Vaccinations

Today I expect Parliament to want more detail on how we get out of lockdown. The Regulations imply another quarter of badly disrupted jobs and businesses, with no early let up in controls. What would be the trigger to allow some relaxation?

As the NHS experts see vaccines as the ultimate way out, there will be active debate on how the vaccinations can be speeded up. Presumably if enough people can be protected the governmentā€™s experts would then consider allowing more social contact and economic activity.

It would be helpful to know how much vaccine of the approved types is available on delivery schedules, and to be offered reassurance about who is going to administer the doses. Will the NHS seek the help of pharmacies as with annual flu vaccines? Will the NHS speed up accepting the volunteers with medical training who are willing to cone back to work and would help inoculate people? Will others be trained to carry out the work? Will all GP surgeries and hospitals be offering the service and have supplies?

The sooner we can get back to saving jobs the better. Another national lock down has a big economic price.

Some of the experts now seem to think getting the first jab into people gives a decent level of protection. This will speed up the process if they adopt that approach, which will require clarity for those receiving the vaccine over whether to expect a second dose and if so at what interval.

220 Comments

  1. Mark B
    January 6, 2021

    Good morning

    . . . governmentā€™s experts would then consider allowing more social contact and economic activity.

    Pardon me, but who is actually running the country?

    I have said recently that o believe this so called miracle cure is more to do with saving the government than saving lives. If it does not work a lot of very frightened people are going to lose their minds. And then what ? Despair is going to set in and I fear for the minds and lives as people begin to lose hope.

    For me this whole saga has been nothing but an inconvenience and embarrassment. Embarrassment of my nation, its government, its institutions and above all, many of my fellow countrymen. Previous generations who had to endure far worse would be sickened by all this.

    Come the Spring we better be out of this.

    1. BeebTax
      January 6, 2021

      Exactly. The moment I saw that phrase I was twitching to make a comment (maybe our host used it as a little tease?). Rather than a change of government perhaps we should be pushing for a change of experts as the only way to restore some sanity. The government is made up of followers, not leaders.

    2. Jim Whitehead
      January 6, 2021

      +1

    3. Ed M
      January 6, 2021

      ‘Pardon me, but who is actually running the country?’

      – The Media, Educators, and others – not politicians so much.

      And if we want to get the best politicians into Parliament, let’s please pay them more, and so get more politicians with real experience in Business and so on – including just being more brainy and practical overall with more experience of the real world.

      But this is a similar problem in the Western World in general I guess not just in the UK.

    4. oldtimer
      January 6, 2021

      My wife and I, after careful thought, decided to accept the offer of the Pfizer two jab routine in the last week of December. After getting our first jab and a specific time and date for our second jab (as required by the regulators as a condition of their approval) we are now told in effect by the NHS “forget your second jab appointment, we’ll call you when it suits us the NHS, not when it is deemed medically appropriate to deliver it”.

      The decision to lure people like us into receiving the first jab before advising us the second will be delayed to some unknown future date can be attributed either to a deliberate deception or to bungling incompetence. Either way the NHS attitude is “screw you”. What is the point of the regulatory authority if it’s decisions can be tossed aside?

    5. Martin in Cardiff
      January 6, 2021

      Where are all these “frightened” people?

      I see mainly those who calmly but sensibly take action to minimise the risk of infection and transmission – e.g. wearing masks in public areas – and those who recklessly, selfishly, or cynically do not.

      However, I don’t see much evidence of fear.

      1. a-tracy
        January 6, 2021

        Martin – 1/9/2020 The suicide rate for men in England and Wales in 2019 was the highest for two decades, official figures show. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), published on Tuesday, found there were 5,691 suicides registered, with an age-standardised rate of 11 deaths per 100,000 population.

        The ONS said men accounted for about three-quarters of suicide deaths registered in 2019, 4,303 compared with 1,388 women.

        1. a-tracy
          January 6, 2021

          Bmj – 12/11/2020 As many countries face new stay-at-home restrictions to curb the spread of covid-19, there are concerns that rates of suicide may increaseā€”or have already increased. Several factors underpin these concerns, including a deterioration in population mental health, a higher prevalence of reported thoughts and behaviours of self-harm among people with covid-19, problems accessing mental health services, and evidence suggesting that previous epidemics such as SARS (2003) were associated with a rise in deaths by suicide.

          These are the sort of fearful people we need to worry about. Lasting mental health damage, fear of social groups, Excessive fear of illness and death.

      2. NickC
        January 7, 2021

        You should get out more, Martin. Oh, you can’t? Don’t tell me, you’re too frightened?

      3. Fred H
        January 7, 2021

        What? – in Wales! About the worst infection rate in the UK.

    6. ian@Barkham
      January 6, 2021

      +1

    7. Sir Joe Soap
      January 6, 2021

      Perhaps these left wing lockdown so-called scientists should run for election and see how that works.

      We’re now in for a few months of excuse after excuse as to why the NHS can’t vaccinate people at the rate needed. I forecast everything from Brexit to lack of facilities, vaccinators off sick, vaccines late, went to the wrong place etc. etc.

    8. Hope
      January 6, 2021

      30-40 million allowed to fly in over the last ten months without any check isolation or trace. About 40 fined for not being where they were meant to be. I wonder why people do not believe this stupidmidiotic govt? Witty already salivating last night for more restrictions next year!

      Dentists refused to give injection! You could not make it up. Get Johnson our should be JRs priority. Has he or colleagues even muttered a change from this constant U-turning after a day or so spineless person who jumps to whoever shouts at him?

      Why should people have confidence in the injection when the govt has consistently lied, deceived, flipped flopped and failed to deliver? The first vaccine people were to,d bluntly they had to have the second injection for it to,work properly, the producers said the same. Now govt says no need! Betty Boothroyd on Sky quite rightly asserts it does not make sense and causes distrust.

      No pregnant women and children strongly advised to have the vaccine? I thought children were the so called spreaders? Why is it not safe for these groups? I will not have an experimental vaccine in my arm until I am sure it is safe. I will not be listening to Johnson, Whitt, Valance, Harries, van tam any time soon.

    9. jerry
      January 6, 2021

      @Mark B; “Pardon me, but who is actually running the country? “

      The same people who always run the country, experts and advisor’s!

      The PM, the cabinet, and MPs merely confirm or reject the advice given, it has always been so. For example Mrs Thatcher’s personal qualifications were not in economics but Science and Law, she employed experts and advisor’s to advise her on economic policy, I believe our host was one such person before being elected an MP…

      “Previous generations who had to endure far worse would be sickened by all this.”

      I agree, yet it is the war-time generation who, despite many having to severely isolate themselves, if not shield, are the most accepting and adaptable to the situation they and the rest of us find ourselves in. It is the young who are the ones needlessly suffering, because they have been give leave, by nay-sayers like you Mark, to “lose hope” (apparently their education and/or job prospects have been ruined for the next 50 years!), despite being the generation who should be the most adaptable, physically fit (well some are…), healthy, and tech savy.

      “Come the Spring we better be out of this.”

      It could have been all but over last Autumn, lockdown wise, had the govt not listened to the economic nay-says.

    10. RichardP
      January 6, 2021

      +1

    11. David
      January 6, 2021

      Well said…..the answer special interest.

    12. Richard416
      January 6, 2021

      I’ve checked the official figures and mortality is running about normal for the time of year, hospital occupation is lower than normal, even in percentage terms considering that there are fewer beds, very few cases are ion any way serious, and we now have treatments for it, so why is my life being ruined?

    13. Hope
      January 6, 2021

      WHO will not back U.K. to delay second part of vaccination as there is no proof it will work.

      Where is the govt proof JR its action is ethical scientific based or works?

    14. Ian Wragg
      January 6, 2021

      Correct, I didn’t see any government experts on the ballot paper.
      I see Twitty is already softening us up for lockdown next winter.
      It looks to me that the NHS are incharge of the country to the detriment of nations health.
      When the vaccine turns out to be only 15% effective like the flu jab, then what, permanently closing schools, pubs and restaurants.
      Is that the new normal. You can continue to import an educated workforce from abroad.

    15. Mactheknife
      January 6, 2021

      I think you will find its Imperial College London running the country, with their wildly inaccurate models and statements. However the PM has bought into their rhetoric even stating that the new variant was 70% more transmissible which was mentioned (as an estimate) in an Imperial presentation. More rational experts said at the time there was nowhere near enough evidence to state this 70% figure.
      Based on this statement UK travelers and businesses were immediately locked out of many countries.

    16. Mark
      January 6, 2021

      Who is running the country?

      The civil service – no change there….

      1. Mark B
        January 7, 2021

        +1

        šŸ˜‰

    17. NigelE
      January 6, 2021

      @Mark B

      I have little confidence that weā€™ll be out of anytime soon. The next stage will be a new strain/ variant of the disease which will mean a new vaccine has to be developed, distributed and stuck in our arms.

      Iā€™m hunkering down for a very long haul.

    18. NickC
      January 6, 2021

      Mark B, You are right on all counts.

      What amazes me is how little the government trusts the people. Yet their ridiculous lockdowns need people’s cooperation anyway!

      The government needs to be aware that when the majority cotton on to the fact they are the majority, and have had their jobs and health ruined, they are going to be pretty pissed.

      1. Mark B
        January 7, 2021

        Ɨ1

        Which is why Labour want all these lockdowns to make it easier for them to be elected.

    19. margaret howard
      January 7, 2021

      Mark B

      “Previous generations who had to endure far worse would be sickened by all this.”

      And mercifully we would be sickened by what previous generations ‘endured’ – little boys up chimneys and down the mines with little girls and their mothers toiling for hours in mills or skivvying for demanding mistresses.

      No thank you. I am grateful to have been born in our more enlightened and civilised age.

      1. Edward2
        January 7, 2021

        These things didn’t happen in the 1970s.

  2. Cheshire Girl
    January 6, 2021

    In my opinion, the way to speed up vaccinations, is to throw out all the ā€˜diversityā€™ etc. requirements, and let those, who are well qualified, get on with the job.

    So many things are bound up with red tape now, it seems impossible to get anything done. There seem to be many willing, and qualified, volunteers. I agree that some checks must be done, but for goodness sake, keep it simple!

    1. Leslie Singleton
      January 6, 2021

      Dear Cheshire Girl–If and where checks are really needed then of course they must be done but I would think that most surgeries and pharmacies and dentists know retired doctors and nurses whom they remember well and who may have given injections for decades and would come back in instantly if telephoned, most likely for nothing, and to hell with the paperwork. Might be a problem with their insurance I suppose but the government could put in place something temporary.

      1. Leslie Singleton
        January 6, 2021

        PS–After I wrote the above I was gobsmacked to read that, never mind retired experienced vaccinators, in particular from pharmacies, ministers and the NHS do not like including Pharmacies in their plans in the first place–this despite their coming with a distiibution system already in place and working well every day and their experience with flu jabs. Verily, you clould not make it up. And talking about every day how can it be that PHE are still allowed anywhere near anything of importance given they have decided not to work on Sundays. A few people need to be taken out and summarily shot.

    2. Ed M
      January 6, 2021

      ‘So many things are bound up with red tape now, it seems impossible to get anything done. ‘

      – This is more of a philosophical than a practical solution. We don’t have the time for philosophy right now. Political philosophy is useful but not when you’re in a crisis with your hands tied, to a degree, by Liberalism.

      Let’s have these debates but for now let’s keep them practical.

    3. ian@Barkham
      January 6, 2021

      +1

    4. Dave Andrews
      January 6, 2021

      If they haven’t got diversity training in place, they may inadvertently make a prejudicial remark, and leave the NHS exposed to a complaint and claim.
      If they haven’t got conflict resolution training in place, they won’t be equipped to deal with violent and abusive members of the public – and there are plenty of them.

    5. Nig l
      January 6, 2021

      Diversity again, a disgrace it should still need to be kept high on the agenda and the people who are constantly cynical of it.

    6. Martin in Cardiff
      January 6, 2021

      Just had a text from a friend in Denmark.

      He’s forty-nine.

      He’ll be getting the Pfizer vaccine in February.

      So the UK might have started before the European Union countries.

      It looks rather unlikely that it will reach completion before them, for all the trumpeting, however.

      When the State is in the hands of people who do not believe in the State, then I suppose that’s inevitable though.

      1. Edward2
        January 6, 2021

        Faster than the French
        What is the point you are trying to make?

      2. Fred H
        January 6, 2021

        what absolute nonsense.

      3. Fred H
        January 7, 2021

        so far 47,000 have had a vaccination in Denmark, and they will delay the second jab.

      4. NickC
        January 7, 2021

        You construct your entire case for 450 million people on only one man’s say so, Martin? No wonder you voted Remain.

    7. steve
      January 6, 2021

      Cheshire Girl

      “but for goodness sake, keep it simple! ”

      That would be overly complicated for this government, you’re asking too much.

    8. NickC
      January 7, 2021

      Whilst that is true, Polly, it is quite difficult to oppose social norms. Which is why the government is enforcing the lockdowns via social conditioning. Which is why you see the likes of Andy and Martin on here justifying serfdom by echoing all the latest establishment propaganda. Even when these contradict previous establishment claims, or simply don’t conform to the available evidence.

  3. Everhopeful
    January 6, 2021

    Who are ā€œsome of the expertsā€?
    How about the experts who for months have been saying that National Imprisonment and vaccination are wholly unnecessary? And who at the behest of the government have been taken off social media platforms.
    I imagine that the jab is not being rolled out ( as it would be in a real emergency) because the unions/NHS donā€™t want it to be. Donā€™t want all this to end…ever!
    And those who are waiting anxiously for a tidy profit will have to wait.

    1. Simeon
      January 6, 2021

      I don’t think there will be much, if any, pushback from the NHS and unions. There is no reason for lockdowns to end, even were the vaccine successfully rolled out, because there is plenty of scope to justify continuing lockdowns (the vaccine isn’t effective against mutations; the vaccine doesn’t confer permanent immunity; the tests are trash – false positives everywhere). What we have is a political problem that cannot be solved through medical means.

    2. Nig l
      January 6, 2021

      National imprisonments and vaccinations unnecessary. Sounds like persecution complex.

  4. DOM
    January 6, 2021

    I actually feel a degree of sympathy for decent politicians like Mr Redwood. He’s in the unfortunate position of not being able to express his true thoughts (due to party restrictions) on how forces beyond our control and that are spread across politics and the public sector are dragging this nation in a direction from which there is no coming back.

    For most people the probability of dying from CV19 contraction is negligible. On that basis alone the authoritarian response from these forces beyond our control is political not clinical. Human welfare is not their prime consideration

    Our freedoms and culture are being deliberately and systematically dismantled to protect a political State that I believe will pose a serious threat to the majority in the years ahead, if it doesn’t already

    Boris Johnson is nothing less than a wolf in sheep’s clothing and both main parties and their public sector allies a genuine stain on humanity

    1. Simeon
      January 6, 2021

      No one is forcing Sir John to remain in the Conservative Party. Any limitations on what he can and cannot say are self-imposed. Perhaps he simply does not recognise what we see DOM?

    2. BeebTax
      January 6, 2021

      +1. I think the State has already proven it is an existential threat on our freedoms.

    3. Jim Whitehead
      January 6, 2021

      +1

    4. Ed M
      January 6, 2021

      @Dom,

      ‘For most people the probability of dying from CV19 contraction is negligible’

      – I agree with you and the gist of what you say but we live in a world so liberal (and fearful of death) that views like this are more quaint than useful (sorry – but it’s true). Boris is merely acting in the same way as ALL other Western leaders (they don’t really have a choice because of the liberal world we live in).

      In fact, countries such as Australia are far more draconian than Boris is in trying to contain the virus.

      1. Ed M
        January 6, 2021

        Boris has made mistakes but overall he hasn’t done a bad job with the virus considering the excessively liberal world we live in and the restraints he’s under.

        He’s ultimately following the experts. His main job is to remain morally strong – as all leaders should do (Strength / Courage is more important than policy in situations like this). That is something he does have a choice in doing.

    5. Sir Joe Soap
      January 6, 2021

      There was a choice though wasn’t there?
      The option was there for MPs to jump over to the Brexit Party but it didn’t happen, Brexit Party caved in and the rest is history. But the option was there in big bold letters.

    6. No Longer Anonymous
      January 6, 2021

      I think it less planned than that.

      We have incompetence and panic and in the void created we are defaulting to statist ultra-leftism – and that’s because so many people working within the state have been recruited via The Guardian.

      In so many areas of public work one must demonstrate an affinity with leftism in order to get/hold a job – this is now extending to the private sector where a recruitment consultant friend of mine tells me that the recruitment of Diversity Advisers is booming … look at advertising and the film industry to see how this is taking hold everywhere.

      Teaching of our culture in schools is always done through the prism of anti-Nation as I explained yesterday – the beautiful The Soldier poem by Rupert Brooke was explained by a teacher to one of my young relatives as being about “the taking of foreign territory and jingoism.”

      This anti-culture has grown legs and taken on a life of its own. It takes a brave and strong person to resist it but even then they must possess the wit to do it.

    7. Brian Tomkinson
      January 6, 2021

      I agree with your analysis of the situation but politicians, like Sir John, must express their true thoughts, regardless of party affiliations, or else we are doomed to live in what is effectively a one party authoritarian state. That assumes of course that he is as unhappy with the current situation as we are. I wonder if he is?

    8. Hope
      January 6, 2021

      I don’t feel sorry for JR. He is intelligent person who is capable of standing up for himself. He wanted the post of MP. If he has issues of conscious or courage that is for him to address. He stood to be elected to represent people who are not capable of doing so. He should vote against lockdowns, they do not work. Secondly this course of lockdowns is far worse than the Chinese virus.

      He must advocate Johnson to be ousted and vote against lockdowns. The calls for prosecution for breaches under Human Rights should be shouted loud and clear at govt. ministers. They wanted and voted for a foreign court and laws to be above our own after all.

      1. NickC
        January 7, 2021

        Hope, It is indeed true that Boris Johnson has given us a very “soft” Brexit, where the UK remains tied to the EU for decades at a minimum. It is also true that national lockdowns have not worked, confirmed by actual evidence rather than government “nudge unit” propaganda. Boris is also imposing an all electric future on the UK, without bothering to provide the generation and backup plant necessary. The UK will fail this way – propaganda and hand-waving do not produce practical solutions. Boris must go.

    9. Dennis
      January 6, 2021

      ‘Boris Johnson is nothing less than a wolf in sheepā€™s clothing…’ – is he that clever?

    10. steve
      January 6, 2021

      DOM

      “Boris Johnson is nothing less than a wolf in sheepā€™s clothing ”

      More the fact he’s dug a bloody big hole for himself – and the rest of us.

      Frightened of big business that cares nothing for sovereignty and national pride.

      Answers to globalist agenda.

      A fingers in mouth indecisive ditherer who fails to understand he should be more frightened of us.

    11. Peter Martin
      January 6, 2021

      “For most people the probability of dying from CV19 contraction is negligible..”

      The landlord of my local pub used to say very much the same thing. But, late last year he started to feel unwell, tested positive for Covid 19, was admitted into hospital and unfortunately didn’t make it out alive.

      1. Mark B
        January 7, 2021

        Peter

        You are probably the only person here who knows someone who died of CV19. For such a contagious disease I am surprised you do not know of many more.

        1. SM
          January 7, 2021

          I live on the outskirts of a small tourist-oriented village in SA’s Western Cape. Our local pharmacist (in his 60’s) was hospitalised with Covid, and is now home but on oxygen. The manager of a local restaurant (in his 40s) died of Covid just before Xmas. A village resident and director (aged 64) of a nearby car dealership died of Covid just before Xmas, along with 2 other younger staff.

  5. SM
    January 6, 2021

    Please correct me if I have this wrong, but it’s my understanding that the purpose of the vaccine is to lessen the effect of the corona virus IF you become infected, NOT to prevent you succumbing to the infection in the first place.

    And as you say, SJ, since the flue vaccine delivery system exists, why not utilise it for the corona vaccine? (the phrase ‘NHS, PHE and Dept of Health incompetence’ springs to mind, but I can’t think why).

    1. Peter Wood
      January 6, 2021

      That’s what I have read; so the coming headline will read –

      ” Traveler who had complete vaccine regime is latest Super-Spreader..”

      NOT a travel passport then..

    2. beresford
      January 6, 2021

      I am concerned that a number of people haven’t grasped the facts about the vaccines as stated by the Government’s own experts and blindly repeat the mantra ‘The vaccine is our only hope’.
      1. The vaccines do not stop you from catching, carrying, or transmitting the virus. They hopefully prevent severe symptoms if you do catch it. It follows that there is no justification for restrictions on those who haven’t been vaccinated other than to ‘punish’ them for not doing as they are told. And Whitty is already trailing regular Winter lockdowns.
      2. The Oxford vaccine is 80% effective, which means 20% ineffective. It is probably less effective when the recommended period between doses isn’t followed. This means some vaccinated folk will still suffer severe symptoms.
      3. Healthy people have a 0.05% chance of getting severe symptoms, so vaccinating everybody is a waste of effort and resources.

    3. Fred H
      January 6, 2021

      no it is to stop the virus multiplying when you are in contact.

  6. Mary M.
    January 6, 2021

    Sir John,

    Talk of the booster injection of the Pfizer ‘vaccine’ being administered later than tested in trials, so that more of the population can receive the first shot, is troubling.

    Some elderly people will have braced themselves to accept the two injections of this new ‘vaccine’ spaced three to four weeks apart so as to be released from their isolation. Now they will be anxious that if they receive the booster some months after the first injection they will not be deemed protected sufficiently after all.

    1. BeebTax
      January 6, 2021

      There seem to be so many inconsistencies with what information dribbles out from government. They were saying none of us would be free from lockdown until the very elderly and vulnerable are vaccinated, so why waste vaccine on the younger and less vulnerable?

      The second shot only improves resistance to symptoms by 5-10%, is prolonging lockdown worth it for that minor benefit to the cohort of vulnerable who would get their jabs in the last 3 weeks of the initial vaccination programme? Those who were vaccinated earlier would get the full benefit.

    2. Roy Grainger
      January 6, 2021

      The elderly people who have already been vaccinated have been specifically told that it does not release them from their isolation, they still have to follow all rules about self-isolation and lockdown. This is because the government advisers claim that vaccination may not stop you catching and transmitting the virus. They may be saying this just to enforce the lockdown of course.

      The government advisers have no incentive at all for the lockdown ever to be lifted – they are already assuming it will continue next winter. This is because they expect to be judged purely on the Coronavirus death rate – not the unemployment numbers, or future cancer deaths, or business bankruptcies, or ruined children’s education. They will keep insiting on lockdowns and leaking to the compliant press to support them and Boris will keep caving in to them. Whatever you get told today about when lockdown will be lifted will not be correct, it is going to be semi-permanent with the current Government and opposition. So, not much point debating it really.

    3. Ed M
      January 6, 2021

      @Mary,

      ‘Now they will be anxious that if they receive the booster some months after the first injection they will not be deemed protected sufficiently after all.’

      – Many young people are anxious that their lives will be badly damaged for the next few years as they try and pay for the economic decline or our country due to the virus. These young people also feel that they’re missing out on normal life that so many older people enjoyed when they were younger.

      We absolutely need to balance the particular needs of all age groups, including The Middle Aged who are the ones running the country at the moment, looking after both the old and the young etc and the pressures these Middle Aged people are under.

    4. Alan Jutson
      January 6, 2021

      Mary

      Would be nice to know if the delay for these vaccines second booster shots has been tested and approved by the licensing authorities who passed the vaccine in the first place as fit for purpose.

      Logic suggests that it is a good idea to initially protect more people more quickly by delaying the second shot, and injecting more people with the first, but do the science and licensing authorities agree, if so when will it be approved for such use, or is no one worried that the vaccine is not going to be used as originally prepared, developed, and designed.

      In short are politicians now overruling the licensing authorities in the way it is used..

    5. Lifelogic
      January 6, 2021

      “Talk of the booster injection of the Pfizer ā€˜vaccineā€™ being administered later than tested in trials, so that more of the population can receive the first shot, is troubling.”

      Doing this and vaccinating double the number of people with one dose initially will almost certainly save more lives overall. I would say that not doing this would be “troubling”.

      Not vaccinating men at a slightly younger age than women will also cost lives. The fact that the goverment and their “experts” have not noticed this is very troubling indeed. Are they complete idiots or do they just want more covid deaths for childish political perception reasons?

    6. Hope
      January 6, 2021

      It will cause distrust as the guidance by govt and producer says clearly they need two I 21 days. After scaring people to adhere to the rules of th double injection the govt now says it is not needed when the producer says trials ahve not been based on the current govt action! I wonder why people might be reluctant?

    7. jerry
      January 6, 2021

      Indeed Mary, if the UK govt has research that proves delaying the second dose is either neutral or beneficial then why have they not submitted their papers to peer revue?

      I suspect that at best all the govt can show is that it is not unsafe to do so, in that it is not going to produce a vaccine resistant virus, but is there any data that proves the continuing effectiveness of the first dose, could this policy end up with previously vaccinated people having to on effect start over again with their personal vaccine timetable 12+ weeks on.

      1. NickC
        January 7, 2021

        Jerry, Is a “peer revue” one where various Lords dress up as jesters and pantomime donkeys?

    8. Helen Smith
      January 6, 2021

      On the flip side many more elderly will have had no injection at all if those who have one have the second in short order.

    9. NigelE
      January 6, 2021

      By changing the terms under which the vaccines are used, the Govt and itā€™s institutions are leaving themselves wide open to legal action. Whatā€™s that hissing sound I hear? Oh just the sound of lawyers rubbing their hands together.

      1. Lynn
        January 6, 2021

        They gave themselves, the vaccinators and the producers legal indemnity. You canā€™t Sue any of them even if you are paralysed for life from the vaccine.

        1. Fred H
          January 7, 2021

          you can’t sue after you die of Covid.

      2. Alan Jutson
        January 7, 2021

        NigelE

        Agree, is the vaccine licensed for such use, if not will it be ?

  7. Peter
    January 6, 2021

    Recent articles have voiced concerns felt by many – though possibly in a more measured tone.

    You do not mention the issue of those who either do not want or do not trust a vaccine. Will they be pressured into it, possibly through a requirement for vaccination before travel or undertaking certain activities?

    You also do not address the silencing of those who have a different view of the situation to the governments chosen scientists. For instance TalkRadio was the latest to be banned from YouTube – though apparently that ban has now been reversed.

    The big economic price you mention never seems to be prioritised . Neither does the effect on youngsters whose education is disrupted.

    1. Grey Friar
      January 6, 2021

      I expect he doesn’t address the silencing of different views because it hasn’t happened. The internet is awash with different views, including the wildest conspiracy theories imaginable. No one is silenced in the internet world. People who come up with unsubstantiated claims get ignored by sensible people, but that’s not silencing, that’s applying a quality filter

    2. BeebTax
      January 6, 2021

      +1

    3. Andy
      January 6, 2021

      You do not have to have the vaccine.

      So long as we do not have to pay to treat you if you get sick.

      1. Narrow Shoulders
        January 6, 2021

        Taxes paid. Treatment expected.

        1. Martin in Cardiff
          January 7, 2021

          Taxes paid. Prevention expected.

          1. Fred H
            January 7, 2021

            or what seems to be the case ……taxes avoided, prevention unwanted.

      2. NickC
        January 7, 2021

        Andy, Your inner authoritarian is showing through again.

    4. Nig l
      January 6, 2021

      Re your second paragraph. When the roll out is completed and all anti vax tosh from people with no subject knowledge whatsoever is put to bed as I expect it will be subject to normal adjustments as more experience is garnered, people must demonstrate they have had it or they are Covid free, and here the development of a quick test is crucial, before going into higher risk areas like hospitality or travel.

      I have zero wish to be near people who have chosen to put themselves and therefore others at risk.

      Choices should have consequences.

    5. No Longer Anonymous
      January 6, 2021

      Indeed. The generation that is going to be depended upon to get us out of this economic mess are being hobbled educationally as well as financially.

      I had started to grow sympathetic to this government in the hope of the vaccine but its roll out is being bungled like everything else in this crisis.

      They knew the roll out was coming. Why wasn’t the army of volunteers recruited already ? How is it OK that the scientifically recommended three-week interval between first and second jabs has become so flexible – is it to cover the absence of any organisation ?

      Chaos reigns as usual.

      1. turboterrier
        January 6, 2021

        Anonymous

        Situation normal then

      2. NickC
        January 7, 2021

        No Longer Anon, The MHRA specifically recommended the second jab to be 4 to 12 weeks after the first, for the Oxford/A-Z vaccine, not 3 weeks. Together with the storage conditions being only a normal fridge, that gives a lot of flexibility.

    6. Lifelogic
      January 6, 2021

      It is not just an economic price for the lockdown. From the current position lockdown will kill more people than no lockdown. The government has it seems chosen not to quantify this damage and has ignored it.

      Lockdowns make very little difference and many will not even obey them anyway.

    7. Hope
      January 6, 2021

      Johnson is depriving children of their life chances and trying to close private schools it appears by the back door, despite having gone to one himself. There is no justification for closing schools based on their own fake figures.

      Quite disgraceful.

    8. David L
      January 6, 2021

      I agree, Peter. And there are still many unknowns about the current vaccines, including whether they can prevent someone infecting others. One of my concerns is that, after having the jab, if another vaccine is produced that has better effects, would I be able to have the improved one as well or be stuck with one that means I am supposed to maintain isolation for longer?
      And as for the refusal to debate or even let us listen to the thousands of immunologists, pathologists and other specialists who maintain lockdown and masks are ineffectual, that surely fuels the conspiracy theorists and leads me to think they have something to hide.

    9. Mark
      January 6, 2021

      I think the government should plan for remedial education and proper exams. It is no remedy to pretend that children have been properly educated by awarding them grades based on how teachers think they might have done had they been properly taught, or to follow on with years of easier exams as compensation for lack of teaching during the pandemic. Let’s cut the useless spend on low value university education and devote the resource to improving the lot of those cheated of a better education by the pandemic. To some extent, and particularly for younger children, the process of catching up can be achieved by restoring the pace of the curriculum to what it was 40 years ego before the steady erosion in standards that was at least partly halted by Gove’s time as minister.

    10. Mactheknife
      January 6, 2021

      I asked my GP surgery today if the vaccine was mandatory and they confirmed it wasn’t. However a few weeks ago the issue of ‘vaccine passports’ was raised and Michael Gove immediately dismissed the notion, but just a few days later news reports suggested that the government had back tracked on Gove’s statement.

      Maybe John could clarify ?

  8. Yossarion
    January 6, 2021

    Talk Radio removed from youtube, who cares about vaccinations if there is No free speech in the woke led world that seems to have taken over.

  9. davews
    January 6, 2021

    I hear that WHO have now expressed their concern with our proposal to delay the administration of the second dose. In this case I feel it strange we are still proposing to do this which flies against all scientific advice.

  10. DaveM
    January 6, 2021

    For once I agreed with Piers Morgan yesterday – we should be throwing the kitchen sink at this and yet a few advisors and ministers seem to want it all done by the NHS (which we keep hearing is under huge pressure already).

    Being in the military, I usually disagree fundamentally with those whose automatic reaction to anything is ā€˜use the Armyā€™, but on this occasion I believe we should be mobilising every asset the country has, even if they have to sit around sometimes while they wait for more vaccines to be manufactured.

    Please tell me the rejection of the offer of help from pharmacists is fake news?

  11. Lynn
    January 6, 2021

    JR is there no means of ā€˜getting out of thisā€™ except by appeasing SAGE? If that is do we are in real trouble because they are saying already that spring will bring no relief and that the vaccine ā€˜mightā€™ not work for the new variant. CV19 has gone – is that their view. Nobody medical mentions it anymore.
    Trying to get rid of Coronaviruses is akin to trying to get rid of CO2.
    The Govt has gone mad. Is Parliament mad too?
    I am happy for the mad people to self isolate for the rest of their lives if the want to. But those of us still functioning must be free to function. This is yet another selective ā€˜private sectorā€™ lockdown. The factories and builders can continue working because the corporate sector must be protected, obviously.
    Please vote against this lockdown. Please demand a repeal of the emergency legislation.

  12. Mike Wroe
    January 6, 2021

    11,000 Pharmacies with at least one trained Pharmacist but despite offering to help this has so far been ignored. Vaccinating 20 people a day in pharmacies is 1.3 million in a week. But as usual the NHS is slow and laboured and we are vaccinating one tenth of the people we should be. Lockdown costs Ā£3 billion a week.

    1. Treacle
      January 7, 2021

      A pharmacy that can only vaccinate 20 people a day is useless. They should be able to vaccinate 20 people an hour. How many needles could you stick into an orange in the space of an hour?

      1. DaveK
        January 7, 2021

        Apparently the patient has to sit for 15 minutes after the injection to check for any reactions and the staff need epi-pen devices available. It does make sense that the first 4 categories are done in hospitals, care homes and at home as that’s where a lot will be. The other groups can go to pharmacies, polling stations or even the local Wetherspoons and be done quicker IF stocks are available.

  13. Bloke in Wales
    January 6, 2021

    I have a simple solution to end the lockdowns ASAP:

    It has been noted that none of those curtailing our freedom has yet to miss a paycheque. Therefore, all the while there are restrictions to our liberties due to this (or any similar) “emergency”, any politician that votes for them should have their salary suspended. The same goes for the advisors advocating the restrictions.

    After all, we’re all in this together. Aren’t we?

  14. Ed M
    January 6, 2021

    This country needs someone such as Michael O’Leary to help get it sorted out.

    Although I don’t agree with O’Leary on Brexit, he is, in fairness, a patriot, who pays his taxes in his home country and does much to support national life. And he has a sensible and balanced approach to things (yes, he is far from perfect as CEO of Ryanair but he is at least completely independent from state hands outs unlike so many other major airlines in Europe).

    1. Ed M
      January 6, 2021

      And why we need to pay politicians far more. And we’ve got to do something about the Media who harangue and harass our politicians so much – which is why so many talented individuals refuse to go into politics.

      And by endorsing business people such as Michael O’Leary I do NOT endorse business people such as President Trump.

      He inheritted millions from his father, unlike people such as O’Leary. Lots of Republicans could have done a much better job than President Trump. Moreover, President Trump has just spread discord and fear and a sense of WEIRDNESS in his country.

      May he please never return to politics and may Conservatives here in the UK distance themselves from President Trump more and more (not from Republicanism but from President Trump).

  15. Andy
    January 6, 2021

    The economy damage of lockdown is immense. Short term and very visible.

    But we must remember the economic damage from Tory pensioner Brexit is worse.

    Long term and permanent.

    And today we learn Brexit has left dozens of seriously ill children unable to get the life saving drugs they need. Shame on all of you.

    1. NickC
      January 7, 2021

      Andy, About 80% of Brexit voters were not pensioners. As you have been told before. And, under universal suffrage, a pensioner’s vote is rightly as valid as a 45 year old’s. Since we have not properly left the EU, we will not be as well off as we would have been under a WTO Brexit. If your claim about the n0n-supply of drugs is true, revealing yet again the bullying tactics of your EU masters, it again proves how right we were to opt for Leave.

      1. margaret howard
        January 7, 2021

        NickC

        “About 80% of Brexit voters were not pensioners”

        YouGov

        “Age is the other great fault line. Under-25s were more than twice as likely to vote Remain (71%) than Leave (29%). Among over-65s the picture is almost the exact opposite, as 64% of over-65s voted to Leave while only 36% voted to Remain. Among the other age groups, voters aged 24 to 49 narrowly opted for Remain (54%) over leave (46%) while 60% of voters between the ages of 50 and 64 went for Leave.

        The most dramatic split is along the lines of education. 70% of voters whose educational attainment is only GCSE or lower voted to Leave, while 68% of voters with a university degree voted to Remain in the EU. Those with A levels and no degree were evenly split, 50% to 50%.

        1. Edward2
          January 7, 2021

          All votes are of equal value.
          Whatever your age, sex, education, religion and ethnicity voters are.
          Surely you accept this fundamental point?

  16. agricola
    January 6, 2021

    I like the idea of giving as many vulnerable as possible the first vaccination, so feeding an immunity into that part of the population. It also reduces their chances of passing it on to others.

    Remove the wet cold hand of health and safety from those qualified to administer the injection. Having seen their questionaire, I would suggest running the perpetrators out of town. Most members of a mountain rescue team could administer it along with the sharp end of our military forces. Not to mention all the retired or resting medical staff. The actions of the civil service involved in blocking potential helpers is tantamount to sabotage.

    None of us are privy to the potential rates of production at Astra Zeneca, but I am quite sure the are working flat out, purely because they are private enterprise

    1. agricola
      January 6, 2021

      As an adendum I find it unbelievable that they have not involved pharmacists in the vaccination process. They regularly administer the flu vaccine so where is adminastrative blockage. Perhaps you as an MP could enlighten us.

  17. Chris Dark
    January 6, 2021

    There is a continuing reluctance to look at the facts surrounding these “vaccines”. The short time of trialling before being “authorised” for mass use. The experimental nature of the Pfizer vaccine in particular. Why does no-one consider these issues to be important? Are you all so desperate that you would take a doubtful vaccine into your bodies?
    Even older people don’t want to run the risk of side effects and although no vaccine is perfect you have to question the speed at which Pfizer and AstraZeneca have prepared and so-called tested these solutions, plus the eagerness of authorities to “approve” them.
    I give up here. Take them. Suffer the consequences.

  18. Lifelogic
    January 6, 2021

    Winter excess deaths are entirely within the normal envelope, so why exactly are we shut down? Shut down clearly causes far more damage than it saves. Most of the Covid deaths currently are clearly not (unless we have had some miracles in treatments for other diseases). Deaths in England and Wales outside the dreadful March-May bulge are only 2% above the five year average. This with a higher population and a fairly low 5 year average compaired to say the 20 year average.

    If one in 50 has Covid then this is protecting (in effect “vaccinating”) more people than the government are managing.

    It is hard to understand what the government are doing unless they are profiting or being pushed by people profiting from excess testing and vaccinations.

    It is appalling that Talk Radio has been cut off. They are ones taking a balanced approach. The BBC and Government are the ones largely lying.

  19. Richard1
    January 6, 2021

    At least as of yesterday retired doctors were still being asked to fill in reams of irrelevant nonsense about their familiarity with fire safety regulations and awareness of racial issues. Actually what we need is people who can administer vaccines properly and safely. I suggest MPs ask specific questions about this and how and when ministers will give orders for this leftist bureaucratic crap to be abolished. (then once we are through this letā€™s carry on with that process in other areas).

  20. turboterrier
    January 6, 2021

    All well and good but what is the truth behind the headline : No innoculations on Sunday.

    One would think that there would be a 18 hour vaccine programme in place at the very least considering the importance of the programme being highlighted at every opportunity by politicians, experts BBC and the tabloids.

  21. Philip P.
    January 6, 2021

    Dear Sir John, Your administrative-type questions here are rather beside the point. The question that matters is: Are you going to vote for another lockdown when you’ve spent many months courageously arguing that lockdowns do much more harm than good? That includes harm to people in Wokingham Borough, where I live. If you betray that principle, you are not my MP.

  22. Narrow Shoulders
    January 6, 2021

    Ask your questions Sir John but you will get no assistance from the opposition or the pay check element of your party.

    Too many politicians and civil servants enjoy authoritarianism too much. Everything can be solved with more legislation.

    For the left, “pay people to stay at home” and beginning the road to equalisation, for the centre “compensate people to make them comply”, for the laissez faire right – let people make their own minds up based on risk.

    There are too few in public life on the right to make a difference

  23. ian@Barkham
    January 6, 2021

    As others have mentioned – ā€œsome of the expertsā€?

    Also as others have mentioned committees that are predominantly and exclusively ‘behavioral experts’ – what ever an expert is when it only a theory and they have no track record of being proven right in these exceptional circumstance. Have no place as advising a Country at the level required.

  24. George H
    January 6, 2021

    Sir John,

    I wanted to bring to your attention some information about a drug which has the potential to be a complete game-changer in the fight against COVID. Dr Andrew Hill, at the University of Liverpool, has recently completed a meta-analysis of multiple randomised clinical trials of Ivermectin, as part of a WHO-funded programme,

    He details the results here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOAh7GtvcOs but the headline is that the drug, which is cheap, and widely available globally (indeed is on the WHO list of essential medicines) shows a 83% reduction in mortality for COVID patients. As such, it has the potential to save thousands of British lives.

    It offers a strong alternative or adjunct to vaccines, which have many challenges and open questions, as you’ve highlighted in your post.

    Anything you are willing and able to do to publicise this information, and to make those in a position of authority to act on or at least respond formally to it would, I’m sure, be greatly appreciated by many.

  25. bigneil(newercomp)
    January 6, 2021

    When is the next amazingly quick-change variation of the virus going to be “found”? Will the next one be able to hunt us down – even if we never leave a sealed room. It would not surprise me to hear that claim. Govt credibility is at zero. “Covid” deaths up – -but Flu deaths down ? Amazing coincidence. Flu – – keep the country running – -“Covid” – -trash the country. Clearly Project Fear and Control MUST be carried on.

  26. Lifelogic
    January 6, 2021

    Do not bother to vaccinate people who have certainly had it. Vaccinate all men over 60 and women over circa 65 who want it (due to different gender risks). Then assuming the vaccines are effective as is claimed they will then have prevented circa 98% of Covid Deaths anyway. Excess deaths currently are tiny anyway well within the normal envelope.

    Perhaps circa 16 million vaccines would be needed. In an hour one person can perhaps do 20. So 4,000 people injecting in shifts 24 hours a day it can surely be done in about a week if supply and competent management is available.

  27. Pat
    January 6, 2021

    Sir John

    The UK government’s vaccination management is utterly inadequate.

    We should be vaccinating 6 million per week as set out in the Adam Smith Institute report : https://www.adamsmith.org/research/worth-a-shot

    The first step, as they suggest, is to set up a dedicated vaccination ‘War Room’ to de-bottleneck. This should be chaired by the Prime Minister.

  28. ian@Barkham
    January 6, 2021

    It would appear Government is thrashing around just looking for a headline, just to make people believe they have a plan.

    On the face of it the UK placed more orders for the vaccine, approved the vaccine first, rolled the first vaccines, miles ahead of all others. All good headlines – Reality Check, those we said were in our dust and started later have now vaccinated more people. Oh! I forgot we are protecting our NHS, looking after our Elites(who and what ever they are)

    Those that suggest the ‘great reset’ is just another conspiracy theory are also the ones that daily confirm that is the mode and practice of our central controlled 1984 State.

    Big state big failure, both historically and in todays world. We are supposed to learn from our mistakes not keep repeating them.

  29. turboterrier
    January 6, 2021

    There has really got to be a rethink about what is trying to be achieved and what is the end game.
    The present incumbents detailed to front, organise and operate this massive operation just do not cut the mustard. It is not only a plan that is needed which everybody is totally signed on and committed to but a lead coordinator/facilitator to coordinate the whole programme. A disaster relief specialist well respected very experienced but more importantly someone who is totally credible and not seen as an extension to what we have already got.

  30. Sharon
    January 6, 2021

    Thereā€™s a lot of the use of the word ā€œwill?ā€ with regards to the NHS. The mindset of the NHS needs desperately to change, but in the meantime the managers need to be elbowed aside and be told what to do.

    In March I read about a hospital unit where the medical took over the running of it, and it was said it had never been run so efficiently!

    Will the NHS come up with the goods…hmm! Depends on whether they are forced to really. Letā€™s hope so.

  31. Sakara Gold
    January 6, 2021

    If you are unfortunate enough to have to visit your GP and are given a prescription for your ailment, the literature in the box and on the label states that you should take the medicine exactly as the doctor has advised.

    Despite assurances to the contrary the new vaccines have had many shortcuts taken during their design, production and testing – for example the Oxford/Azn vaccine has not been tested on the over 55’s. The manufacturers point out that the testing regime involved a booster dose three weeks after the first jab, as with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine where full immunity starts seven days after the second dose.

    Whichever “expert” (Hancock? Bliair?) has come up with the dangerous idea that we can delay giving recipients of the first jab their second by “up to” three months is playing with fire. US regulators and WHO have questioned the policy, saying it is premature without more trial evidence.

    Even more stupid is the insane idea that we should “mix and match” doses of different vaccines – for which there is no precedent or test results and which is clearly a high-risk strategy.

    We have a well-established system and infrastructure in place to deliver the annual flu jab. So why do the politicians wish to involve themselves in the minutae of micromanaging the roll-out of the Chinese plague virus vaccines? Government’s role is to arrange adequate supplies and should let the professionals do the rest, lest the vaccines roll-out turns into yet another government cock-up.

  32. Bryan Harris
    January 6, 2021

    The governments confidence in the CV vaccines and incessant lock-downs is incredibly naive, or something far worse…

    Personally, I have no confidence that even if the vaccines work to any degree, that we will see the end of lock-downs and masks…. For as one famous computer boffin has told us, “This is the new normal”

    Boris is pushing the restrictions too far, and something will snap.

  33. No Longer Anonymous
    January 6, 2021

    The faltering roll out of the vaccine is but the latest bungle by the government, according to Jane Moore:

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13660661/buffoon-boris-just-like-churchill-the-ad-bulldog/

    1. No Longer Anonymous
      January 6, 2021

      To be fair, we are doing better than the vast majority of nations. Let’s hope it stays that way.

      1. roger
        January 6, 2021

        But are we?
        Here in SNP Scotland the vaccination tallies are a deep dark secret and very little information as to progress can be discovered from any source whatsoever.
        And so we are left with only our circle of friends and acquaintances together with the diminished ripples of their contacts to try to assess how roll out is going.
        My circle of peers are octogenarians and NO ONE knows of any in that classification that has had their first jag.

      2. Martin in Cardiff
        January 7, 2021

        Oh, it’s the football league table again for people who can only think that way.

  34. P. Else
    January 6, 2021

    The government has put us all in prison and ruined our future to force us to take untested and dangrous vaccines by lying about infections and bed occupancy. You and all your fellow MPS have failed in your duty to question anything that Boris’s cabal has done despite it’s proven failure, even judged by it’s own propaganda. Not a single searching question, no bringing up facts that quite plainly contradict everything we are expected to believe.
    In the past you have discussed the loss of faith in politicians Mr Redwood. Well this is the largest breath of faith by the political class in history.

  35. ian@Barkham
    January 6, 2021

    My apologies for bring up again, Brexit and the EU FTA, but it does relate.

    This Government seems to want to be the Headline in the MsM before all else. The UK’s FTA with the EU is one sided, lop sided. It is not equal or a FTA. Everything the EU trades with the UK is included, everything the EU demands from the UK is included. The UK’s biggest by a very large margin, more than any other single sector, export to the EU (services and finance) is excluded from any trade deal. Rationale the EU gets a free pass on its trade to the UK, while the small bit the UK does do with the EU for now at least is excluded.

    That is not free and balanced – that is Government Ego and Control pushing out an inexactitude for a headline. Spin doctoring in it worst guise in the middle of a crisis

    This stance of control and manipulate has now spread into the vaccine, the lock down, the crippling of the economy and the countries debt being piled up. While I understand the changing nature of the virus and the need for action, but when you play into every knee jerk response of this government, the criteria is ‘headline’, ‘I’m on telly’ – but no direction or aim. Blame political decision failures on a science that isn’t science and keep our fingers crossed, is the best that could be said. Pass the buck, but don’t for one minute think it will land at the top.

    The Government didn’t cause this virus but they are certainly using it as a tool of manipulation and control. Very Corbin, you first destroy society so you can then build it in your image.

    That which ever way you shake it out it is not Government by the People for the People.

  36. Fred H
    January 6, 2021

    OFF TOPIC.
    BBC website.
    An update on our main story this morning about World Health Organization investigators being denied entry to China. The WHO had said this was due to a lack of visa clearances.
    However, the Chinese government now says the decision to deny the team entry is ā€œnot just limited to a visa issue but to the dates and some other detailsā€.
    Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told the BBC: “Chinese authorities are in close co-operation with WHO but there has been some minor outbreaks in multiple places around the world and many countries and regions are busy in their work preventing the virus and we are also working on this.”
    Shock horror! – -who would have thought it!

    1. Fred H
      January 6, 2021

      this needs Moderation ? Why? The WHO actually denied a visit to China – arranged weeks ago – a year since the outbreak!
      This ought to be headlines!!
      Are you restricted by China on what you publish?

  37. BJC
    January 6, 2021

    The government are trapped in the group think that comes from being too close to a long-running problem. I can’t think of a single valid reason that excuses those in Parliament following blindly, though. They’re elected to lead on our behalf, yet I’m sure they’ll be “convinced” and await hearing about all those heavy hearts as Parliament waves the lockdown through. Does anyone care that it condemns our children to a potential year of mediocre learning, if any, and a country unable to recover?

    Re the vaccine, I’m more of the view that the problem with rollout is being driven by anti-private sector sentiment…….the list should also include Covid compliant dentists, by the way. If they can offer me Botox(!), they can stick a needle in an arm.

    ………..and STILL the government; and indeed, Parliament, defends the serially incompetent PHE leviathan. It needs breaking down into manageable chunks to limit its damaging influence, create competition and identify underperformers.

  38. Nivek
    January 6, 2021

    “Presumably if enough people can be protected the governmentā€™s experts would then consider allowing more social contact and economic activity” (emphases here and below added).

    I would be interested in learning what you think about the above sentence, given that you wrote the following on these pages less than a year ago:
    “Beware the tyranny of experts…. It has been fashionable for some years to say experts should be in charge of more of our public policy decisions and politicians fewer. This resulted in some famous policy disasters chronicled here.”
    (Source: “Experts, politicians and the media”, March 15th, 2020.)

    reply That statement is carefully worded and true. I have raised plenty of questions about the official advice.

    1. Simeon
      January 6, 2021

      Nivek, what Sir John is saying is that it’s the expert’s fault, not the politicians, and certainly not the government.

  39. Nig l
    January 6, 2021

    A fast moving (from the unknown) febrile atmosphere with armchair experts infesting social media, allied to a gotcha media does not make a good mix.

    Bearing in mind how complicated the supply chain it is, I suggest it is not possible to give ā€˜head of a pinā€™ figures so a grown up attitude to ā€˜ambition/targetsā€™ is needed.

    The questions you ask and (some) others are spot on. Please urge the government to put them in a rolling FAQ format, for instance the follow up jab, I believe the over 80s will get it but put this and others, into something simple we can all access.

  40. formula57
    January 6, 2021

    “… and to be offered reassurance about who is going to administer the doses….” – yes! I am setting aside a good half hour for my jab to allow time for me to question the jabber about attitudes to diversity.

  41. A.Sedgwick
    January 6, 2021

    Why was a plan not devised months ago for rapid vaccination?

    How is it that many thousands of patients or their spouses administer daily and yet retired medics are deemed a risk?

    We are witnessing a supreme example of the decrepid ineptitude of our state to do anything most of us regard as common sense.

  42. Hope
    January 6, 2021

    We should no longer peacefully standby allowing th govt. to wreck our way of life and economy without good reason. This is how dictatorships are borne. It must be stopped.

    Vaccines are not compulsory. Is this another govt threat to coerce people to be vaccinated against the threat of perpetual lockdown and withdrawal of freedom, liberty and democracy?

    I will not have a vaccine under duress or be coerced by govt to have one. Why are you and other Fake Tory MPs not challenging this JR? Govt. scaring people into submission is disgraceful by any standard.

  43. cassandra
    January 6, 2021

    Are you satisfied that the jab is necessary and safe ? Have the Govt been truthful about the scale and seriousness if the “pandemic?” Do you think the jab should be forced on people who rightly have reservations, especially since there is no accountability anywhere if severe damage is done? Do you consider the right to informed consent should be trampled on ?
    These are the questions to consider first and I have not heard any satisfactory answer from Govt.

  44. Caterpillar
    January 6, 2021

    When we look at the positive Covid test NHS England hospital deaths cumulative to December 30th (putting age profile to one side), we see

    48,180 (pre-existing condition), 2,068 (no pre-existing condition)

    Questions:-

    1) How many of the Covid positive patients in hospitals are being treated for Covid (and what is the protocol)?
    2) How many of the patients are being treated only for Covid?
    3) Hence, how many are not being treated for Covid?

    So:-

    Can Covid only patients can be transferred to Nightingales alongside isolating (but no symptoms) staff?

    4) How have admission criteria for Covid changed since April?

  45. Ed M
    January 6, 2021

    Dear Sir John,

    My sister wants to volunteer to jab as many people as possible with the new vaccination so that she can then help her daughters going to university and at university to get on with their lives.

    Please help people like my sister to be able to get on with volunteering to jab – and that we get the vaccination thing done as quickly as possible.

    Thank you

  46. Christine
    January 6, 2021

    Due to huge UK Government incompetence in delaying our own manufacturing plant one of the main Oxford vaccine production sites has been contracted out to a company in Holland. I expect that as soon as the EU approves this vaccine they will ban its export to the UK just as happened with PPE. We need to see a delivery plan and find out where the bottlenecks are. Whatā€™s happened to that guy they put in charge of PPE delivery? Canā€™t he do this job?

  47. jerry
    January 6, 2021

    “The sooner we can get back to saving jobs the better. Another national lock down has a big economic price.”

    But so does wide spread mass illness, hence why even in ‘normal years’ the Govt (and some private companies) spends vast sums each year on Flu vaccine programs!

    Just how many businesses have actually had to shut-down due to the lockdown(s), not as many as some keep trying to suggest, indeed many have grown due to the lockdown, and as such it might even be suggested that we have never actually had a lockdown, just moderately harsh restrictions, mostly on elective leisure activities (the only people who have faced a proper and true lockdown were those told to shield, were even basic foods were delivered to their homes). We need some real world figures on this, such data must be available via the HRMC; real-time/quarter VAT and PAYE payments perhaps?

    Yes Govt (taxpayer) borrowing is eye watering, to young eyes and for those who history is an inconvenient truth, but our national debt is nothing compared to what it was in the 1950s, yet that decade was one of UK’s best economic periods in modern times!

    People keep going on about the young loosing their jobs or education etc, but they have a working life ahead of them to recover once this health crisis is past [1], in the same way as the youth of early 1980s recovered, and those of the post WW2 era did before them, as the then economic crises passed. But such people will never start to pull themselves up, or get on their bikes (to coin a phrase), if the economic nay-sayers of today keep telling the young their lives have been wrecked or they are victims of govt mismanagement, the nay-sayers of today are doing exactly what the hard left did in the early 1980s, and were justly criticised for at the time.

    Some people need to head the sensible words of Mr Callaghan, though woefully miss-quoted for political gain by the Tory supporting media, upon his return from that economic summit in early 1979 – stop being so parochial…!

    [1] the real problems are likely with the 50 plus year old age groups, some who will have lost income/pensions they have little time left to recover

  48. alastair harris
    January 6, 2021

    what would be helpful would be a clear statement about how vaccine roll out works in conjunction with removing lockdown regulations. At the moment there is no clear suggestion that the latter will result from the former, AT ALL!

  49. ian@Barkham
    January 6, 2021

    As each day passes, we see a Government perusing a different agenda to the needs of the Country

    From todays Telegraph
    “High street pharmacies are “desperate” to roll out more than one million doses of the Oxford vaccine every week but have been snubbed by the Government, senior industry leaders have revealed.”
    “He said there were around 11,400 pharmacies across the country that already administer millions of flu jabs every year, with the capability to vaccinate around 1.3 million people against Covid every week.”

    Without urgent decisive action, especially when a remedy and the means exists one lock-down will follow another into 2022 and beyond

    The People of the UK want to get things up and running, have the capability to get it up and running. Yet this Government appears to hate the idea of people doing it for themselves – accept our control, our experts, our NHS or no exit is the mantra.

    For every decision made by this government they want, need, crave for total control its as if that should things turn out for the better the glory must rest on their shoulders. However, time and time again throughout every history imaginable, the people, the communities their enterprises do it better, with less drama and in shorter time.

    A Government that doesn’t trust its people(the electorate) is a government in fear of their own shadow.

  50. Lester Cynic Beedell
    January 6, 2021

    Several excellent articles on Conservative Woman today… MPs are lobby fodder…. rubber stamping government policy and about the BBC being the source for fake news plus many other articles, pity they arenā€™t running the country, come to think of it almost anyone would make a better job than the current lot, if the last General Election were to be held now the Tories would have lost by a significant margin, well done Boris for destroying the Tory Party!

    YouTube attempting to shut down TalkRadio has only served to draw attention to their censorship, a spectacular own goal.

  51. Stred
    January 6, 2021

    A friend whose family includes GPs reports that the health centre where they work has a retired GP who has worked part time for years and gives injections. He volunteered to join the vaccination team and then received the pile of paperwork requiring qualification certificates, and all the other crap about diversity and retraining. His reaction was to put it in the bin and let them find some other vaguely qualified person who liked to fill in forms.

    Then today we hear that Boots and Lloyds chemists, who regularly provide flu vaccinations, were initially snubbed by NHS management and this had been reversed by a minister. Sometimes it seems as though the NHS is doing everything it can to prevent good health.

    Good news is that a study up North on 11,000 health and care workers who definitely have had covid earlier last year found that not one of them has caught it again. At the same time it is thought that one in fifty people in parts of the UK have had the bug and almost all of them have not been too badly affected. If this continues the goal of herd immunity will be reached before long and vaccination will not be necessary for most younger people.
    Re Dr John Campbell

  52. Lifelogic
    January 6, 2021

    Most of the hundreds of thousands of PCR testing being done are totally pointless – simply replace these with people doing vaccinations of the vulnerable and selected important groups and lift the lockdown now. We have more of a political problem than a medical one.

    All the ONS and NHS stats other than the highly questionable PCR test results show that we have almost entirely normal winter death rates. Stats that are shown clearly on lockdownskeptics.org, elsewhere and by the excellent Dr Clare Craig.

  53. Old person
    January 6, 2021

    Will the vaccinations fix the problem? The new Covid variant, 501.V2, currently spreading across South Africa is more of a problem than the UK super Covid strain and has already been detected in Europe, Japan and Australia. It spreads faster and the ten changes to the spike protein means that current vaccines may not work at all.
    The UK government has quietly banned all flights from South Africa.

  54. Lynn
    January 6, 2021

    If we have to lockdown then it must be a complete lockdown. No Olympics, no football, no construction industry, nobody working except people in full PPE distributing food on a pro-rata basis. Nobody to leave the house, including the police, postmen, HMRC workers must be confined to their homes, banks must shut. Shutdown or do not shutdown!
    The Government must fund everyone – they know how much we earned in the last 3 years. No loans, only grants.
    Now ask the House of Commons to vote for that! The Ayn Rand solution.

  55. Lifelogic
    January 6, 2021

    Kier Starmer just now “the vaccine is the only way out”. Total drivel mate, we have only had vaccines to any significant degree for a tiny, tiny proportion of the time mankind has been on Earth.

    Anyway it is clear that Covid has largely done its damage and it is now essentially on the way out.

    How can anyone be so daft?

    1. Lifelogic
      January 6, 2021

      Doubtless Starmer will next be telling us the best way out of the economic mess left by Covid (rather the over reaction to it) will be a larger state sector, even more regulation, expensive intermittent energy and even higher taxes – rather like this government in fact.

    2. hefner
      January 6, 2021

      Earth population: 200 m around 0BCE/CE, 1 bn in 1804, 2 bn in 1927. From 1851, smallpox vaccination became mandatory in ā€˜developedā€™ countries, then vaccines against tuberculosis, typhoid, cholera. While the correlation with vaccinations is not 100%, it is daft, specially for someone pretending to have a scientific mind, to declare that vaccines are useless.

    3. Jim Whitehead
      January 7, 2021

      LL. +1

    4. graham1946
      January 7, 2021

      Let nature take it’s course, like the black death or the Spanish flu 100 years ago? This when populations were much smaller as well. We have advanced our ideas since then, perhaps you haven’t noticed.

      Covid on the way out? Got any figures for that? Seems the people in hospital breathing their last are malingering on your reckoning.

  56. Mark
    January 6, 2021

    It would be sensible to conduct some experiments in a few smaller communities with higher levels of inoculations across more age groups. This could help to give a handle on the penetration required to largely suppress virus spread. Aiming for different percentages across a number of such communities would allow evaluation of how soon measures could be relaxed.

    Whilst it clearly make sense to concentrate inoculation on those who are more vulnerable initially, the next phase should probably concentrate on those who are likely superspreaders, and those who work in conditions such as chill rooms and hospitals and care homes where it appears the virus is easily passed on. It is to be hoped that the researchers now have a clearer idea on this. If contact tracing has failed to suppress virus spread (being far too slow in operation to be effective, as I have commented several times), then let us at least hope it has elucidated some information about superspreaders.

  57. David
    January 6, 2021

    Written in 1971

    Here are the fourteen signposts on the road to totalitarianism complied some years ago by Dr. Warren Carroll and a refugee from Yugoslavian communism, Mike Djordjevich. The list is not in any particular order nor is the order of any particular significance as given here. But imposition of any one of these restriction on liberty would be a clear warning that a totalitarian state is very near; and once a significant number of them perhaps five has been imposed, we can rationally conclude that the remainder would not be far behind and that the fight for freedom and the preservation of the Republic (American reference) has been lost in this country.

    1. Restrictions on taking money out of the country and on the establishment or retention of a foreign bank account by a citizen.
    2. Abolition of private ownership of hand guns.
    3. Detention of individuals without judicial process.
    4. Requirement that private financial be keyed to social security numbers or other government identification so that government records of these transactions can be kept and fed into a computer.
    5. Use of compulsory education laws to forbid attendance at presently existing private schools.
    6. Compulsory non-military service.
    7. Compulsory psychological treatment for non-government workers or public school children.
    8. An official declaration that anti-communist organization are subversive and subsequent legal action taken to suppress them.
    9. Laws limiting the number of people allowed to meet in a private home.
    10. Any significant change in passport regulations to make passports more difficult to obtain or use.
    11. Wage and price controls, especially in a non-wartime situation.
    12. Any kind of compulsory registration with the government of where individuals work.
    13. Any attempt to restrict freedom of movement within a country.
    14. Any attempt to make a new major law by executive decree.

  58. Helen Smith
    January 6, 2021

    The government must fight back against the public sector unions all vying to get their members vaccinated before the elderly and vulnerable. Both teachers and police are all over Twitter saying how they need it first.

    Vaccinating teachers and police will do zero to relieve pressure on the NHS, this will cause further deaths down the line of young people who happen to have a non CoVid condition but canā€™t access a hospital because it is full of CoVid patients.

    And of course it will no nothing to stop hundreds of deaths a day in the way that vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable will.

  59. Mactheknife
    January 6, 2021

    I have told my local MP (Cons) repeatedly that the PM is being disingenuous with the public and his own MP’s. We see again that a lock down to mid-Feb has suddenly become the end of March in the proposed legislation.
    I asked my GP this morning about the vaccine. They have not heard anything from the local NHS and have had none to administer and yet we are told a mass vaccination program is underway. Yet more bluff and bluster from the PM.
    My MP assures me that he is against lock downs and they cannot continue. That was at the start of lockdown 2 and here we are at lockdown 3 which is potentially the most damaging of all.

    1. SM
      January 7, 2021

      You are unfortunately making the popular assumption that every part of the country is managed in the same way, and with uniform required standards, within the NHS, but this is not so. A 94yr old relative, resident in Greater London, received her first Covid vaccination before Xmas.

  60. London Nick
    January 6, 2021

    The pace of vaccinations is utterly pathetic, and typifies this government’s incompetent and complacent attitude.

    There are 40,000 2nd an 3rd year student nurses, able to administer injections. Add to those the retired doctors and nurses, the pharmacists, the trained members of organisatins like the Red Cross or the St John’s Ambulance, army medics, etc, and you can easily get to 50,000 potential vaccinators.

    If each of these works 8 hours, vaccinating 1 person per minute (perfectly easy, if people are instructed to queue up with their arms ready for the vaccine), you could vaccinate 24 MILLION people in just ONE DAY.

    The point I am making is that the entire country could be vaccinated in DAYS – not weeks or months. The government is CRIMINALLY INCOMPETENT, and that is why I cannot support them.

    1. Mark
      January 7, 2021

      You also need a small army of supervisors monitoring those who have been jabbed for the next 15 minutes – and the space to accommodate them suitably socially distanced. Perhaps parish churches? Not warm enough though.

  61. Richard1
    January 6, 2021

    Interesting to look at the US, where one of the most successful states in this Chinese virus crisis has been Florida, which has a Republican governor, has resisted lock-down and where schools have not closed. Its doing much better eg than New York and California (and New Jersey), where more left-leaning state governments have been loud in their proclamation of lock-downs. But got worse results.

    Many Americans are voting with their feet and moving to states like Florida and Texas, which are well-governed, and away from states like New York and California, where government by virtue-signalling leftists means high taxes, lots of green crap (and bad management of the virus).

    1. Mark B
      January 7, 2021

      Population density. More people that are closer together means greater transmission rate.

    2. margaret howard
      January 7, 2021

      Edward

      Which ‘pro EU remain parties’ are that? We have left so there can’t be any ‘remain’ parties.

      Can you explain what you mean?

      1. Edward2
        January 7, 2021

        Lib Dems, Greens and Labour obviously.
        They fought to remain since 2016.
        Did you not notice?

    3. margaret howard
      January 7, 2021

      Richard1

      “Interesting to look at the US, where one of the most successful states in this Chinese virus crisis has been Florida..”

      Success? I have just done a quick check to compare it with a European country. Germany has nearly 4x the number of inhabitants (83m against 21m), with 1.8m confirmed cases and 38.660 deaths against Florida’s 1.410m confirmed cases and 22.332 deaths.

      In fact Italy with the second highest death toll in Europe and sixth in the world compares favourably to Florida despite having a population nearly 3x as large.

      Not much of a success to boast about.

  62. Andy
    January 6, 2021

    Polls predicted Joe Biden would win the presidency by a comfortable margin.

    They also predicted Democrats would retain the House and flip the Senate.

    Polls were right.

    Two week left until the worst president in US history is gone.

    And his failed legacy of hate can be undone.

    A lesson to the Tory Brexit pensioners of what is to come here.

    God Bless America.

    1. Edward2
      January 6, 2021

      Polls were right….Other polls show the Conservatives 6 points ahead.
      With pro EU remain parties dropping way back.

    2. Fedupsoutherner
      January 6, 2021

      Wrap yourself up in the stars and stripes, get teddy, take a pill and go to bed.

    3. No Longer Anonymous
      January 6, 2021

      We had four votes that supported Brexit.

      1. Andy
        January 7, 2021

        You really didnā€™t. You had one – and you failed to deliver on the promises made.

        1. Edward2
          January 7, 2021

          Conservatives won a huge majority with the headline “get Brexit done”
          The three remain parties had dreadful election results.

        2. Sea_Warrior
          January 7, 2021

          Vote Leave wasn’t standing for government.

    4. Richard1
      January 6, 2021

      He won 52-48. A clear victory Iā€™m sure you would agree. But narrower than the polls forecast as it happens.

      Trump has made a complete disgrace of himself with the protests about the election. But I think history will not judge his time in office a failure. On the economy up until covid, on Middle East peace, confronting Iran and China etc, I think we will see trump has led the way.

      1. Martin in Cardiff
        January 7, 2021

        He did some good, but that is all eclipsed by his destruction of trust in US democracy which will continue to have terrible effects on US society.

      2. Ed M
        January 7, 2021

        Lots of other Republicans could have done a much better job than President Trump.

        President Trump is way over-rated as a businessman. He inheritted millions from his father. Most people on this website, would have built up bigger and better businesses than Trump with the money he inheritted.

        I’m a Capitalist, Conservative and Republican but not all Capitalism / Conservatism / Republicanism is the same. And I think President Trump sullied the name of Capitalism / Conservatism / Republicanism in a fairly toxic way with his Presidency overall, in particular how he allowed it to end.

        Tories would do well to distance themselves from him.

    5. Sea_Warrior
      January 7, 2021

      Still pushing your ageist hate?

    6. Peter
      January 7, 2021

      I think Warren Gamaliel Harding would trump them all for worst president!

  63. Russell Verbeek
    January 6, 2021

    Many people become infected whilst in hospital therefore reducing such infections is critical. A very interesting study has been conducting whereby ā€˜touch pointsā€™ in hospitals were replaced by copper. Copper kills any virus placed upon it. It could be game changing. Hereā€™s a useful link. We really need this type of innovation and fast!

    https://www.the-hospitalist.org/hospitalist/article/125654/patient-safety/how-copper-could-solve-problem-hospital-acquired

  64. Mike Durrans
    January 6, 2021

    I think one of the biggest problems at the minute are the number of Professors who think the know every thing but actually know nothing and are telling fairy tales instead of facts.

    I now refuse to listen to any of them as they are that bad it is an insult to adult intelligence, they may fool students some of the time but not us!

  65. michael mcgrath
    January 6, 2021

    Having spent much of my working life travelling in countries where vaccination certificates as well as passports are necessary documents to allow entry, I can easily see many countries insisting upon similar documentation against Covid 19
    This being so, are we recording vaccination data for all recipients of the jabs with date and type administered to support later certificate issue?
    I suppose the validity of the effective duration of the protection will also need to be established to ensure that each certificate is still within date at time of travel

  66. ian@Barkham
    January 6, 2021

    While a lot of things may have been unknown about the track of this virus. The one thing Government did know, was there was no way out of this trap without a vaccine. They have known that from the get go. It has been clear that without the vaccine there would be no future economy, many more needles deaths. So the planning to move on was essential.

    The Government has had more than 6 months to plan the manufacture, the scrutinizing, batch testing, distribution and final delivery and so on. All just logical steps with no real surprises. What do we get from Government and their state paid staff in PHE, not action, not a logical response – just a blame game and excuses. We are at the position to move on and we are still thinking about what type of plan we want.

    As was stated in the MsM today, the race is on to see which gets to the million a week first, the virus itself of the vaccinations.

  67. Sharon
    January 6, 2021

    Both my sons are professionals. One has children. His children are regarded as key workers children, so as his wife is also full time, the children are in school. Apparently there are many more key worker children this time because working full time, in a profession and homeschooling oneā€™s children – is hell! Long hours and much stress. A friend told me itā€™s the same where her grandchildren go to school.

    Other son…no children, but talking to work colleagues yesterday…moral is very low.

    How have we allowed our government to do this to us? Weā€™ve got to start pushing back…what is being done to us is inhumane and cruel.

  68. mancunius
    January 6, 2021

    Sir John, Have you begun to notice how the news about the coronavirus seems always to metamorphise at crucial political moments – for instance, just before the parliamentary vote retrospectively authorising the government’s new lockdown?
    One day Boris is expressing optimism, the next day it’s the worst of all possible worlds. Yet the case and death rates have remained comparatively stable, despite all the fearmongering. If he really thought it was serious, he’d not be allowing PHE their glacial timescales for vaccine distribution, nor letting the unions dictate who can and can’t be mobilised to vaccinate the population.
    After having concentrated largely on ‘cases’ – and noted the public and parliamentary scepticism about figures based on tests (that throw up false positives and exaggerate the statistics) as well as ‘insufficient hospital capacity’ which a close scrutiny of the largely empty and inactive hospitals shows to be largely the product of poor NHS resource allocation and employee absence – the vital statistic never hitherto highlighted – yet suddenly today the BBC and media in general obligingly shifts to ‘deaths…appalling new death numbers’. (As if nobody ever dies of old age or ill health during the months of January to March, or indeed ever! šŸ˜‰
    I suggest that the news – and the death statistic – is being deliberately massaged with the express aim of public fearmongering, and morally blackmailing MPs into voting to accept whatever the government (bludgeoned by its ‘advisors’) insists on.

    1. DaveK
      January 7, 2021

      You will note that the media death figures are given on Tuesdays or Wednesday if there is a bank holiday. If you look at the worldometers graph it is clear to see. Whoever provides the data has reduced staff over weekends and so every week mainly on Tuesdays, the numbers catch up. At present the figures are very high and worrying, however my concern is how many are actually dying of covid or false positives or others who are infected whilst in hospital for other reasons.

  69. Will in Hampshire
    January 6, 2021

    I wonder whether our host might offer his thoughts on events in Washington DC today. The President’s actions in particular would make an interesting subject for discussion.

  70. anon
    January 6, 2021

    Are we actually receiving the ordered,contracted and likely paid for deliveries of the vaccines into the UK as orignally contracted? Are the vaccines being seized by the manufacturing or transit states that have not ordered available vaccines?

    Start removing , sacking those responsible in power who are promulgating unnecessary paperwork at the last moment.

    Authorise the use of GP’s , Pharmacists, Dentists,Vets,Nurses etc without any further ado.

    1. Fred H
      January 7, 2021

      GPs have nothing to do with contact of patients.

    2. graham1946
      January 7, 2021

      When I was at my dentist a few weeks ago, I asked him if he would be doing any vaccinations. He said he would be willing, but being private would not be asked by government as they don’t like them. Is this how we are running a life and death scheme? Don’t use private dentists because they don’t fit the ideology? Dentists have all the skills, Covid security of a much higher order than most GP’s and the storage facilities. They are seeing many people per day and could easily do these people as well and probably keep better records. I am not convinced that the second doses within 3 months will even be given with the state of NHS I.T.

  71. hefner
    January 6, 2021

    Will 06 January 2021 be the USā€™ 27 Februar 1933?
    Thanks to that guy, the Republicans lost their majority in the House of Representatives in November 2018, the Presidency in November 2020, now their majority in the Senate in January 2021. Canā€™t they see who the reason for their repeated losses is?

    1. Hope
      January 7, 2021

      Hef,
      I am not sure you have evidence to support your claim. You make a statement of opinion without a shred of evidence.

      If people are continually ignored and deprived of a means of address expect anger.

  72. Fred H
    January 6, 2021

    The awful protest in Washington needs to be a warning. Ignore and lie to the people too much and previously respectful citizens might turn on you.

    1. Will in Hampshire
      January 6, 2021

      Hopefully they’d respect a democratic outcome Fred, eh? Or have you got the proof about the “electoral fraud”?

      1. Lynn
        January 6, 2021

        Yes we have the proof of electoral fraud. Thatā€™s why the Law Courts will not hear the cases, they would have to find for Trump.
        However the Supreme Court of the people has ruled. Beware trying to overturn them, they are the majority and the majority get their way, one way or the other. Your choice.

        1. hefner
          January 7, 2021

          Will you be good enough to provide a list of all these proofs of electoral fraud, with detailed references or web addresses, authorā€™s names and possible affiliations, as you appear to have this information. Thanks in advance.

          You might also want for each of them to provide which of the more than fifty claims of electoral fraud were put to a court in one of the seven states where elections were considered fraudulent (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin).
          And possibly indicate the results of all these claims detailing which level of the judiciary dealt with the claims.

          One wants to be fully informed and not rely on hearsay, doesnā€™t one?

      2. Caterpillar
        January 6, 2021

        I think the two main issues are

        (i) that 50% over 40 and 35% under 40 are not confident in the election result, even now. They want to be sure that there was no voter or election fraud (and if there is that actions to deter it are put in place and any large actors identified).There is also a simple Republicans’ concerns are ignored (evidence to date has not been tested) whereas the ‘Russia hoax’ went on and on (equivalence is sought – if there are MAGA rioters amongst the trouble today and they are not treated as leniently (let off and publicly supported by the squad) as the Antifa/BLM rioters have been then the division will be deeper, and

        (ii) whether the Constitution(s) holds and the implication thereof.

        (i) could have simply been put to bed with observed and independent forensic audits – the Senator Cruz position I think (Some have had their concerns elevated by GA as once again counting was stopped in some locations and observers had problems in others, these things should have been avoided. There is a more subtle concern of the common pattern of the Ds often coming from behind during the count to just squeeze it out at the end – if this is simply due to the order of vote counting it can again be avoided).

        (ii) was side stepped by SCOTUS but impacts the whole political/judicial structure of the USA – what has happened has happened and the supreme court avoided getting involved.

        There are many side issues such as MSM, big tech, intelligence agencies, the post-modern vs. Enlightenment fight, 1619 vs 1776 etc.

        [There might not be a solution, there might be an undercurrent of trouble in the USA for a long time. The vote obviously won’t reject the election – I’d like to see that as I think Congress (one vote per state) would back Trump and the Senate would back Harris!!!! Anyway, not going to happen, concerns will not be addressed and troubles will remain].

      3. Fred H
        January 7, 2021

        I’m not talking about possible electoral fraud in USA. Trump is a disgrace and lost. My concern is systematic lies, ‘incompetence’ and control measures here in UK. People are reaching a tipping point -the reasons I mention might move the people to further disobey the ‘rules’ of living here. Even the continuous refusal on here to accept national votes is indicative of the growing tension.

      4. Dennis
        January 7, 2021

        US elections have always had fraud/rigging allegations in them. Google them up. Look at the Kennedy election when the mafia was enrolled to swing Illinois to him.

        Look at how the Supreme Court has made rigging legal by ruling that corporations are human beings so can donate to elections freely.

        Allegations are useful in that it is known that they will be made and even revealed so keeping it subdued.

    2. Norman
      January 7, 2021

      Be aware that at least some of those that stormed the White House are believed to be Antifa supporters.
      Also, if you want to understand the issues, check out the reaction among the world’s rogues.
      Concerning electoral fraud, the truth will come out in due course.
      A sad day for America, and for the world.

      1. Fred H
        January 7, 2021

        oops sorry Dennis – just read you already said this.

  73. Fedupsoutherner
    January 6, 2021

    I see Indonesia is vaccinating the young first. 16 – 59 year olds.

    1. gregory martin
      January 6, 2021

      With life expectancy average there 71 years.

    2. Lifelogic
      January 7, 2021

      Seems rather odd. Perhaps they are more concerned about the economy than lives. Assuming the vaccine is fully effective (even in older people) you should prevent well 0ver 90% of deaths just by vaccinating men over 6o and women over 65 – this only about 20% of the UK population probably much lower than that in Indonesia.

      1. Martin in Cardiff
        January 7, 2021

        Not quite.

        It’s because the young are the main spreaders of the infection.

        But whether the vaccine will stop that is as yet unproven.

  74. Will in Hampshire
    January 7, 2021

    Wasn’t it Jacob Rees-Mogg who said that Donald Trump would be the “strongest possible ally” for the United Kingdom? With allies like him I’d rather do without.

    1. Edward2
      January 7, 2021

      He was certainly more friendly towards the UK than “back of the queue” Presidrnt Obama

  75. Lindsay McDougall
    January 7, 2021

    We need to get the first dose to as many people as possible as rapidly as possible. And we should be planning ahead so that, when the second dose is administered after 12 weeks, we can still give the first dose to more new people. That will need a boost to staff numbers, even if temporary.

  76. Freeborn John
    January 7, 2021

    A 2nd dose will be needed. With two doses the Astra Zeneca vaccine has an efficacy of 70%. Only 70% of the U.K. population seem willing to take a vaccine. That means only 0.7 * 0.7 = 0.49 or about half of the population would develop immunity with two doses which on its own is less than that the 70% needed to achieve herd immunity. Of course millions more people will have developed immunity by recovering from the actual virus, but against this the new virus variant is more infectious implying a higher level of vaccination to achieve herd immunity.

    We should abandon any thought that a one-dose regime will suffice. We already had far too much wishful thinking and more now could easily mean lockdowns next winter and a second round of vaccinations with a different vaccine. The cost of two doses now is trivial compared to that.

  77. Par
    January 7, 2021

    Sir John,

    If the seperate, quality control tests by Astra Zeneca and the MHRA are creating a bottleneck in vaccine availability, can I query whether integration of the seperate testing regimes has been looked at?

    This may well require secondment of authorised MHRA staff to Astra Zeneca to give final MHRA approval after a single quality control batch test.

  78. Words
    January 7, 2021

    “getting the first jab into people” This particular set of words sets off an inner revulsion in me. ” jabs into arms” likewise.

  79. alastair harris
    January 7, 2021

    Parliament has proved itself to be a talking shop. Useless in challenging the executive. Why should we continue to accept its legitimacy?

  80. glen cullen
    January 7, 2021

    So where can I go today to get a vaccine

    1. Fred H
      January 7, 2021

      are you a celeb? are you over 80? are you a care worker? are you living in a care home?

      No? – – then you won’t need to answer the NHS phonecall in the next month or more.

  81. Mark
    January 7, 2021

    A small victory for some medical common sense, long backed by evidence that Vitamin D is helpful in reducing the severity of virus cases.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/at-risk-groups-to-receive-free-winter-supply-of-vitamin-d

  82. XY
    January 14, 2021

    The new infection rates and deaths is a change. I was not in favour of lockdown previously, but now it seems the only option.

    The path out of lockdown is also probably unclear. Any previously described path would have been thwarted by the new strains increasing cases/deaths, so I can understand the government not wishing to define an exit path in view of the unknowns.

    In an ideal world, perhaps, but in a world with a voracious media, consisting of more political activists than journalists, with a licence to print whatever they wish, specifying a strategy in an uncertain world is a recipe for political disaster. Even caveats would be of no use – the media ignore such things when producing historical quotes.

    For now, the anti-lockdown camp probably need to keep their heads down and accept that this is a necessity.

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