The British Call The Shots

[Khandro]

Isn't it a fantastic achievement for Boris' Vaccine Taskforce, now having vaccinated more UK residents that the entire 27 countries of the EU combined have done for theirs?
Lots of men & women deserve accolades, but at the top should go Sir Patrick Vallance, "who from early on was hammering the point about onshore manufacturing" & the largely unsung 'Vaccine Tsar', Kate Bingham.
Three cheers for Britain at its best!

[Bobbisox1]

I can't argue with that Khandro

[dannyk13]

Totally agree.

[Sqad]

Yes Khadro the "boys" have done good (and the girls ).

[DTCwordfan]

USA Today

Daily Debunk
Claim: "BREAKING NEWS: HOSPITALS ON LOCKDOWN AS FIRST COVID VACCINE PATIENTS START EATING OTHER PATIENTS."

'After Americans started receiving vaccinations against COVID-19, social media users shared a viral image claiming that CNN reported hospitals going on lockdown after vaccine recipients started eating each other. '

[Paigntonian]

Nice to hear someone who's got some praise for a government trying to do its best.

[Apc2604]

Three cheers from me too. Good to see a post like this Khandro.

[ToraToraTora]

yep well done all round. Get ready for the anti British.....

[naomi24]

Me too. About time people started supporting this country rather than criticising anything and everything.

[New Judge]

Indeed. I have many criticisms of the government's handling of the pandemic but there is one aspect where I have been found completely and utterly wrong. I envisaged the vaccine procurement and rollout to be an unmitigated disaster. But I'm delighted to have been so wrong and the programme seems to be working well.

The one criticism I do have is that many GP's (mine included) are not paying their part. My surgery is perfectly suited to administer jabs. It is spacious and well laid out. But my GP practice has decided it "is not participating" in the rollout. So people from my area (the practice is about 200 yards from my house) have to get two buses to go to either the district's hospital or a shopping centre where there is a "wellbeing clinic" (whatever that is). The choice is scarcely much better for those who do drive: the hospital's parking rates are horrendous (if you can find s space, that is) and the shopping centre's little better and some distance from the clinic. So instead of a walk of a few hundred yards or so people have to travel four or five miles by public transport. The GP service really needs sorting out.

[Sqad]

NJ......lol

////"wellbeing clinic" (whatever that is). //

I was giving a lecture in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and was asked
" why would you take a baby to a Well Baby Clinic if the baby was well?"

I must say I struggled.

[brainiac]

Agree about the lack of GP participation, NJ. My GP is in a recently-built fairly large building in a village 2 miles from my village, but for my jab next Friday I'm having to drive 13+ miles to a small town I've never been to, with all the usual weather/parking worries etc.

And I'm sure I heard Matt Hancock say 'nobody will have to travel more than 10 miles'. My neighbour (who is registered at another practice just over the border in another county) had to drive 14 miles in the other direction.

[hellywelly4]

So lovely to read a positive post. I totally agree. During the war we all rallied together instead of sniping all the time. We could do with some of that spirit.

[teacake44]

12.25, Sometime back now Matt Hancock made a statement instructing all GPs to re-start seeing patients face to face, sadly that's all it ending up being, a statement and no action on its implementation. If supermarket staff can work behind perspex screens, I don't see why GPs can't. In stead we are relying on people from different walks of life to be trained on giving vaccines, when some surgeries remain closed to a certain degree.

[vulcan42]

On the other hand some clinics go the extra mile. My clinic is too small to organise inoculations on a large scale so they arranged with a local church to use their carpark and now operate a very successful drive in clinic. It's very quick with the added bonus of getting the jab sitting down.

[gingejbee]

Yes, a positive post...from someone who apparently doesn't live here.

[ichkeria]

Yes the vaccine task force is a real success story. Britain’s strength is its scientific base.

[Khandro]

There were several 'near misses' the worst when the French caused the port closures due to the Kent strain; lorries were stuck among 3,000 on motorways with cargoes of Pfizer which had to be used within 10 days of loading. The RAF set about an airlift out of Belgium & managed to get the vaccines to UK warehouses, instead of using Public Health England, they used companies used to cold chain- medicine; Boots & Superdrug.
The woman in charge of the operation, Ruth Todd, didn't sleep for 36 hours until it was accomplished.

[woofgang]

The probelm with GP's is that they are (and always have been) contractors to the NHS and not part of it, not employees. Having said that, I think that once there is time and resource to do so, a part of any pandemic enquiry should look at the varying behaviours of surgeries during the pandemic with special attention being paid to the "underperformers"

[woofgang]

all the local surgeries around here have got together to use two local sports and leisure centres for vaccination. I know, because I used to work with them, that there is a history of communication and co-operation between them and its certainly paid off now. I am a bit surprised that surgeries have declined to be involved as they will all get bonus payments per vaccination, same as the flu vac.

[ichkeria]

It’s the task force that is the star player here, coordinating the research and ordering multiple supplies way back before any vaccine was remotely near full development never mind approval. That’s the reason the UK has managed to roll out so quickly.
There are bound to be hiccups.
It will be even better news when everyone else catches up. Hopefully at least partially with some of our redundant stock.