UKH

I'd like to know why we're looking for people to carry out vaccinations and places for this to happen.

We were told they were working on a vaccine months ago, we knew one was on the way, surely it should have been planned for and all we should have been waiting for was the vaccine itself to be manufactured.

Why have we had to wait to have the vaccine to then START looking for people and places to get it administered?

3+ hours of form filling to  register to help, should have ALL been sorted months ago, not something Boris can tell us he's going to sort out a couple of days ago!! FFS

I say that they were also running short of the bottle to hold the vaccine, a rhetorical question I know, but are we recycling? And again, should we not have realise the need for these bottles?

Best not mention the unfinished lorry park on the M20 then.

They've only had 4 years to build it befor B****t kicked in. Apparently delayed due to the weather!!!!!!!!!

TBH the list of government cock-ups is endless 

Not endless, more like a list on a Möbius strip.

Agree, but isn't this just another example of the way the present crew of well educated leaders of our country have acted throughout the pandemic?

All the way from announcing the first lockdown late to telling us last Sunday schools are safe to closing them on Monday because they help to spread the disease.

Come the next election I hope Johnson(if he is still in charge) and friends are judged on their past performance. However, it is probably going to be more like big business where the performance is total rubbish but the senior bosses get a bonus.

Dave

There are loads of venues used for blood donation that I imagine are being used for sweet Fanny Adams else at the moment. 

Pharmacists regularly administer the annual flu shots, but have been left out of the discussion. Similar story at the start of the pandemic. Some labs were overloaded, but veterinary and university labs were saying 'use us', to little effect.

I think it is easy to criticize, with the benefit of hindsight, events that developed quickly. But, as mentioned, some of these problems have been on the horizon for a while. Other points can be made public domain, to take some of the bumbling Borris guess work out of the equation. If daily infections hit X, then we close non essential shops. If they hit Y, then we close schools.

I was reading that prisoners who are being released, have a special phone number to call, so they can get benefits sorted quickly. This is to help prevent re-offending. They are sat in jail, with a known release date, and lots of time on their hands. You'd have thought that it was standard practice in normal times, to sort benefits before release.

https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/universal-credit-dwp-national-benefits-phone-li...

Gandhi (or was it Churchill?) once wrote, in a different context, something that seems appropriate now.

They all drowned when the air turned blue
'Cos we didn't give a toss
Filthy lucre, ain't nothing new
But we all get cash from the chaos

Sorry not having a pop at you, however its this attitude that will guarantee our failure to do this efficiently and quickly. Those types of premises,  and things like GP surgeries are absolutely unsuitable for the vast throughput needed. Conversely we have loads of buildings,  Arts Centres, Stadia, and the like not being used with parking, public access and space to deal with thousands. 

How much more serious does all this need to be before those leading the delivery wake up?

Advice from Government....it's imperative after the first vaccine you have the 2nd one....

A friend of mine spent all day ringing 250 people to cancel this 2nd vaccine on a directive from HMG.

She thinks the Government is incompetent.

It's a global issue - as I understand it, it's a special type of glass made by specialist manufacturers, who have been desperately trying to ramp up production for some time, but it's not easy to expand facilities with new furnaces etc. on an industrial scale.

The German company (Schott) who makes most of them held back on delivering to the pharma companies until they had approval for their vaccines, so we did actually get a jump on other countries by being the first to approve and get stocks sent to our approved supplier.

I imagine recycling would take the manufacturers longer than making new ones, and re-use would require a brand new industrial process to ensure they were up to spec for the job.

We did have one manufacturer in the UK who could have made them apparently, but they closed back in 2007 (J A Jobling).

Actually, an AZ friend of mine had identified this as a rate-limiting step way back in the summer.  As I understood it, there was an issue with the global capacity to make the vials.

Which I'd say is one of the issues with relying on private supply lines. If we had public sector suppliers of critical components for public health, it would be much easier to just throw central government resource at a "war time" effort to expand the facilities.

UK gov does seem to be moving in that direction, with the commissioning of a dedicated vaccine manufacturing centre for the UK in 2018, that I imagine they are now trying to speed up opening.

https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/projects/vaccines-manufacturing-o...

There's a strong argument for utilising both types of venue (as opposed to only huge or local), given the high prevalence it's essential to keep local walk-to options available both for convenience and to minimise additional mixing on public transport. Millions don't have access to a car.

I'm not sure where the choke is currently: staffing/training, location availability/development or supply/logistics. The only potentially forgivable one on that list is supply rate, this has been looming for months.

jk

The problem at the moment is certainty & volume of supply. Today and tomorrow we are taking delivery of 6000 vaccines. By my rough maths we need about 7500 per week for the next 6 weeks to hit Boris' deadline, so that's not too bad.

At this point (Weds lunch) we have no confirmed dates, times or volumes for delivery next week. We know more will come, but not exactly when. Given the vaccine has a life of 3.5days, this makes staff planning really tricky. Do we cancel patient appointments next week so staff are available? We can't call on staff from other places (eg pharmacies) without confirmed dates.

I'm sure centrally they are doing things as fast as possible and not willfully keeping people in the dark, but at present workforce and estates aren't the limiting factors.

The contract for manufacturing the glass vials to store the vaccine is, was awarded to Matt Hancock's neighbour and friend.  Said neighbour and friend ran a company producing cups and take away boxes for the catering industry.  He now supplies medical quality glass vials.  

Yes, a whole host of suggestions in this paper from the Adam Smith Institute: https://www.adamsmith.org/news/vaccination-acceleration-worth-a-shot

It was said on Newsnight the other night that the only thing limiting the vaccination rate would be supply of the vaccine. We shall see.

Do you have a link for this?

And don't forget the Pfizer vaccine needs to be stored at -70c, something that wasn't known early in the game . Not many places have facilities for that, which is a complicating factor you might wish to bear in mind.

Sum it up quite well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE4lpSFNFUE&fbclid=IwAR0xGnRRa4kJuYhzeL...

Is this it?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/matt-hancocks-neighbour-won-30m-deal-to-...

I'm not sure - can't read the whole thing due to paywall

Yes but we now have the Oxford Vaccine, and they're looking for people to administer it, to volunteer, you need to fill in umpteen documents on line many of which might be considered irrelevant. The PM said yesterday, that he was going to look into this and get rid of the red tape. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE IN MAY when we knew we were at some point going to have to vaccinate the whole country.

How do you excuse this? Why does it need Boris to "sort" this out, now, at this late stage?

I'm sure they're not,(doing things as fast as possible) otherwise why are they asking for volunteers, why now, and why are the volunteers giving up because the process is too long winded?

If this isn't true, why is Boris, going to fix it?

Because Boris only deals with what's inescapable and immediate.  He didn't believe he'd win the Brexit referendum and so was completely unprepared for the consequences.  He didn't really understand the details of the withdrawal agreement and so didn't seriously prepare for the consequences - but also never really believed there would be no deal, and so didn't prepare for that either.  He didn't believe there would be a vaccine that worked, at least not for another year, but then he didn't seriously believe there would be a second wave, let alone a third.

Boris is an opportunist who lives in the moment.  He says the first thing that comes into his head, especially under pressure, even if it's an obvious lie (although I'm not sure he truly believes what he says is untrue because he has rarely bothered to educate himself as to what the truth is, especially if it's complicated, which it generally is). 

Not many places need those facilities if we get the downstream logistics right.

jk

One vaccine is £33 a shot...the other is £6.

Can't see the £33 being used much after the first batch....

sure: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/26/matt-hancock-former-neighbour...

I don't suppose UK info is very different to US info.

https://www.pfizer.com/news/hot-topics/covid_19_vaccine_u_s_distribution_fa...

- Ultra-low-temperature freezers, which are commercially available and can extend shelf life for up to six months.

- The Pfizer thermal shippers, in which doses will arrive, that can be used as temporary storage units by refilling with dry ice every five days for up to 30 days of storage.

- Refrigeration units that are commonly available in hospitals. The vaccine can be stored for five days at refrigerated 2-8°C conditions.

The storage requirements aren't very onerous, have been public knowledge for weeks and will have been known during clinical trials months ago. 

It's supposed to be in people's arms as soon as possible so a dry ice top up of the shipper may not even be necessary and certainly not for thirty days.

Given the set-up performance in Parliament today with Liam Fox and Boris I can only think part of the game is to exaggerate state bureaucracy as part of the planned chipping away at what most people regard as appropriate state regulation. Who needs goodness knows who filling in forms when Pharmacists are professionals who are 'oven ready' for giving such injections.

I suspect you are massively underestimating the complexity of flying over 60 million doses of the vaccine, which then has strict criteria regarding how long it can be stored at specific temperatures, while being distributed to tens of thousands of vaccination centres across the country, for delivery by 10s of thousands of volunteers who have to be trained. And the law had to be changed to allow non-medical professionals to administer the vaccine. No doubt anyone competent could sort it out in a couple of hours

Sorry but I thought we did know this right from the beginning? I accept that is a complication and will mean there is a limit to how much of that vaccine can be used. I still see precious little evidence that knowing that constraint existed, we prepared to overcome it.

However the Oxford vaccine, supposedly the one we really set our hopes on does not need such storage. Again, we have known this all along and yet still our plan is only just developing? Poor, IMHO.

Agree with JKs view that there is a place for some smaller walk in type facilities however they will not bring us anywhere near 2m doses a week.

The goodness knows who were , ex-health professions like nurses and doctors. They've been asked to sign up, so I imagine there's a need.

I can.

We're haemorrhaging billions per week in borrowing and lost productivity, every day we delay a solution to this mess pushes the ripples of failed businesses, careers and stunted educations further out into the future. That's to ignore the lives lost. You have to look at what the vaccines are worth in that context, not what they cost.

jk

I suspect you're massively over estimating and complicating, what's required, for a start we don't need 60 million doses flying in from anywhere, we'll be mostly using the Oxford vaccine.

The main point being, we KNEW we needed to vaccinate our population, and we had plenty of warning, the same we we had plenty of warning the virus was coming, and yet once again, we seem to have not made plans but are playing it by ear.

If I know I'm going for a shit, I make sure I have bog paper, I don't have a dump and then ask if anyone is trained to wipe my arse, or place an order for bog roll for rapid delivery.

I didn't say that. I mean it isn't a huge technical problem (at least in a developed country), nor novel. There are existing solutions to traceable cold distribution and storage. Certainly once we have a proper pipeline set up with balanced supply and demand, without disruptions like weekends and holidays it doesn't need to be kept deep frozen at each delivery site, only further up the distribution chain. Unless I'm mistaken the defrosted ready for use shelf-life is days not hours, it's a standard cold storage problem at that point, any pharmacist or lab tech would be familiar with.

jk

That is essentially what has happened with vaccine development; this has been government funded (via guarantees to buy). It's not a conventional private sector venture by any means.

We already have contracts to buy them.

But then this government doesnt seem to care much about signed agreements; they'll just break the contract in a limited and specific way.. 

Yes, but guarantees to buy are not the same as "here's a block allocation of government funding, the army engineering corps are on standby if you need buildings built, and we're ready to issue compulsory purchase orders" underpinned by a centralised, wargamed strategy as to how existing resources will be prioritised and moved around the public infrastructure to suit different disaster strategies to be responded to, is it?

In the early days of the pandemic, we praised the speed at which the private sector had chipped in to source PPE etc., then it turned out the government has given their mates loads of dosh to procure any old shite, and we were still woefully under provisioned.

Governments are the organisations with the size and clout to plan and provision for times of national emergency.

Although I will admit, this government are doing their best to convince us otherwise. More competent administrations are available if we choose to vote for them.

There's a reason we don't, by and large, outsource the armed forces and policing to the private sector.

Thanks.

That’s a link to an article where he’s supplying equipment for Covid tests.

or here

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/26/nhs-deal-with-hancocks-former...

I want a tumbril and a guillotine - I want these people removed

the tory party is not fit for office

And yet supermarkets can get fruit, veg, fresh fish from far flung corners of the globe and into you basket in a day or so. They do this all day, every day, even shifting suppliers due to seasonality, without any issues. Its a solved problem. It seem its the local delivery into a location and then the patient, that is causing issues.

Maybe we could have an election to replace them.

Although I’m not sure that anyone would want to be Prime Minister right now.

Or anytime soon.

I believe they've agreed to buy so much but after using this amount...who knows.

Someone might put me right, but they are now saying 1, of the meant to be 2 vaccines is ok now??

If you use Firefox there's a browser extension called "Bypass Paywalls Clean" that does what the name suggests.  There are probably others too, and also for Chrome, but that's the one that works for me.

We could kidnap (rendition I think it's called now) Jacinda Ardern, that would be nice, at least for us.

Possibly a bit late, even for her?

But the cheaper one is up and running....

Government has rushed ahead with the expensive one,has to use what it has ordered and will then use the cheaper one..

I believe this is why they have changed the requirement to have 2 doses??

In case you haven't thought about it, there is a difference between building up a distribution network over many years, getting some things right, learning from your mistakes etc, and building something from scratch that has to serve the whole country in a matter of a few weeks, under the glaring white light of UKC scrutiny. And by the way the UK is currently 3rd in the whole world in terms of % of population vaccinated, behind Israel and Bahrain, who possibly have a slightly easier task than the UK.

I think they knew all along.

Let's get out in front and prove we are capable then row back when the cheaper,easier to give, vaccine is available.

A friend in Stoke was facing the same ...plus 200 more calls to replace those who are now being told to wait.

That's exactly what a relative said. 

''They've spent months talking about, 'When we get the vaccines', and now it's 'Whadda we do?' ''

She had a load of grief,when some little old lady has been told,she needs 2 to be safe then it's changed to 1....you might imagine the ear ache.

Except they don't need to build from scratch. There is already a cold chain supply network for the medical profession. Not just for vaccines, but for other perishable items like organs for transplants. Also, samples go from doctors back to labs, so its not just a one way system.

Logistics is big business. Most of the issues you mentioned, are handled with ease every day in other sectors.

Nice one, works for me too

Yes, great. Use both as fast as we can get them, it's a total no-brainer.

Again, the price is all but irrelevant in context. To date this is costing us around three quarters of a billion billion pounds a day. £750,000,000, every day to keep our heads above water. Simplistically: at £33 a head it'd make sense to dose all 66M of us with the costlier product if it brought this mess to a conclusion just 3 days sooner, that assumes the alternatives are free. Again that's completely ignoring the human cost.

That's because we're out of time. We need to keep as many people out of hospital this winter as possible to prevent health services collapsing and the mortality rate soaring with all that entails. They're gambling on that being best achieved by more people getting partial protection than half as many getting maximum protection.

jk

I get the cost to the economy.

A couple of things...people are now ringing up and saying they don't want to  come in and get their vaccine because of lock down. 

At the same time saying they are happy to wait for the 'zenica'

I think we are in agreement...the cheaper one is the 'no brainer'...

Just as additional note,no one at my wife's Surgery knows if the vaccines will have to be given yearly??

So who would you think on balance would be best?  Ex health professionals who might nit have been assessed in decades or current health professionals already safely giving flu jabs?

More vaccines administered in U.K. than rest of Europe combined and the rest of the world saw the need for phials, so a global, not U.K. shortage. Just as an aside France only vaccinated 200 people in first week because Macron is holding out for Sanofi vaccine which is months away. Because of his French chauvinism the EU is now massively short of vaccine supplies.

It's less than 12 months since the first person was vaccinated in trials. Nobody knows.

Thanks....but the flu jab is a given annually.

So we able to determine this,why not the new vaccine. 

Cheers

The flu jab is re-designed twice a year (based on northern and southern hemisphere winter flu data) to try to protect against the most recent mutations of the virus.  It has to be re-administered because it's different each time.

I appreciate your info...I just read a previous thread and you describe....key board warriors with a bias.

I'm laughing at French chauvinism. 

No doubt you'll say it's a fact 😉

Thanks...so I'm thinking because of the different strains we are seeing,this maybe the case with the vaccine?

With respect, that's not coming across in the point you're trying to make or your reasoning.

Well there's a job for psychologists, advertisers and a credible, reliable authority figure.

In limited agreement. My point is that using every tool available to hasten the end of this pandemic, almost irrespective of monetary cost is a no-brainer.

How could anyone possibly know that for sure?

jk

It will take at least a year after vaccination to find out if the vaccination still works after that year.

In reply 

The limited agreement being that we should get the people who need vaccines done,as quick as possible so we can stop this damage to the economy.

Every day of lockdown costs,financially, mental health,my child's education.

And on your last question...I'm sure an expert could come along and determine the probability of needing a yrly jab....do you think?

WHO are now saying it's a massive gamble not to give the 2nd jab in the required time.

Do you agree to gamble?

An interesting read on the vaccination process. Sounds to me like the process is going pretty well, with the bottleneck being batch production and final certification.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55488724

Strange to be so sure when none of them say that.

Yes. A vaccine tested for safety which so far hasn't killed anybody is fine by me. I really really really really like those odds. I'm comparing it to a virus that has killed 70,000 in the UK. A single jab is more uncertain than two jabs but pretty good protection is a trivial uncertainty compared to no protection. Single jab will do me until more vaccine is available - where do I sign up for early vaccination?

then why are they asking for volunteers?

All of them!

If they didn't need them they wouldn't have asked for them, would they?

If they didn't need them Boris wouldn't be getting rid of the red tape to have them help out.

The problem isn't that we need them, it's that we knew (or at least some of us knew) we would need them, and we're only just getting them registered NOW not months ago.

Everything should have been ready and waiting for supplies of the vaccine, not get the vaccine and then wonder how were going to administer it.

Ha ha I think you like a good debate...

When I said I'm sure..I was thinking they might say a 100%, I can't answer your question right now as there isn't enough data..that's all.

I see that the zenica jab is now going to be given through pharmacies..👍

Ps.thought I was originally replying to jk,I do love the way,you can get it from all angles on here.

You may think that but the reality is some Pharmacists have not been asked to take part and others are still unclear despite pushing for better information. Blair is campaigning on the issue.

https://institute.global/policy/plan-vaccine-acceleration

Part of it stemmed from a slow response to issues raised by Pharmacists at the end of November

https://www.chemistanddruggist.co.uk/news/limited-number-pharmacies-give-10...

We will see if supply even makes this an issue, as some GPs are unconvinced they won't be left waiting for AZ stock. Everything this government said was overpromised.

Just as a note.....my personal opinion.... we are almost a year into this pandemic,we should be past gambling....

Not a good one. Once prevalence is low dangerous mutation should occur infrequently but it is an essentially random process, we have no control of prevalence abroad and we don't yet know how effective the vaccines we do have will be at suppressing the virus domestically (we know they were good at preventing hospitalisation). If it remains prevalent (but less harmful) we'll see many more mutants in the years to come, some will likely need to be addressed. It may be the vaccine we get now is already out-dated and needs to be supplemented if the horror story from South Africa stands up.

It's a massive gamble to go slow on vaccination as well. We have single dose efficacy data we can model with. We don't yet know if this lockdown will work against the new strain and we can't practically shut down much further*, if lockdown fails it's just the vaccine between us and hundreds of thousands killed this spring then total economic ruin on death's heels. In reality we'll have a good handle on most of this within weeks, we can re-assess and perhaps re-prioritise then. I don't know enough to say I agree with this strategy or not.

*I expect we'll see further tightening within a couple of weeks, mostly tougher messaging but probably also around school/childcare places.

jk

From that BBC link three bottle necks identified.

1. a global shortage of glass vials to package up the vaccines
2. long waits for safety checks
3. the process of ensuring there are enough vaccinators

The second (which the PM has identified in your BBC link as the rate limiting step) and third should have been fixed by the government in advance of vaccine roll-out.

The first one they've been working on (Wrexham plant) and but the manufacture of vials is  outside of government control. If it really is glass vials rather than the chemical ingredients for final dilution I hope they've looked at fill & finish of 20-500 dose bottles at other pharmaceutical plants as well as 1-5 dose vials. However, for all I know 20-500 dose bottles may not be viable for dispensing with syringes when 5 dose vials are.

I read the Pfizer-BioTech is 5 dose vials, don't know about AZ-Oxford. However if 5 doses is ok, why not 50?  I can see why that might be a factor for defrosting something stored at -70C but not for AZ-Oxford stored in a fridge.

Realistically we're about 3 months into this pandemic, the (apparent) increased transmissbility changed everything.

But yes, the vaccine delivery infrastructure should have been fully organised, rolled out and mothballed awaiting approvals months ago. In fairness (I hate being fair to this government) some of it was but it doesn't work as a whole while pieces are missing.

jk

Thanks for your replies...👍.

My wife has been moved from her job at a GP surgery to a pop up vaccination centre...every day brings another snippet.

Training a long time prior to actual use of that training also has problems. I also hate being fair to this government; I suspect the lack of training is more down to incompetence than consideration of skills fade...

The WHO position reminds me of the old asking for directions joke.

Lost person "Excuse me, I'm looking to get to Happiness, I'm a bit lost, can you help?"

Knowledgeable pedant "Well you shouldn't have started from here"

Frankly the UK have dug a massive hole (that we shouldn't have dug and should stop digging) and the single dose approach looks sensible on Public Heath terms.

But they stopped the registration process for chemists, those that can give flu jabs, but apparently not CV-19 jab. Our new pandemic minister said last night on Question Time they were going to open up the chemist stream again, but why stop the registration only to open it up again.

Well at least are 1.3 million plus jabs compares alot better than France's.....7,000...as at yesterday...............

I reckon the NHS and Gov deserve a pat on the back in comparison.

People understatimate the production and logistical excercises.You know enough about manufacturing to understand it does not happen instanlty and overnight.

It also demonstrates that in comparison perhaps the long term planning in the pandemic plan for vaccines is coming together.I have said before that the Oxford vaccine did not miracuously happen it was linked to things like the Vaccine catapult centre and so on.

We should appreciate and value the life sciences sector amongst others.

Forgive me for not much caring, it doesn't seem the occasion for nationalistic schadenfreude.

A pat on the back? You're misreading the mood, I want heads on platters when this is done.

We're not talking about anything happening overnight or needing to. We had these vaccine prototypes in spring, that was more than six months ago. We invested billions in developing them months ago. We knocked down all the resourcing and bureaucratic hurdles to delivering them safely at unbelievable speed. We've known the issues for months yet still there are serious questions and confusion about whether we can actually deliver them as fast as we can buy. Getting part of this right simply isn't good enough.

Obviously and that's great, we're exceptionally lucky this happened now not with SARS 20 years ago. That said I do think the 2020's will involves some really tough questions and soul searching for those managing and resourcing our permanent disaster readiness capability. None of that good fortune, academic/commercial excellence and deep planning excuses the utterly shambolic real-time actions of this government through 2020 and beyond.

Erm, yes.

jk

Over here they're sticking to the original second dose timeline for everyone in the first three tranches (healthcare workers, carehome workers and residents, >75s) then will consider following the UK's example and stretching out the second dose, but not beyond 10 weeks as that gives 2 weeks to allow for transport problems. By the time they get to that point there will be better data, and also data on mix & match between the different vaccines.

If it is supposed to be 3 weeks and you delay for 12 weeks but you get a surge of infections in week 4 after vaccination you can change the delay back to 3 weeks.

The information will come through quickly (week 5 onwards?) as so many people are being infected.

My cynical guess would be that vaccination has been contracted out to someone in the chumocracy, and they will charge a certain amount for every vaccinator they provide and train (taking a large 'management' cut for doing so). So probably not in their interests to bring on stream an independent vaccination facility.

But they have been rumbled, so are backtracking.

You might want to listen to this in response to your question. An interview with Kate Bingham, the head of the vaccines taskforce.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p093gs4k

This surprises you because? The only thing this government could do to surprise us is do something successfully. 

On a lighter note, they are turning the Elland Road convention center in Leeds in to a vaccination clinic planned to go live mid January What an excellent idea I head people say. Unfortunately on the 4th of January they closed one of the main roads in to the area for 8 weeks whilst they install a cycle lane and at the same time restricted Dewsbury Road (main road in same area) to 1 Lane each way from the 4th of Jan to the 30th of April to also put in a cycle lane. Anyone who knows Leeds knows that if any of the main roads close everything stops so they close one, massively restrict another and set up a vaccination clinic in the area too. 

The best part is the closed road was supposed to start in February for 16 weeks but be on temp traffic lights so it would be shit but it would move but Leeds Council decided that would impact the covid center too much and they changed the program, brought it forward a month and did a full closure for 8 weeks instead of a partial closure for 16. 

Edited to add. I'm not sure how the hell a bike lane takes 16 weeks in the first place, the road is only about 1/2 mile long

I was wondering how long it took to burn off existing white lines and put some new ones down in a slightly different place.

She's obviously lying. Everyone knows the government is incompetent, particularly the 'experts' on this thread.

That was one hell of a puff piece. Arch Tory Nick Robinson single handedly trying to disprove the Covid Chumocracy with Kate Bingham's shining example.

My god this is a funny and clever parody. Please, please, please don't tell me it's not a parody, but it's for real. Because if it's real it's really quite spine-chilling. 

I'm ever the optimist, it often means I'm constantly disappointed.

Like the old adage, words are cheap. No matter what's said, we should be raring to go, only waiting for vaccine supplies, not f*cking about  looking for people we can get to administer the jabs, and making it difficult for them to volunteer.

We shouldn't need Boris to tell us HE's going to iron out the red tape issue, there shouldn't be a red tape issue by now, the amount of notice we've had.