So, coronavirus...

[Sandstorm]

First signs of vaccine having an effect?

Care home deaths in Scotland down 41% over the last five weeks. Deaths in the population as a whole down by 4% in the same time.

Quality

[Dinsdale Piranha]

First signs of vaccine having an effect?

Care home deaths in Scotland down 41% over the last five weeks. Deaths in the population as a whole down by 4% in the same time.

That would be consistent with what happened in Israel

[Openside]

First signs of vaccine having an effect?

Care home deaths in Scotland down 41% over the last five weeks. Deaths in the population as a whole down by 4% in the same time.

Quality

There are fuck all left??

[Biffer]

There’s another little bit of good news - numbers of positive cases globally have declined over the last month. That hasn’t happened at any point since this began; the number of positive tests has never dropped globally.

But it has recently, from a 7 day average of about 750,000 in early January to about 420,000 now.

[Ovals]

There’s another little bit of good news - numbers of positive cases globally have declined over the last month. That hasn’t happened at any point since this began; the number of positive tests has never dropped globally.

But it has recently, from a 7 day average of about 750,000 in early January to about 420,000 now.

That's a good sign. The danger is that progress will go into reverse when the Kent variant becomes more dominant over the globe - it seems to have got a foothold in lots of countries. Hopefully that will be counteracted by the vaccine roll outs.

[robmatic]

There’s another little bit of good news - numbers of positive cases globally have declined over the last month. That hasn’t happened at any point since this began; the number of positive tests has never dropped globally.

But it has recently, from a 7 day average of about 750,000 in early January to about 420,000 now.

That's a good sign. The danger is that progress will go into reverse when the Kent variant becomes more dominant over the globe - it seems to have got a foothold in lots of countries. Hopefully that will be counteracted by the vaccine roll outs.

The vaccine roll outs aren't happening particularly quickly outside of a select few countries though.

[Uncle fester]

There’s another little bit of good news - numbers of positive cases globally have declined over the last month. That hasn’t happened at any point since this began; the number of positive tests has never dropped globally.

But it has recently, from a 7 day average of about 750,000 in early January to about 420,000 now.

That's a good sign. The danger is that progress will go into reverse when the Kent variant becomes more dominant over the globe - it seems to have got a foothold in lots of countries. Hopefully that will be counteracted by the vaccine roll outs.

The vaccine roll outs aren't happening particularly quickly outside of a select few countries though.

Yep, Ireland will apparently be in lockdown till May and not the merest mention of vaccines in all this.
It's absolutely infuriating. At this stage, people will just give up.
My own company have said fúck this" and are trying to source doses from elsewhere. The stress levels are fúcking insane and the best the HSE can do for us is middle of summer for first dose only.

[Sandstorm]

My own company have said fúck this" and are trying to source doses from elsewhere. The stress levels are fúcking insane and the best the HSE can do for us is middle of summer for first dose only.

Be interesting how the EU will dole out jabs to the various member states. Smaller guys might lose out to the big boys?

[Biffer]

My own company have said fúck this" and are trying to source doses from elsewhere. The stress levels are fúcking insane and the best the HSE can do for us is middle of summer for first dose only.

Be interesting how the EU will dole out jabs to the various member states. Smaller guys might lose out to the big boys?

The whole point EU procuring the vaccines was so that didn’t happen.

[Sandstorm]

My own company have said fúck this" and are trying to source doses from elsewhere. The stress levels are fúcking insane and the best the HSE can do for us is middle of summer for first dose only.

Be interesting how the EU will dole out jabs to the various member states. Smaller guys might lose out to the big boys?

The whole point EU procuring the vaccines was so that didn’t happen.

As I said before.....

[Biffer]

There’s another little bit of good news - numbers of positive cases globally have declined over the last month. That hasn’t happened at any point since this began; the number of positive tests has never dropped globally.

But it has recently, from a 7 day average of about 750,000 in early January to about 420,000 now.

That's a good sign. The danger is that progress will go into reverse when the Kent variant becomes more dominant over the globe - it seems to have got a foothold in lots of countries. Hopefully that will be counteracted by the vaccine roll outs.

The vaccine roll outs aren't happening particularly quickly outside of a select few countries though.

I can see the UK, Israel, and UAE building a lot of soft power in mid level countries by providing assistance with vaccine rollouts.

Chile seem to be cracking on actually, hadn’t noticed that.

[Uncle fester]

My own company have said fúck this" and are trying to source doses from elsewhere. The stress levels are fúcking insane and the best the HSE can do for us is middle of summer for first dose only.

Be interesting how the EU will dole out jabs to the various member states. Smaller guys might lose out to the big boys?

Our health service has been hiding behind that excuse but it falls apart when you realise that they've done flip all preparation for when they actually receive doses.

[Biffer]

Something I think we’ll see all over the world is a demonstration of which countries have good government infrastructures and general governance.

Fortunately Cummings didn’t manage to utterly gut the UK civil service before this, and although it’s been under huge pressure for years and has its faults (some pretty significant) it’s noticeable that the major fuckups, outside of policy decisions and lack of coherent leadership, are when the government has gone round the normal governance procedures (PPE provision, test and trace) and the successes have used established methods (nhs for vaccine delivery, hands off R&D grants for vaccine and treatment development).

We’ll see across developed countries in Europe, developing countries in sub Saharan Africa, mid level countries in South Asia, and everywhere else, which countries have the most significant governance issues, which are normally hand waved away.

[FalseBayFC]

Something I think we’ll see all over the world is a demonstration of which countries have good government infrastructures and general governance.

Fortunately Cummings didn’t manage to utterly gut the UK civil service before this, and although it’s been under huge pressure for years and has its faults (some pretty significant) it’s noticeable that the major fuckups, outside of policy decisions and lack of coherent leadership, are when the government has gone round the normal governance procedures (PPE provision, test and trace) and the successes have used established methods (nhs for vaccine delivery, hands off R&D grants for vaccine and treatment development).

We’ll see across developed countries in Europe, developing countries in sub Saharan Africa, mid level countries in South Asia, and everywhere else, which countries have the most significant governance issues, which are normally hand waved away.

Yes we should send some of our guys across to learn best practice from Boris and the Tories. Seems they have quite an efficient and transparent system for the procurement and supply of PPE for instance.

[Raggs]

Something I think we’ll see all over the world is a demonstration of which countries have good government infrastructures and general governance.

Fortunately Cummings didn’t manage to utterly gut the UK civil service before this, and although it’s been under huge pressure for years and has its faults (some pretty significant) it’s noticeable that the major fuckups, outside of policy decisions and lack of coherent leadership, are when the government has gone round the normal governance procedures (PPE provision, test and trace) and the successes have used established methods (nhs for vaccine delivery, hands off R&D grants for vaccine and treatment development).

We’ll see across developed countries in Europe, developing countries in sub Saharan Africa, mid level countries in South Asia, and everywhere else, which countries have the most significant governance issues, which are normally hand waved away.

Yes we should send some of our guys across to learn best practice from Boris and the Tories. Seems they have quite an efficient and transparent system for the procurement and supply of PPE for instance.

They're corrupt as hell, so they'd have something to talk about during tea breaks, but when there aren't opporuntities to be corrupt about it, since you're dealing directly with the vaccine suppliers themselves, they're capable of doing a good job.

It's rather depressing to know that they could be a good government.

[tc27]

Something I think we’ll see all over the world is a demonstration of which countries have good government infrastructures and general governance.

Fortunately Cummings didn’t manage to utterly gut the UK civil service before this, and although it’s been under huge pressure for years and has its faults (some pretty significant) it’s noticeable that the major fuckups, outside of policy decisions and lack of coherent leadership, are when the government has gone round the normal governance procedures (PPE provision, test and trace) and the successes have used established methods (nhs for vaccine delivery, hands off R&D grants for vaccine and treatment development).

We’ll see across developed countries in Europe, developing countries in sub Saharan Africa, mid level countries in South Asia, and everywhere else, which countries have the most significant governance issues, which are normally hand waved away.

That narrative rather ignores the fact that the reason we have any vaccines at all is the government bought in an outsider with authority over the CS and let them get on with the job spending whatever they wanted using their own people. At the time it was widely criticised as cronyism because Kate Bingham is married to a Tory MP.

I bet all the money in my pockets without this we would be getting a trickle of vaccines from EU and US based suppliers and everyone would be going nuts.

Cumming 'wreck everything and then build from scratch' agenda was wrong but so is the assumption that the CS and all public institutions are beyond reproach or reform.

[Lobby]

Something I think we’ll see all over the world is a demonstration of which countries have good government infrastructures and general governance.

Fortunately Cummings didn’t manage to utterly gut the UK civil service before this, and although it’s been under huge pressure for years and has its faults (some pretty significant) it’s noticeable that the major fuckups, outside of policy decisions and lack of coherent leadership, are when the government has gone round the normal governance procedures (PPE provision, test and trace) and the successes have used established methods (nhs for vaccine delivery, hands off R&D grants for vaccine and treatment development).

We’ll see across developed countries in Europe, developing countries in sub Saharan Africa, mid level countries in South Asia, and everywhere else, which countries have the most significant governance issues, which are normally hand waved away.

That narrative rather ignores the fact that the reason we have any vaccines at all is the government bought in an outsider with authority over the CS and let them get on with the job spending whatever they wanted using their own people. At the time it was widely criticised as cronyism because Kate Bingham is married to a Tory MP.

I bet all the money in my pockets without this we would be getting a trickle of vaccines from EU and US based suppliers and everyone would be going nuts.

Cumming 'wreck everything and then build from scratch' agenda was wrong but so is the assumption that the CS and all public institutions are beyond reproach or reform.

Indeed, Sir Patrick Vallance picked outside experts for the Vaccine Task Force because he was worried about CS competence in this area

He worried about how little anyone in government knew about vaccines: without importing expertise he feared they were doomed to fail. ‘The briefing notes the civil servants were sending in had basic errors in them,’ says one minister. ‘It was shocking.’ Ian McCubbin, a GlaxoSmithKline veteran, was the first to be hired.

[Biffer]

63,000 vaccinated in Scotland yesterday, despite the snow.

[Biffer]

Something I think we’ll see all over the world is a demonstration of which countries have good government infrastructures and general governance.

Fortunately Cummings didn’t manage to utterly gut the UK civil service before this, and although it’s been under huge pressure for years and has its faults (some pretty significant) it’s noticeable that the major fuckups, outside of policy decisions and lack of coherent leadership, are when the government has gone round the normal governance procedures (PPE provision, test and trace) and the successes have used established methods (nhs for vaccine delivery, hands off R&D grants for vaccine and treatment development).

We’ll see across developed countries in Europe, developing countries in sub Saharan Africa, mid level countries in South Asia, and everywhere else, which countries have the most significant governance issues, which are normally hand waved away.

Yes we should send some of our guys across to learn best practice from Boris and the Tories. Seems they have quite an efficient and transparent system for the procurement and supply of PPE for instance.

That’s the exact opposite of what I said.

Learn to read.

Oh I forgot, your only reason to be on here is to have agenda driven rants.

[Biffer]

Something I think we’ll see all over the world is a demonstration of which countries have good government infrastructures and general governance.

Fortunately Cummings didn’t manage to utterly gut the UK civil service before this, and although it’s been under huge pressure for years and has its faults (some pretty significant) it’s noticeable that the major fuckups, outside of policy decisions and lack of coherent leadership, are when the government has gone round the normal governance procedures (PPE provision, test and trace) and the successes have used established methods (nhs for vaccine delivery, hands off R&D grants for vaccine and treatment development).

We’ll see across developed countries in Europe, developing countries in sub Saharan Africa, mid level countries in South Asia, and everywhere else, which countries have the most significant governance issues, which are normally hand waved away.

That narrative rather ignores the fact that the reason we have any vaccines at all is the government bought in an outsider with authority over the CS and let them get on with the job spending whatever they wanted using their own people. At the time it was widely criticised as cronyism because Kate Bingham is married to a Tory MP.

I bet all the money in my pockets without this we would be getting a trickle of vaccines from EU and US based suppliers and everyone would be going nuts.

Cumming 'wreck everything and then build from scratch' agenda was wrong but so is the assumption that the CS and all public institutions are beyond reproach or reform.

But that’s how research funding is generally done. Government sets the broad area, and scientists are brought in to direct which research is funded. It’s called the Haldane principle and has been broadly observed by UK governments of all colours for more than 90 years. For pharma in particular, the UK is very used to taking translation research experts, giving them the money and just saying carry on, do your thing.

[tc27]

Something I think we’ll see all over the world is a demonstration of which countries have good government infrastructures and general governance.

Fortunately Cummings didn’t manage to utterly gut the UK civil service before this, and although it’s been under huge pressure for years and has its faults (some pretty significant) it’s noticeable that the major fuckups, outside of policy decisions and lack of coherent leadership, are when the government has gone round the normal governance procedures (PPE provision, test and trace) and the successes have used established methods (nhs for vaccine delivery, hands off R&D grants for vaccine and treatment development).

We’ll see across developed countries in Europe, developing countries in sub Saharan Africa, mid level countries in South Asia, and everywhere else, which countries have the most significant governance issues, which are normally hand waved away.

That narrative rather ignores the fact that the reason we have any vaccines at all is the government bought in an outsider with authority over the CS and let them get on with the job spending whatever they wanted using their own people. At the time it was widely criticised as cronyism because Kate Bingham is married to a Tory MP.

I bet all the money in my pockets without this we would be getting a trickle of vaccines from EU and US based suppliers and everyone would be going nuts.

Cumming 'wreck everything and then build from scratch' agenda was wrong but so is the assumption that the CS and all public institutions are beyond reproach or reform.

But that’s how research funding is generally done. Government sets the broad area, and scientists are brought in to direct which research is funded. It’s called the Haldane principle and has been broadly observed by UK governments of all colours for more than 90 years. For pharma in particular, the UK is very used to taking translation research experts, giving them the money and just saying carry on, do your thing.

Thats interesting but not really what happened in this case.

[Saint]

415k doses yesterday

7 day average rising again, currently at 437k per day

[Hal Jordan]

Shock, horror, the Government's quarantine booking system has gone down within just a few hours of it going live.

[tc27]

Over 500k doses given yesterday...1.46 of the population in Scotland in one day (a UK record). First target (15 million jabs and as much of JCVI cat 1-4 as possible dosed at least once) should be hit by end of play tomorrow but will have to wait until Sunday to confirm.

[SaintK]

Shock, horror, the Government's quarantine booking system has gone down within just a few hours of it going live.

Went down yesterday when it was launched
First quarantine arrivals due in on Monday

[SaintK]

415k doses yesterday

7 day average rising again, currently at 437k per day

Got my letter this morning and pleasantly surprised to be able to book one for tomorrow morning about 10 minutes from where I live
Tried to book online but was told I wasn't eligble yet as I'm in the next cohort down
Phoned 119 and after some tedious keypad work got through to to someone immediately and less than 10 minutes later was booked in for 2 vaccinations
Pretty impressive. The girl I got through to had a fabulous sounding French accent, shame the call was so short

[Line6 HXFX]

Worst death rate of nations of populations over 20 million (and giving stiff competition with nations below it ).
Worst economic impact from Covid and the worst economic decline for 100 years..(so having put wealth over health, they shit the bed spectacularly both).

No wonder all they want to talk about Black Lives Matter and taking a knee.

[tc27]

415k doses yesterday

7 day average rising again, currently at 437k per day

Got my letter this morning and pleasantly surprised to be able to book one for tomorrow morning about 10 minutes from where I live
Tried to book online but was told I wasn't eligble yet as I'm in the next cohort down
Phoned 119 and after some tedious keypad work got through to to someone immediately and less than 10 minutes later was booked in for 2 vaccinations
Pretty impressive. The girl I got through to had a fabulous sounding French accent, shame the call was so short

Nice - over 65s should be able to book appointments for next week.

[Ovals]

415k doses yesterday

7 day average rising again, currently at 437k per day

Got my letter this morning and pleasantly surprised to be able to book one for tomorrow morning about 10 minutes from where I live
Tried to book online but was told I wasn't eligble yet as I'm in the next cohort down
Phoned 119 and after some tedious keypad work got through to to someone immediately and less than 10 minutes later was booked in for 2 vaccinations
Pretty impressive. The girl I got through to had a fabulous sounding French accent, shame the call was so short

Nice - over 65s should be able to book appointments for next week.

Mrs Ovals is anxiously checking her messages all day waiting for the nod. Be a great relief when she's had hers and we're both protected. We can then look forward to not isolating at some point.

[Bullet]

Wife and I got Pfizer jab this afternoon. In cohort 6 but got a call saying there was vaccine left if we could get there within the hour.

[Ovals]

Wife and I got Pfizer jab this afternoon. In cohort 6 but got a call saying there was vaccine left if we could get there within the hour.

Result !

[Margin__Walker]

My mum and step dad were done this week too. Early 60s but a similar sort of thing. They got an end of day call to go in.

[Sandstorm]

Our town has vaccinated all the over 70s and a bunch of healthcare workers in the last 5 weeks. Stocks of jab have run out and so they’ve announced a 4 day break while they wait for more to be delivered.

[Saint]

Our town has vaccinated all the over 70s and a bunch of healthcare workers in the last 5 weeks. Stocks of jab have run out and so they’ve announced a 4 day break while they wait for more to be delivered.

Supply is a real issue now. I reckon we could be going at 4 million a week right now if we had enough supply

[Hong Kong]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hmo-sees ... -israelis/

[Biffer]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hmo-sees ... -israelis/

Sounds good. Here’s hoping that’s what we’ll start seeing over the next few weeks.

[FalseBayFC]

Worst death rate of nations of populations over 20 million (and giving stiff competition with nations below it ).
Worst economic impact from Covid and the worst economic decline for 100 years..(so having put wealth over health, they shit the bed spectacularly both).

No wonder all they want to talk about Black Lives Matter and taking a knee.

I would say worst death rate of a developed country. As well as worst economic decline amongst deceloped countries. We don't do post mortem covid tests and have no real clue what our mortality rate is.

[SaintK]

415k doses yesterday

7 day average rising again, currently at 437k per day

Got my letter this morning and pleasantly surprised to be able to book one for tomorrow morning about 10 minutes from where I live
Tried to book online but was told I wasn't eligble yet as I'm in the next cohort down
Phoned 119 and after some tedious keypad work got through to to someone immediately and less than 10 minutes later was booked in for 2 vaccinations
Pretty impressive. The girl I got through to had a fabulous sounding French accent, shame the call was so short

Nice - over 65s should be able to book appointments for next week.

Well impressed with the speed of throughput and organisation

[Openside]

Worst death rate of nations of populations over 20 million (and giving stiff competition with nations below it ).
Worst economic impact from Covid and the worst economic decline for 100 years..(so having put wealth over health, they shit the bed spectacularly both).

No wonder all they want to talk about Black Lives Matter and taking a knee.

The only reason you care about the economy is so we can carry on providing for you. You are like the dementors in Harry Potter.

[Biffer]

Worst death rate of nations of populations over 20 million (and giving stiff competition with nations below it ).
Worst economic impact from Covid and the worst economic decline for 100 years..(so having put wealth over health, they shit the bed spectacularly both).

No wonder all they want to talk about Black Lives Matter and taking a knee.

The only reason you care about the economy is so we can carry on providing for you. You are like the dementors in Harry Potter.

Are you not retired? Not paying NI etc, but still leeching on the NHS? Claiming a state pension yet?