The E.U. And AstraZeneca row.

MayBee70

Shock horror. Politicians that can admit that they’ve made a mistake. Methinks there’s a lesson to be learned here.

Yes hopefully the Chinese Government will apologise to the rest of the world for not advising them that they had discovered a deadly pandemic in Wuhan right away, rather than covering it up for at least a month!

13:05Urmstongran

That's good news ???

Firecracker123

Friday January 29 2021, 12.01am, The Times
When Boris Johnson called Kate Bingham last April and asked her to lead Britain’s vaccine task force the brief was simple: “Stop people from dying.”

Of course it was Boris and his Government who instigated this stop being so negative. Have some pride in the UK.

My pride in the UK Firecracker123 is for the people who have worked through the epidemic the NHS, the carers all denied a pay rise by this incompetent government. The volunteers who stepped up to roll out the vaccine scheme and all the workers who have kept things going. For this government which wasted bllions on inadequate PPE supplied by their mates, spent more on a Track and Trace system which didn't work. Refused to lock down when necessary, played games with the education sytem and has generally messed up at everything except paying their mates I have nothing but contempt.

Who knew you felt like that lol ?

I suppose you feel that Corbyn and his crew would have done better, or Starmer lol, well fortunately we never found out ?

Keir Starmer complains about ineffective Test and Trace, days later he is isolating for the third time after being contacted by..........Test and Trace??

I see even you can't deny what the government has done- only resort to Corbynian protests!

GG13 does one right action disprove the inadequacies of a whole system?

trisher

GG13 does one right action disprove the inadequacies of a whole system?

It is obviously working in some areas.

Oh yes Kate Bingham. I remember cronyism being bandied about when she was appointed. Even calls for her to go. What an excellent choice Boris made and what a great job she’s done.

GrannyGravy13

Keir Starmer complains about ineffective Test and Trace, days later he is isolating for the third time after being contacted by..........Test and Trace??

Well, thus far Keir hasn’t caught it himself and I don’t remember him boasting about shaking hands with COVID sufferers. Or saying he knew nothing about asymptomatic carriers several months after Dr Fauci had talked about it.

Alegrias1

Recovery rate in the UK: 97.2%

Recovery rate in the US: 98.3%

Recovery rate in France: 97.6%

Recovery rate in Spain: 97.9%

That means we're doing about as well as everybody else, maybe a bit worse.

I don't quite see how a recovery rate can be arrived at without knowing the numbers of people who were infected. And we didn't know that until early summer; after the peak death rate in April and May, when testing in any realistic numbers really got going.

I recall that we stopped testing in March because we didn't have enough tests...

And I'd really query that 'everybody else' is France, Spain and the US...

It was a stroke of luck that our gamble with ordering vaccines has paid off, and that we had someone competent to run it and that the programme is being executed by the NHS, rather than some private company.

Test and trace hasn't been a sparkling success...

I think it would be interesting to know what the people who live in Europe think, not their press, but the people like us who are possibly expressing their views on platforms similar to this.

Fair enough MaizieD. Just used the numbers off Worldometer to show that 3.9 million recovered people isn't immediate cause for celebration and we shouldn't use that figure to show any superior performance because we are doing about the same as similar countries.

Kate Bingham with her science background has been stellar in all of this. She ought to be made a Dame!

what IS happening with track and trace? is it ready yet?

Maizie. I think we also stopped testing in March because the virus was already in the community and Whitby decided testing and tracing wouldn't help.

Kate Bingham has done a much better job than any of the other Tory cronies that Boris has appointed. She is a science graduate with thirty years experience in investing in pharmaceuticals so she was able to act fast, knowing who to contact - both virologists and manufacturers of vaccine.

Crucially she made the decision to have the delivery of jabs done by local people who knew what they were doing - GPs and other NHS staff, local councils and local public health authorities, rather than farm it out to the private sector, like Dodo did with test and trace.

I was impressed with Kate Bingham when I heard her interviwed on the radio. She took exception to the suggestion that she had got the job because she was the wife of a Tory MP, saying "I am not a member of any political party and no one should assume I vote the same way as my husband !"

varian we finally agree on something!
?

Can we also agree that a lot of them have been useless then?

GrannyGravy13

trisher

GG13 does one right action disprove the inadequacies of a whole system?

It is obviously working in some areas.

Well yes it did, unfortunately no-one told the virus that it was only allowed to infect people in certain areas where test and trace was working!
blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/12/11/martin-mckee-nhs-test-and-trace-under-fire-a-system-flawed-by-design/
It cost £15.1 billion. Effectively tax payers' money handed to Boris's mates for a useless system. The public health system which already existed was ignored.

Matt Hancock has just said at the press bulletin that Test and Trace is now 95% effective. It’s taken awhile, but better late than never.

Jaxjacky

I think it would be interesting to know what the people who live in Europe think, not their press, but the people like us who are possibly expressing their views on platforms similar to this.

If I was a European I'd be a tad worried as it seems the eu are now relying on Chinese and Russian vaccines.
That's of course after the eu give those vaccines the green light ( maybe end of 2021 ?) But even if they ok the Russian one, Russia can't deliver until the 2nd quarter of this year, and then it will only be 100 mil doses.
But things are looking up. Mutti is holding a summit on the crisis next Monday you couldn't make it up, could you.

GrannyGravy13

Matt Hancock has just said at the press bulletin that Test and Trace is now 95% effective. It’s taken awhile, but better late than never.

is it only 95% effective because we are in lockdown though?

Good point Jane!