Throw money at it but properly & efficiently using those with the know-how, facilities already in situ & facilities that would need a moderate amount of change. Basically what they did for Track & Trace, PPE, Nightingale Hospitals & many other things but without the corruption & dodgy unquestioned contracts to their mates. Obviously this should have started months ago.
I'm not sure I follow that as a response to the question, but given you seem to think the programme is failing, what criteria have you used to decide that?
According to those developing it, it did start months ago, and has been fast tracked due to the significant funding it received. The supply issues are more global.
It did. If the priority, as you suggest, is to “protect the wider population” then the capacity of production would have been increased by whatever means necessary. It wasn’t. There’s now apparent shortages which will cost more people their lives unnecessarily. Maybe it was all innocent & they simply didn’t know any pub landlord donors with no knowledge of mass producing vaccines.
Given the unprecedented speed at which the vaccine has been developed, it shouldn't be surprising that the appropriate re-purposing of manufacturing sites, production of the specialised equipment and acquisition of the raw materials as well as the training of specialised staff and the logisitics of storing and supplying the different vaccines, has yet to catch up, but this is a global issue, and while that is being put in place, pragmatism needs to be applied in the interim measures. It has been looked at as a priority by various nation states, including the UK.
They must still be looking at who’s drawing the number out the hat for who gets rewarded this time in the “Donor & Family Member Multi-Billion Pound Contract Raffle”.
@Chazz Rheinhold looks like you're vulnerable again. It is thought antibodies can protect against reinfection for at least five months, but it may not be for longer than this. So if you had coronavirus during the first wave, you may not have antibodies now. And although people who suffered serious symptoms have been shown to produce a strong antibody response, people who were asymptomatic may not have as many antibodies, and they may not retain them for as long. https://metro.co.uk/2021/01/23/how-...avirus-13930040/?ito=newsnow-feed?ito=cbshare
Seems a sensible approach to me. Rattle as many out as possible, and test a good percentage at the appropriate stage to see the effectiveness, before determining if a one jab policy is feasible. It gives the potential for twice as many people to get peace of mind.
No-one said that couldn't happen. But the symptoms should be a lot less severe, at least that's the theory...
I found this an interesting read. Whether the gamble of delaying doses works out or not remains to be seen (and may never be settled one way or the other), but it has never felt like one of those government decisions that leaves the likes of Whitty and Vallance squirming - they're right behind it... "To be clear, to have a differing view of the evidence and the assessment of the risks is fine, and there are individuals making that case well (see the already noted podcast). It is the attempt to paint this as spinning vaccination figures by the government, calling it partial vaccination, or ignoring the fact the government policy is based on expert scientific advice, that is the problem. You cannot complain that the government don’t follow scientific advice on issue X, but then on issue Y complain when they do." https://anthonycox.substack.com/p/is-it-safe-scientific-consensus-and
There are some interesting, on-going studies relating to the process in Israel. So far, they are saying it's not clear or straight forward, and there are known differences in the way the process operates there that make comparisons problematic, so comparing data needs to be done with caution, and account for the differences as best as possible.
30,004 new positive cases have been reported within the past 24 hours, down 22.3% on Sunday last week. The total number of people vaccinated now stands at 6,353,321 for the first dose, and 469,660 for the second dose.
Saw on the Andrew Marr show that Israel are not vaccinating people who have already had covid as they class them as being immune. ( same as two jabs) If same in UK should be a far few million classed as having immunity soon?