Quote Originally Posted by swaledale View Post
We have very high death rates from a global pandemic and the government’s handling of that pandemic shares the same marks of ignoring the science, promising big and delivering late and small. What is saving us at the moment is that when the scientists dig in their heels even this government does the right thing (late), that UK science (not under government guidance or leadership) has delivered vaccines and that the NHS has been too strong and wonderful an institution to allow us to die in even greater numbers. The bright spots in the pandemic are the areas where government has been unable to cock it up and where public service has remained the bedrock of how the system works despite this government’s incompetence.
As usual Swale, you're full of inaccuracies, to suit your agenda. The success of the vaccine procurement is almost entirely down to the government and not our scientists. The government set up a programme assessing 100s of different companies developing potential vaccines from March of last year. They settled on a choice of 7 different companies and put the orders and money in, to much criticism from many people, experts, politicians, etc, in this country. By unbelievable luck or more likely good judgement, 5 of these 7 are either in use or are shortly to be used in our vaccination programme. These vaccines are all amongst the first few to be rolled out, amongst the 100s that have either failed or are no where near roll out.

You've changed your tune as well, 'UK science has delivered the vaccine'? Unbelievable, those over 80s will be pissing themselves. Remember, the vaccines that we'll be using over next few months will be those ordered by this government, from a number of countries, not just the UK. On the subject of the UK Oxford vaccine, it was recently reported that the Oxford laboratory was on the brink of signing an agreement with a US drug firm, but the UK government persuaded them to go to the Swedes, fearing that the US company would only be interested in profit and would prevent the UK from getting first priority on the vaccines.

There will be many investigations into this pandemic, statistics worldwide don't add up and maybe one day there'll be some explanations as to why different countries had different figures. The UK's death toll is exceptionally high, when compared with many other countries in comparison to the case rate. I've analysed the figures of several European countries and the results that compared with the case rate, the UK's death rate is twice that of Germany and almost 3 times that of Sweden. The question is why?