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Coronavirus

StephenH said:
For fudge sake this is not the Eurovision Song Contest.
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You know the EU have really fecked up when even the Guardian are criticising them :eek:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...france-under-pressure-to-shift-oxford-vaccine
Authorities in Germany and France are under pressure to come up with creative solutions to shift the AstraZeneca vaccine at higher speed in order to avoid a pile-up of unused doses over the coming weeks... Both countries have been slow to administer the Oxford-developed vaccine, subject to an acrimonious tug-of-war over delayed deliveries between its Swedish-British producer and the European commission in January.

The utilisation rate of the AstraZeneca jab in France stands at 24%, an official with the health ministry said on Tuesday, well below a target set at 80-85%. In Germany two-thirds of 1.4m delivered doses remained in storage on Monday.
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Like most EU countries, France has also not followed the UK in extending the gap between the first and second doses of the Covid vaccine beyond the manufacturer’s recommended period, meaning it has to keep more in reserve for early second doses.

...If Germany were to continue vaccinating people at its current pace, Die Welt newspaper calculated on Monday, the country would have piled up almost 5m unused doses by the third week of March.
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StephenH said:
you are missing the point.
It’s not a race. Until we are all tabbed we are vulnerable! Especially in a small place like Europe.
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EU needs to up its game then doesn’t it? Can only imagine the hand wringing on here if it was the other way round and the UK were so far behind the EU on this.
 
Rorschach said:
This is more individual country feckups - not the EU per se.
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I don’t get this whole brouhaha over the EU and vaccines. The EU puts its nations first and tries to help them secure vaccines. If we’d done that or the US it would be appreciated as strong popularist governance.

We clearly got our vaccine roll out right (called it in this thread when others were doubting we’d turn around the poor performance on most other Covid related things). Credit to us. That folks use this in desperation as an endorsement of Brexit just illustrates how little Brexit really delivers. That the UK didn’t need to leave the EU to go it alone on vaccines is also quite funny, when you see people (and the Sun) hanging onto this as some kind of Brexit bonus.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
SpurMeUp said:
I don’t get this whole brouhaha over the EU and vaccines. The EU puts its nations first and tries to help them secure vaccines. If we’d done that or the US it would be appreciated as strong popularist governance.

We clearly got our vaccine roll out right (called it in this thread when others were doubting we’d turn around the poor performance on most other Covid related things). Credit to us. That folks use this in desperation as an endorsement of Brexit just illustrates how little Brexit really delivers. That the UK didn’t need to leave the EU to go it alone on vaccines is also quite funny, when you see people (and the Sun) hanging onto this as some kind of Brexit bonus.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
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I haven't been paying a huge amount of attention to this but it would seem that the UK took a few calculated risks and they paid off handsomely and is now reaping the rewards. It had to really, considering the desperate position it was in with the virus. It worked out well though so fair play.

The PPE mess where countries were bidding against each other meant the only way the EU would go is sourcing vaccines as a bloc. The smaller countries would otherwise have been left by the wayside and this would have been worse. Delivery shortfalls and messaging have hampered things significantly but the confidence to catch up is there, it would seem. You are right though, it has nought to do with Brexit.
 
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Rorschach said:
I haven't been paying a huge amount of attention to this but it would seem that the UK took a few calculated risks and they paid off handsomely and is now reaping the rewards. It had to really, considering the desperate position it was in with the virus. It worked out well though so fair play.
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It’s not complex: plan and act early, and then put a competent dedicated Minister in charge. That’s what we did with vaccines and what we didn’t do with PPE, and lockdowns.

The frustrating thing is Peter Lilly - now a conservative lord - did extensive work on being prepared for a pandemic. The government got rid of his post, and when the proverbial hit the fan they didn’t get people like him involved. Instead it seemed like Mat handonhisrooster was responsible for everything. Where was the government!? Why didn’t they split up the workload and responsibilities? Was obvious at the time too.

Can’t believe how this nation has suffered through their ill preparedness and lack of agility.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
£37bn just take in that number - £37,000,000,000

The impact of NHS Test and Trace is still unclear - despite the UK government setting aside £37bn for it over two years, MPs are warning.

The Public Accounts Committee said it was set up on the basis it would help prevent future lockdowns - but since its creation there had been two more.

It said the spending was "unimaginable" and warned the taxpayer could not be treated like an "ATM machine".

But the government said the system was helping to reduce infection rates.

Baroness Dido Harding, head of the National Institute for Health Protection, which runs the system, pointed out it had been built from scratch and was now doing more tests than any other comparable country.

She said performance had been improving with more people who tested positive being reached and more of their close contacts being asked to isolate.

"It is making a real impact in breaking the chains of transmission," she added.

But the MPs' report questioned:

  • An over-reliance on consultants with some paid more than £6,600 a day
  • A failure to be ready for the surge in demand for tests seen last September
  • Never meeting its target to turn around tests done face-to-face within 24 hours
  • Contact tracers only having enough work to fill half their time even when cases were rising
  • A splurge on rapid tests with no clear evidence they will help
Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier said it was hard to point to a "measurable difference" the test-and-trace system had made.

"The promise on which this huge expense was justified - avoiding another lockdown - has been broken, twice," she said.
 
markysimmo said:
£37bn just take in that number - £37,000,000,000

The impact of NHS Test and Trace is still unclear - despite the UK government setting aside £37bn for it over two years, MPs are warning.

The Public Accounts Committee said it was set up on the basis it would help prevent future lockdowns - but since its creation there had been two more.

It said the spending was "unimaginable" and warned the taxpayer could not be treated like an "ATM machine".

But the government said the system was helping to reduce infection rates.

Baroness Dido Harding, head of the National Institute for Health Protection, which runs the system, pointed out it had been built from scratch and was now doing more tests than any other comparable country.

She said performance had been improving with more people who tested positive being reached and more of their close contacts being asked to isolate.

"It is making a real impact in breaking the chains of transmission," she added.

But the MPs' report questioned:

  • An over-reliance on consultants with some paid more than £6,600 a day
  • A failure to be ready for the surge in demand for tests seen last September
  • Never meeting its target to turn around tests done face-to-face within 24 hours
  • Contact tracers only having enough work to fill half their time even when cases were rising
  • A splurge on rapid tests with no clear evidence they will help
Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier said it was hard to point to a "measurable difference" the test-and-trace system had made.

"The promise on which this huge expense was justified - avoiding another lockdown - has been broken, twice," she said.
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The test side of it is working very well. Everyone I know who has had to test has been complimentary about it.

It's the trace side that's immoral, pointless and wasteful.
 
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