O/T. The Government's handling of Covid

[Trickytreesreds]

HMG plows on with AZ driving down deaths.
However, Macrons political bitterness leaves the EU public dying. It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...vaccine-scheme

[Geoff Parkstone]

It might be accurate if it wasn't in the nations worst newspaper, the Express. How is that rag still going?

[Trickytreesreds]

It might be accurate if it wasn't in the nations worst newspaper, the Express. How is that rag still going?

Apologies I forgot, only the Guardian and BBC are the news sources in here.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/med...5036&mkt=en-au

[Geoff Parkstone]

I fear you have me confused for those "Guardian is always right" believing pinkos on the site, Tricky!! I will give credibility to many and various news sources, but not the Daily "wasn't Diana a wonderful" Express or the Daily "middle class housewives favourite" Mail.

Anyway, as to EU scaremongering about AZ, I find it all rather amusing. First they want loads of it, then, when told that productions snafus mean they will have to wait a bit, they get all arsey and try to block other people's supplies to hijack them for themselves. Then when this ail goes tits up, they say its crap anyway! That works for me, all the more for team UK and Boris' white red and blue army.

I have to say that the more I see of this, the more I'm inclined to your view that I'm glad we didn't buy into the EU procurement policy. It all looks like politicians playing with people's lives (but then is it ever thus). The irony of course is its an EU produced product that they are in denial about - just because there is a British connection perhaps??.

Anecdotally, I was talking to a Polish nurse that works in the German health service over the weekend and she said she was concerned about AZ simply because there was so much contrary "fake news" going round within their health service about it: mostly unofficial but in some cases, I suspect, officialdom covering its arse in case AZ is not a panacea.

Which does of course raise the question of "what if the krauts and frogs, sprouts and clogs" are right and the rosbifs wrong? Are we being fed a set of kings new clothes by UK plc? if so, will we ever know, as any inefficacy of vaccine will be blamed on new strains? I suspect, like Brexit, we (except the omniscient Swale that is) will never be able to say "ultimate success or failure" as the future will cloud over the whole thing. At the moment the vaccine is providing a positive feel for the country, there is light at the end of the tunnel (how much light will be more clear by the end of today) - lets hope that its not a false feelgood factor
.

[Andy_Faber]

- lets hope that its not a false feelgood factor
.

....and the early results say it’s not. Analysis out of Scotland suggests the Pfizer impact in the real world is an 84% reduction in deaths, AZ is over 90% (I didn’t quite hear on my LW wireless). This appears to be whether one or both jabs have been had, I think it was just on over 80s.

Even The scientist asked for an opinion gave a very unscientific ‘brilliant’, HMG may just have facilitated a master stroke here and despite upsetting some I WILL add ‘especially when looking over the channel’. Thank God we went our own way

[Trickytreesreds]

....and the early results say it’s not. Analysis out of Scotland suggests the Pfizer impact in the real world is an 84% reduction in deaths, AZ is over 90% (I didn’t quite hear on my LW wireless). This appears to be whether one or both jabs have been had, I think it was just on over 80s.

Even The scientist asked for an opinion gave a very unscientific ‘brilliant’, HMG may just have facilitated a master stroke here and despite upsetting some I WILL add ‘especially when looking over the channel’. Thank God we went our own way

I saw that Andy myself.

In any case, even if it was only 65% effective as the EU doom merchants claim. 65% is better than nothing and a giant leap forward to stopping the spread.
The figures it seems endorse this.

My grate about it, is that the EU have pulled every trick in the book over this. All to save face and gain a political cover up. But at what cost?
People are dying and comments like Macrons, who lets be honest. Doesn't even know what's going on 3 ft above the ground and are unforgivable.

[ramAnag]

I fear you have me confused for those "Guardian is always right" believing pinkos on the site, Tricky!! I will give credibility to many and various news sources, but not the Daily "wasn't Diana a wonderful" Express or the Daily "middle class housewives favourite" Mail.

Anyway, as to EU scaremongering about AZ, I find it all rather amusing. First they want loads of it, then, when told that productions snafus mean they will have to wait a bit, they get all arsey and try to block other people's supplies to hijack them for themselves. Then when this ail goes tits up, they say its crap anyway! That works for me, all the more for team UK and Boris' white red and blue army.

I have to say that the more I see of this, the more I'm inclined to your view that I'm glad we didn't buy into the EU procurement policy. It all looks like politicians playing with people's lives (but then is it ever thus). The irony of course is its an EU produced product that they are in denial about - just because there is a British connection perhaps??.

Anecdotally, I was talking to a Polish nurse that works in the German health service over the weekend and she said she was concerned about AZ simply because there was so much contrary "fake news" going round within their health service about it: mostly unofficial but in some cases, I suspect, officialdom covering its arse in case AZ is not a panacea.

Which does of course raise the question of "what if the krauts and frogs, sprouts and clogs" are right and the rosbifs wrong? Are we being fed a set of kings new clothes by UK plc? if so, will we ever know, as any inefficacy of vaccine will be blamed on new strains? I suspect, like Brexit, we (except the omniscient Swale that is) will never be able to say "ultimate success or failure" as the future will cloud over the whole thing. At the moment the vaccine is providing a positive feel for the country, there is light at the end of the tunnel (how much light will be more clear by the end of today) - lets hope that its not a false feelgood factor
.

Are there any of those ‘Guardian is always right believing pinkos’ on the site? I suspect not. It definitely makes a lot more sense than the dreadful Express and Mail...but ‘always right’? I don’t think anyone would suggest that.

Personally I trust the BBC and the Independent most, and find the Guardian interesting, entertaining and an occasional source of excellent investigative journalism.

I also think your last paragraph raises some interesting and alarming questions, GP...and frankly wish our Forest supporting ‘guest’ would stop using our forum to repeatedly publicise the thoughts of the Express, the Mail and other, much more sinister, far Right publications.

[MadAmster]

On the AZ vaccine, in the interests of balance, the South Africans have stopped using it as it is somewhat ineffectual against the SA variant. Not totally ineffective but the success rate is well below 50%, the point at which a vaccine is considered to be effective.

[swaledale]

I fear you have me confused for those "Guardian is always right" believing pinkos on the site, Tricky!! I will give credibility to many and various news sources, but not the Daily "wasn't Diana a wonderful" Express or the Daily "middle class housewives favourite" Mail.

Anyway, as to EU scaremongering about AZ, I find it all rather amusing. First they want loads of it, then, when told that productions snafus mean they will have to wait a bit, they get all arsey and try to block other people's supplies to hijack them for themselves. Then when this ail goes tits up, they say its crap anyway! That works for me, all the more for team UK and Boris' white red and blue army.

I have to say that the more I see of this, the more I'm inclined to your view that I'm glad we didn't buy into the EU procurement policy. It all looks like politicians playing with people's lives (but then is it ever thus). The irony of course is its an EU produced product that they are in denial about - just because there is a British connection perhaps??.

Anecdotally, I was talking to a Polish nurse that works in the German health service over the weekend and she said she was concerned about AZ simply because there was so much contrary "fake news" going round within their health service about it: mostly unofficial but in some cases, I suspect, officialdom covering its arse in case AZ is not a panacea.

Which does of course raise the question of "what if the krauts and frogs, sprouts and clogs" are right and the rosbifs wrong? Are we being fed a set of kings new clothes by UK plc? if so, will we ever know, as any inefficacy of vaccine will be blamed on new strains? I suspect, like Brexit, we (except the omniscient Swale that is) will never be able to say "ultimate success or failure" as the future will cloud over the whole thing. At the moment the vaccine is providing a positive feel for the country, there is light at the end of the tunnel (how much light will be more clear by the end of today) - lets hope that its not a false feelgood factor
.

The Guardian is always right? Is any media source always right? Its always worth cross checking news from varying perspectives, but I'm glad to see you all debating the AZ issue about 20 posts after I had posted about the German's not happy to use it!

Anybody who quotes the Express has zero credibility and the telegraph these days is just a Tory propaganda rag. Both tell people what they want to hear, without looking at the actual facts.

There is a degree of confusion between the Eu and what individual countries and politicians are doing here, which is basically trying to deflect attention away from their own cock up's. Of course that was not something Uk politicians did was it? Blaming the Eu fr things that were actually the fault of and in the control of the UK Government, wonder what they will use as a scapegoat in the future.

The EU procurement programme was fine, until Ursula decided she would take control, that led to significant delay and of course a shortfall in the amount of vaccine procured. The vaccination programmes are the responsibility of individual countries, hampered of course by lack of vaccine supplies but also it was surprising that the Germans ****ed up their programme.

As for Brexit, I guess it depends upon what you define as success? certainly creating issues and costs for UK businesses is not an indication of success, I suspect this Government will blame Covid for a lot of ill's that actually can quite clearly be laid at the door of Brexit or at least on the rather stupid decision to leave the single market and the customs union - I mean even Norway are in those, even if sensibly they decided they did not want to be involved in the political shenanigans.

At the moment how ever its clear there are no upsides to Brexit, in fact its unclear as to where for the Uk population as a whole the benefits will be, it was always an exercise in perception by people who had other agendas than the one they conned the dumb electorate into voting for, ah well it was ever the case.

[ramAnag]

On the AZ vaccine, in the interests of balance, the South Africans have stopped using it as it is somewhat ineffectual against the SA variant. Not totally ineffective but the success rate is well below 50%, the point at which a vaccine is considered to be effective.

I was disappointed to see that too, MA, although on the plus side...Fergus Walsh, who I do trust, has just reported some very encouraging data as regards the efficacy of the AZ vaccine on the elderly in Scotland.

On the subject of variants, of which I fear we have to anticipate many more beyond the S.A. one, I’m just hoping that the pharma companies continue with their successful research and come up with solutions as more and more variants emerge. Hopefully a combination of research and the impact of the various vaccine programmes will see us return to something like normality later in the year. It’ll take time.