A successful vaccine program

But I'm thinking about the actual approach to the program. Kate Bingham has played a blinder but why have we been so good at this part of the process when we were so awful at sourcing PPE, Test and Trace, Eat Out to Help out and all the other initiatives.

I think the thing that really stands out is that the task was given to the real experts to carry out. The NHS and the army. For which Kate Bingham must take the credit.

Dido Harding 'could', surely, have built on the experienced local authority tracking/tracing networks which already existed (and which have proved to be excellent when used) but completely ignored them. Was it ideology or idiocy which influenced that decision,

I wonder if Bingham learned lessons from Harding's failure?

PPE? Ignored the experts, again

Eat Out to Help Out? Probably ignoring the science, again...

I think it was the devolvement to Public Health Wales that made it work so well here Pantglas2. This type of programme isn’t ever best done remotely by governments.

On the whole I think we have done quite well here in Wales. A few mistakes but not as many as elsewhere.
I am proud of the vaccine roll out throughout the UK.

Yes, Casdon, let’s not allow political allegiances muddy the waters and give praise to ministers who got things right.

I know in Spain that many are critical of their vaccine roll out (compared to ??) - I imagine it’s universal to carp about things not done well!

Wales has done very well with Track and Trace, it was devolved to Public Health Wales, who set up local systems in each Local Authority from the beginning, and it’s worked very well. We were slow to get off the ground initially because Welsh Government (rightly) also wanted to devolve the vaccination programme to Health Boards at local level, which took longer to set up, but meant ultimately that most people have been vaccinated sooner than elsewhere in the UK. My daughter is 31, with no underlying health conditions and she’s got her first vaccination this week. One major mistake has been made here, which was not continuing the lockdown after our firebreak in the autumn - it was right to act early, but we should have continued. On the whole though, well done Wales.

I suspect most countries got some things wrong and other things right.

Here in Wales we’re doing the best on the percentage of population inoculated now but our FM was initially inclined to keep the vaccines in the freezer rather than vaccinate his people!