Boris announcement- November. Does he know something?

[Yetiyoga]

Not sure if this has been suggested. We are supposed to find out next week about how successful the Oxford vaccine has gone aren't we? Do you think Boris Johnson knows the result and that is why he thinks we could be back to normal by November / Christmas? Or am I being naive/ too optimistic?
I just can't see 'normal' by Christmas as things are currently. And I'm fairly relaxed about it all.
I have a first niece / nephew due late October so it would mean the world to be able to meet them this year.

@feetfreckles

To get the economy to recover you need people to feel confident

To get people to feel confident you don't stop reporting, you don't go against the scientific advise, you don't push blame onto care homes, you don't pretend it's all ok

This a million times.

It’s so not hard to feel anger. We need to see compassion and a desire to learn from mistakes before they happen again to more this winter. Instead we get bravado and spin.

@Mumratheevergiving

Good post as spot on!

Basically UK has been a shit show on Covid making it up as they go along and with mixed and dangerous (ie lives related) contradictory messaging and no long term exit strategy as with Brexshit.

We in the UK saw this coming with advance warning from the initial horror show in Italy and them dismissed this as something that happens elsewhere! Hindsight is obviously brilliant but we missed timed everything and went too soft with a generally entitled British population who evidently (minority not all) prefer to be indifferent to Covid rules or simply don't appreciate the science nor care about personal and greater community health and safety outcomes.

We are still crap at getting the health versus wealth equilibrium right. Can't seem to fine the right balance between saving lives and saving the economy (and political "leadership").

Only consolation is that we are not competing with Covid Armageddon USA, Brazil, India and Russia etc.

The fact that the organisers of Cheltenham are huge Tory donors might have had something to do with that.

I’m not sure dido Harding being on the board of directors of the jockey club, which, I think, own Cheltenham helped.

Own Cheltenham racecourse. I don’t think they own the whole of Cheltenham.

I posted a few pages back about the failures, and tonight I saw a video on Twitter that goes through it all chronologically, and Johnson missed the first five COBRA meetings. And I just felt totally deflated.

@labyrinthloafer

I posted a few pages back about the failures, and tonight I saw a video on Twitter that goes through it all chronologically, and Johnson missed the first five COBRA meetings. And I just felt totally deflated.

@labyrinthloafer it’s unbelievable isn’t it.

And didn’t he disband a pandemic committee or something last year (as did trump?). I could have dreamt this as I struggle to take my mind off how it’s all been handled. And how it’s still being handled.

They’re making a pandemic a whole lot of worse than it obviously would already be.

@sunseekin Im not sure about a committee but they did a pandemic practice in 2016 but never enacted any of it because all resource was used up by Brexit work.

I need to stop thinking about it but I seem incapable of switching off my brain!

Herewego
"People say he’s been a shambles, but who else would have done better?"
Ok, I'll start. My 80 year old mother with dementia. A three legged dog from down our street, a plant I bought from Ikea. Anyone else? He is an effin disgrace.

[quote labyrinthloafer]@sunseekin Im not sure about a committee but they did a pandemic practice in 2016 but never enacted any of it because all resource was used up by Brexit work.

I need to stop thinking about it but I seem incapable of switching off my brain![/quote]
Me too! It just feels surreal. Boris in charge scares me. I liked him on have I got news for you, but he’s a disaster as PM. And I best not get started on Brexit....

Didn’t know about that one @labyrinthloafer Went for a very (non obsessive obvs) google about the committee thing....

www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/13/boris-johnson-scrapped-cabinet-pandemic-committee-six-months/amp/

Disclaimer: this article does contain the phrase “according to the daily mail”

No one looks at the good like furlough etc just focus on the negative

So fuckin what if furlough is a positive? it's tiny compared to 65k excess deaths & one of the highest death rates per million in the world.

CV hasn't vanished and whilst being optimistic is all well and good, basing it on some random belief that Covid might be gone by November, against ALL the available scientific evidence, is stupid and irresponsible,

@sunseekin

Didn’t know about that one *@labyrinthloafer* Went for a very (non obsessive obvs) google about the committee thing....

www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/13/boris-johnson-scrapped-cabinet-pandemic-committee-six-months/amp/

Disclaimer: this article does contain the phrase “according to the daily mail”

Oh, another superb decision to add to the list - you remembered correctly! Thanks for linking

I think it's just that he'd be so unpopular if he said families couldn't get together at Christmas and people would go out for Christmas parties anyway.

I obviously have no idea what Boris does or doesn't know, but the possibility of a vaccine by the end of September is public knowledge:

"Gilbert has voiced remarkable confidence in her chances, saying the Oxford vaccine has an 80% probability of being effective in stopping people who are exposed to the novel coronavirus from developing Covid-19. She has said she could know by September. Asked by MPs in early July whether the world would have to struggle through the winter without a vaccine, Gilbert said, “I hope we can improve on those timelines and come to your rescue.”

“The British government gave £65 million to accelerate the work and secure 30 million doses for the U.K. by September as part of a deal to make 100 million in total, with some reserved for developing countries. "
From: www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-15/oxford-s-covid-19-vaccine-is-the-coronavirus-front-runner

Also mentioned here:

[quote CoffeeandCroissant]I obviously have no idea what Boris does or doesn't know, but the possibility of a vaccine by the end of September is public knowledge:

"Gilbert has voiced remarkable confidence in her chances, saying the Oxford vaccine has an 80% probability of being effective in stopping people who are exposed to the novel coronavirus from developing Covid-19. She has said she could know by September. Asked by MPs in early July whether the world would have to struggle through the winter without a vaccine, Gilbert said, “I hope we can improve on those timelines and come to your rescue.”

“The British government gave £65 million to accelerate the work and secure 30 million doses for the U.K. by September as part of a deal to make 100 million in total, with some reserved for developing countries. "
From: www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-15/oxford-s-covid-19-vaccine-is-the-coronavirus-front-runner

Also mentioned here:

[/quote] This would amazing, not sure it would all be rolled out by November. Tbh I’m not expecting a normal Christmas, but would be very happy with a Christmas with covid under control and a developed vaccine with a clear timeline for implementation.

"
Yesterday 08:38Hearwego

New Zealand did better because they are a densely populated country."
This doesn't make sense!

Boris wants Covid19 under control before brexit starts

The difficulty for the vaccine is trying to expedite the process. Even with trials going on they have to allow a certain period to see how effective it is on those that have been given it ( if they go on to contract it over a period of time/ adverse results) They are also trying to fast-track the process by giving people the vaccine and then deliberately giving them the disease. As there is no known cure for the disease they need to get ethical clearance to do this. We are in mid July now. It sounds like they’ve made good progress but the chances of rolling it out so we can forget about Covid19 by Autumn are very slim. After all Asia had a head start on this and has not produced a vaccine yet. There’s a documentary on Netflix on the development of a vaccine for corona viruses, that show how long the process takes even with short-cuts, it’s well worth a watch. It doesn’t matter what money is thrown at it, development and testing take time. ://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2020/jul/16/coronavirus-vaccine-oxford-team-volunteers-lab-controlled-human-challenge-trial

Of course he knows more about the vaccine than we do, can’t believe anyone would think otherwise, however that doesn’t mean the comment on year end is anything to do with it, they might not be linked.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2020/jul/16/coronavirus-vaccine-oxford-team-volunteers-lab-controlled-human-challenge-trial

He's delegated the powers to Local Authorities to implement local lockdowns, so responsibly is off him.

Part of the success story in Germany apparently;

"The German town of Mitterteich became the first in Germany to order a curfew aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, officials announced on Wednesday [March]."

"Residents of the small Bavarian town will have to carry a letter from their employer on their way to and from work.People will also be allowed to go shopping for essentials and to make deliveries."

I do not believe others would have failed to chair COBRA for example.That is a huge departure from normal British political standards in both parties.

Boris Johnson missed the early COBRA meetings because he wasn't expected to be there. Extract from the Independent review into the response to the 2009 swine flu pandemic:

"The committee, and the structures that support it (frequently referred to as COBRA in the media), are the UK government’s dedicated crisis management mechanism.While the Home Secretary is the default chair, and the Prime Minister may chair in the most serious of crises, the committee is usually chaired by the lead minister for the type of emergency in question. In the event of an influenza pandemic, the committee would therefore normally be chaired by the Secretary of State for Health."

^"Exercise Cygnus report [Tier One Command Post Exercise Pandemic Influenza 2016];
"The exercise activity was based around four simulated COBR meetings" - chaired by the Secretary of State for Health and the Minister for the Cabinet Office."^

Responsibility for public health has been the responsibility of local councils or a few years now.

So the change isn't drastic, and control measures were bound to filter through to the normal working level at times when the level of disease in circulation is low.

I expect it'll all change back rapidly if there is a general increase. Globally, the numbers are in the rise again, and many countries are using local lockdowns to stop small outbreaks becoming a general rise. We'll soon know if this is agile enough to contain the virus in the cooler A/W seasons.

"Boris Johnson missed the early COBRA meetings because he wasn't expected to be there"

I posted several times at the time that COBRA is not always at PM or SoS level, sometimes it's Ministers and sometimes it's senior officials.

I was told both that I was wrong (I know I'm not on this one!) and that even if I was right, all meetings should have been PM level, because it's a crisis. I don't think that habpving the PM at every single COBRA would do anything other than slow down the response. Micromanagement rarely works, and I do not think he is sufficient subject expert in infection control to micromanage effectively.

However, most posters disagreed and thought he was squarely in the wrong

@Mumrattheevergiving

I agree that the time frames are ambitious but the Oxford team actually has a head start on pretty much everyone else in the world due to their existing work on the MERS vaccine (this is in late stage trials in the Middle East) and "disease X" a plan to be able to come up with a quick vaccine for a new and emerging infectious disease (sort of exactly like this..)

If anyone comes up with a vaccine by the end of the year it is likely to be Oxford.