All eyes now turn to Brexit.

Urmstongran

Thank you LauraNorder for pointing out to MaizieD that I did indeed ‘cut & paste’ an article. I did attribute it correctly. My iPad played up last night for which I apologised for its bitty presentation.

Not long now till we Brexit.
??

I knew you'd cut and pasted it, Ug. I did read some of it to see if you'd acknowledged its source (because it's not something you usually do). So great c & P skills, Ug. Congratulations.

09:59biba70You can't blame the Germans and the EU for being annoyed- at this particular point in time- with all the Brexit lies and mess and International Law Breaking in the background- and perhaps the reason the Continental Press, and friends and neighbours here- say, ah well- if they want to be the guinea-pigs. let them. Politicising this by the Government and the 3 above in particular, was NOT wise in the circumstances.



Ha ha ha sounds like sore grapes to me. How petty.

Its about time now without the shackles of the EU we can blow our own trumpet. ??????

Thank you LauraNorder for pointing out to MaizieD that I did indeed ‘cut & paste’ an article. I did attribute it correctly. My iPad played up last night for which I apologised for its bitty presentation.

Not long now till we Brexit.
??

Urmstongran

I think our sovereign nation will prove that small can be nimble. Decisions don’t have to be ratified 27 times and translated into umpteen languages first.

As Professor Van Tam said this morning he’s very proud of the way we can do things in the UK.
❤️

???

I think our sovereign nation will prove that small can be nimble. Decisions don’t have to be ratified 27 times and translated into umpteen languages first.

As Professor Van Tam said this morning he’s very proud of the way we can do things in the UK.
❤️

I wasn't surprised when I heard that it's thanks to Brexit that the UK will be the first to start the vaccination programme; anything to justify our departure, it seems.

We also had this from Alok Sharma: ”In years to come, we will remember this moment as the day the UK led humanity's charge against this disease”. Still the obsession with wanting to be world-beating. Jonathan Van-Tam, on the other hand, in a recent briefing recognized the international efforts behind the development of the vaccines.

I am full of admiration for all the scientists regardless of nationality and I am truly grateful that they have given us a defense against the virus. It does show us what we can achieve when we work together.

JenniferEccles

Exactly GG13 !

The fact remains, as we have learned, that we will be the first European country to start our vaccination programme, getting off to a flying start next week.

Meanwhile EU countries have at least another month to wait.

For goodness sake put politics aside for once and rejoice that fact.

Sorry I’d love to but it was a brexiteer on the vaccination thread who first mentioned it and then the “Boris played a blinder’ comment. Who was that I wonder ?

So don't accuse us of politicising !

And then Gavin Willimson - it's like a Kindergarten out there- and at the worst possible moment in negotiations- what stupid comments

''The UK has become the first country in the world to approve the coronavirus vaccine “because we’re a much better country,” according to the Education Secretary.

Gavin Williamson was asked by LBC news whether Brexit helped the UK secure the Covid-19 vaccine first, a claim denied by the UK’s own medicines regulator, the MHRA.

“Well, I just reckon we’ve got the very best people in this country and we’ve obviously got the best medical regulators,” he said.

“Much better than the French have, much better than the Belgians have, much better than the Americans have.

“That doesn’t surprise me at all because we’re a much better country than every single one of them, aren’t we?”

GrannyGravy13

The UK has acted independently to secure a contract with Pfizer for the vaccine.

The EU are still prevaricating and are not meeting until the end of December.

I couldn’t give a flying fig whether it has been done under EU law or UK law!!! I am just extremely pleased that the long and logistically challenged roll-out of the vaccination program can begin next week.

We all are.

BUT we don’t like lies do we?

JenniferEccles 'For goodness sake put politics aside for once and rejoice that fact.'

yes, such a shame Hancock, Dorries and Rees-Mogg jumped on the opportunity to make this political - in such a way that it bit them back hard as they were shown to lie, again- for their own political ends.

You can't blame the Germans and the EU for being annoyed- at this particular point in time- with all the Brexit lies and mess and International Law Breaking in the background- and perhaps the reason the Continental Press, and friends and neighbours here- say, ah well- if they want to be the guinea-pigs. let them. Politicising this by the Government and the 3 above in particular, was NOT wise in the circumstances.

David0205

“ For goodness sake put politics aside for once and rejoice that fact.”

Covid is VERY political

As the full economic impact of Covid-19 becomes apparent in the new year the handling of the Coronavirus crisis will make it even more political.

“ For goodness sake put politics aside for once and rejoice that fact.”

Covid is VERY political

It’s probably a good move to get in first with orders before 1st Jan, we are still in the free market and there are no barriers to stop the deal. A very good strategic move.
After that there just might be an EU preference bias, in a few weeks other vaccines will be available including our own Oxford vaccine.

Exactly GG13 !

The fact remains, as we have learned, that we will be the first European country to start our vaccination programme, getting off to a flying start next week.

Meanwhile EU countries have at least another month to wait.

For goodness sake put politics aside for once and rejoice that fact.

The UK has acted independently to secure a contract with Pfizer for the vaccine.

The EU are still prevaricating and are not meeting until the end of December.

I couldn’t give a flying fig whether it has been done under EU law or UK law!!! I am just extremely pleased that the long and logistically challenged roll-out of the vaccination program can begin next week.

JenniferEccles

It sounds as if we owe Boris a huge round of applause for ensuring that we are at least a month ahead of other European countries.

He hinted at something during his press conference earlier, following a question from a journalist, but was careful to appear modest.

Well done PM.

“ We have been able to authorize the supply of this vaccine using provisions under European law, which exist until the 1st of January.
So I hope that clarifies the point about the European relationship."

Dr June Raine CEO UK MHRA.”

Curlywhirly

Well said Whitewavemark2 thanks for the clarification.

?the moral is -

Never ever trust a Tory Minister. Always check

Well said Whitewavemark2 thanks for the clarification.

ug Johnson’s refusal to join forces with the EU in the purchase of vaccine is both shortsighted by Johnson and wrong on your part to suggest that he stole a March in doing so.

Independent Medicine regulation is not prevented by EU regulation. As we have already seen.

But the big issue is that by refusing to become part of the buying consortium, the U.K. has missed out both on the economy of scale, this will have brought us - a prudent necessity in this economic crises, and insurance of supply.

A poor decision, and one that I fervently hope is not made poorer by the end of December. I assume and hope the government is making a mad scramble before the end of December to purchase sufficient vaccine for the U.K. population so that supply is not interrupted by such a little thing as trade agreement etc.

The moral of this latest pack of MPs being “economical with the truth” is that

You should never trust anything this government says before first checking the FACTS.

Treat this government as you do Trump, assume it is all lies and hyperbole, the look for the truth.

FACT CHECK from the BBC.

The EU - through the European Medicines Agency (EMA) - has yet to approve a coronavirus vaccine.

But the idea that Brexit enabled the UK to press ahead and authorise one is not right.

It was actually permitted under EU law, a point made by the head of the UK's medicines regulator on Wednesday.

Under European law a vaccine must be authorised by the EMA, but individual countries can use an emergency procedure that allows them to distribute a vaccine for temporary use in their domestic market.

Britain is still subject to those EU rules during the post-Brexit transition period which runs until the end of the year.

The UK's own medicines regulator, the MHRA, confirmed this in a statement last month.

The fact checker goes on in more detail, and can be found on the BBC news site if anyone is interested.

FACT CHECK to settle the argument, that Brexit has speeded up the U.K. vaccine authorisation.

(This government needs watching as closely as Trump)

But it’s not correct. Here’s why.

Today’s decision comes from the UK’s independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). It’s long worked in tandem with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) deciding which drugs are safe for use.

When we were part of the EU, the EMA had areas of jurisdiction that meant only it could make decisions about certain types of medicine, including vaccines. National regulators like the MHRA couldn’t get involved.

When the UK left the EU on 31 January this year, we entered the “transition period”, which means the European regulations we adopted during our time in the trade bloc are still in effect until the end of 2020.

That includes the rule that says vaccines generally must be authorised by the EMA instead of national regulators.

So even if we were still a member of the EU, the UK regulator would have been able to take this decision on its own because EU law already allows it. Incidentally, that legislation took effect in the UK in 2012, long before Brexit was on the cards.

Asked whether Brexit had sped up the process, the head of the MHRA, Dr June Raine, said today: “We have been able to authorise the supply of the vaccine using provisions under European law which exist until 1 January.”

She added that the regulator’s “speed or our progress has been totally dependent on the availability of data in our rolling review, and the rigorous assessment and independent advice we have received”.

What about that new legislation Matt Hancock mentioned?

In October 2020, the government announced it would amend regulation 174 of the Human Medicines Regulations (the same piece of EU-derived law discussed today).

But, as the government’s own consultation document set out, the amendments would only “clarify” the situation because the existing law was already adequate for coronavirus vaccines.

Here’s what the government said: “If the need arises, regulation 174, in its present form, could be used to authorise nationwide distribution and supply of an unlicensed COVID-19 vaccine (or treatment) in the UK, as well as other potential products.

In practice, this means that, if a suitable COVID-19 vaccine candidate – with strong supporting evidence of safety, quality and efficacy – became available before the end of the transition period but it had not yet been licensed by the European Medicines Agency, regulation 174 could be used to enable temporary UK-only deployment.”

As I'm sure we're all aware, the first people to receive the vaccine are the elderly living in care homes and their carers.

BBC fact checker at lunchtime was unable to find out the numbers of people living in care homes but he did find out that there are around 380,000 carers (it could have been 350,000 but I don't remember exactly) Anyway, we are getting 800,000 vaccines - enough for 400,000 people, so please do the maths.

The PM said that the govt hoped to get several million vaccines before the end of the year but warned people not to get their hopes up about a quick roll out. The govt doesn't have a time table for the roll out of the first batch.

s we know, this PM is prone to exageration.

Maizie, Urms attributed her post to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. It was a good article which I hadn’t seen and found interesting. So as I said, good post Urms.