record in these other three essentials has been awful and need to radically improve. I would begin to start efforts to shift TTT to the NHS and PH experts and establish the local systems based around NHS/Councils we should have had in the first place, including sacking the failed TalkTalk CEO and Jockey Club Director Dido.

I thought the EU countries didnt say they wouldn't use it but were concerned there were only small numbers of older people involved in the stage 3 trials and were waiting for more data before sanctioning its use in older people. The UK took a calculated gamble, which based on other vaccines was a pretty good bet, in using it in older people and in extending the interval between 1st and 2nd dose to 12 weeks even though the evidence from the trials was incomplete. Our gamble has paid off and perhaps the EU and their regulators were just more risk averse in this case. However as the evidence emerges, primarily from the UK gamble, they will agree its use in older people very very soon.

[Saint]

And yet in Europe, Germany, France and Sweden won’t use it for anyone over 65; Poland won’t use it for anyone over 60; and Italy won’t use it for anyone over 55. At their current rate of vaccination, I’m not sure they’ll actually need any AZ doses until the Autumn.

This is fantastic news and offers a route out of this shitstorm. However we need to be using this time to get TTT up to speed, put in place better support for those asked to isolate and properly close borders to avoid importing dodgy mutations. Whilst out track record in vaccination development and roll out - thanks to scientists and NHS - is top class out record in these other three essentials has been awful and need to radically improve. I would begin to start efforts to shift TTT to the NHS and PH experts and establish the local systems based around NHS/Councils we should have had in the first place, including sacking the failed TalkTalk CEO and Jockey Club Director Dido.

I thought the EU countries didnt say they wouldn't use it but were concerned there were only small numbers of older people involved in the stage 3 trials and were waiting for more data before sanctioning its use in older people. The UK took a calculated gamble, which based on other vaccines was a pretty good bet, in using it in older people and in extending the interval between 1st and 2nd dose to 12 weeks even though the evidence from the trials was incomplete. Our gamble has paid off and perhaps the EU and their regulators were just more risk averse in this case. However as the evidence emerges, primarily from the UK gamble, they will agree its use in older people very very soon.

I would be fairly certain the MHRA has had access to all of the data in this study as part of their rolling review with AZ and their general partnership with Oxford for some time - hence why some decisions were made the way they were

[Raggs]

Yeah, fairly sure I read that they were assessing the data as it came in, rather than waiting for the whole study to finish. Obviously they'd still need to do stuff once the studies were done, but probably saved a huge amount of time by being on top of it the whole time.

[tc27]

I Understand TTT looks like it might be working reasonably well now (considering the billions thrown at it to be expected) I suppose the issue is how well people comply with it considering there little actual enforcement of self isolation rules. Also the massive surge in testing being carried out in Surrey is a new capability (for a non Asian nation) and a result of the UK having a massive testing capacity now.

THe EUCO's decision to prioritise process and cost over saving lives (and billions in economic activity) in approvals is simply stupid. The increasingly bizarre briefings against the UK underline this. The actual people making the decisions (MRHA and JCVI) about approvals and dosing's are not politicians making gambles but professional scientists making informed decisions..