Tony Blair this morning

[LaLoose]

Did Tony Blair's four-step plan - explained on the Today Programme this morning - make clinical sense, does anyone know? And, if so, why the FLIP aren't we / all European countries doing it NOW???

Ive been very impressed with him on this and also brexit.

Say what you like, I believe he still feels a sense of responsibility for the country (I personally suspect he’s quite frustrated at having very little power now)

Blair fucked up and people died

And Boris has fucked up, and people have died.

Still looking for a point.

@BlueStarRose

The problem with rolling out a vaccine now is (say Astra Zeneca) now and it’s only 40 % effective. What happens when in 6 weeks Pfizer comes out and there’s is 80 %? Then we would need to establish if you could have both safely. People would be up in arms government had panicked.

Good point

@farmfreshmilk

I thought he sounded very sensible. For one he was advocating planning the vaccine regime now, rather than waiting until the vaccine is ready and then realising you need to work out how to vaccinate the population.

Setting out a clear plan and working steadily towards it rather than lurching shouldn't be a shocking departure for government, but there you are

I'm no fan of his, not after the Iraq war, and marched And campaigned a lot during the Labour years, but he sounded a great deal more sensible and statesman like than the current government.

It is being planned isn’t it?

Hence leak of memo on vaccine starting in Dec

I agree with him.

The reason that the views of Tony Blair are relevant is that the problems caused by Covid-19 are so complicated, with every possible solution (close pubs) having a serious consequence (job losses), that you need politicians to make these difficult decisions. TB has experience of weighing up complicated and conflicting evidence and making a judgement call without the benefit of hindsight (and he also has the experience of getting that judgement call "wrong" with the benefit of hindsight).

I wasn't a TB fan at all but would probably sacrifice one of my fingers to have him in charge now. I disagreed with many of his policies and his decisions, but at least you got the feeling he was competent.

Agree WhatWillSantaBring and I’d trust Gordon B with the financial side.

@LaLoose

Blair has a brain, unlike this lot *@BertieBloopsMum*

No, what he has is a Saviour complex a mile wide. Makes my skin crawl, always did.

I wasn't a TB fan at all but would probably sacrifice one of my fingers to have him in charge now.

The problem with that, is there are plenty more people who are willing to sacrifice other peoples fingers - and lives - to have the current crop of arseholes in charge.

@BertieBloopsMum

Oh good, Tony Blair has come to save us all

Yep. Yet again. .

WTF is anyone doing listening to that war criminal and serial bullshitter right now?

Can you mess up badly and still have a brain and a contribution to make?

I think so.

I despised Thatcher and what she did but I would rather have her right now.

Well I’m glad he’s at least brought some attention to the fact the first vaccines will only be partially effective and incapable of preventing continued transmission. Their goal is to reduce symptom severity. Not enough people are aware of this.

I agree with his plan, providing the safety data is there.

The plan all sounds perfectly sensible to me. Why dismiss it just because it comes from Blair? He was 100 times more competent as a PM than Johnson.

For those saying this plan is laughable because vaccines can't be produced in small numbers, the Oxford vaccine is ALREADY being mass produced and has been for months, as are many others. No one is saying to make a tiny batch of it.

He is right, roll out the doses we have already perhaps in high risk groups where they are already coming to the end of their lives (elderly) as it is already looking like multiple doses will be needed to the conflict with better vaccines 1-2 years from now doesn't really matter.

I was in fact asking for experts to give their opinion on what might work and what would not

Ok, I get to claim to be an expert (truly). These are the challenges in the summary of what Blair is supposed to have said:

Getting enough of the Astra Zeneca vaccine to run a vaccination programme

Huge logistical exercise to give everyone the jab. If the first jab doesn't work well, how many more times are we going to keep giving random jabs in hopes they work. Will people turn up each time? The safety testing isn't actually done, either.

Give safe therapeutic drugs to hospitalised C19 patients

TB has excessive faith in ability to know what is truly safe. Remember when everyone thought invasive ventilation was a safe option?

Set up mass testing, particularly for students at universities and secondaries

Paid for how, processed quickly with what resources. Mass testing is good for surveillance not for prevention. Does he have massive faith in the 40 minute tests? #epitwitter has massive lack of faith in them. Opportunities for graft & corruption huge in giant rush to these types of plans.

More efficient data collection
Didn't happen when TB was PM for routine NHS datasets, why would it start happening now?

Bit of interview I heard sounded like TB has massive faith in T&T working well by start December; didn't Merkel just do a good job explaining how T&T can't contain virus when there is high prevalence? We will still have relatively high prevalence at end November.

Good to discuss diverse strategies, tbf it's easy to tear any proposed plan apart.

@Fantasisa

1. Accelerate vaccine use - roll out the Astra Zeneca/Oxford vaccine now to key groups as it is proven to be safe. It doesn't matter how effective it is 'don't let perfect be the enemy of good'. Even if it is only 40 per cent effective we should take that in a heartbeat. It is probably up to 70 % effective - but anything will help now. No reason to wait.

1. Therapeutic drugs - as long as they are safe - accelerate deployment of them before Christmas. Extend Recovery trial to more people - enrol as many people as possible on it to get more data back. Likelihood is that they are effective - we are holding them back from people now, nothing to lose by rolling them out. Would allow hot spot areas to be dealt with much more effectively.
2. Appoint a Minister and Gov team to do nothing other than making sure every uni is testing every student and school pupil before they return to school.
3. November should be the month of organisation and preparation.

Then in December we could open up again.

If we don't do this, we are damaging the economy. This needs to be the last lockdown. We need to get out of this.

From the programme. I agree with him.

I think I agree with him.

Thanks @MedSchoolRat

Here's what I don't understand.

The anti bodies after someone tests positive for Covid 19, apparently are not present after something like 4 weeks.

If the anti bodies aren't present, isn't this what a vaccine is supposed to trigger wishing I paid more attention in biology

It sounds like he has said nothing that a thousand other people haven't already said. Not particularly enlightening.

Pp is right is there a potential issue with how long any vaccine is going to work for because of the short life of the antibodies? I suppose we could get round that with regular vaccinations such as we do with the flu.

I don't know whether what TB is suggesting is realistic but I like the fact he is proposing a plan, rather than the current approach of bumbling along and switching from one approach to another in a chaotic manner.

As far as I am concerned TB is a lying twat and should keep his big fibbing mouth firmly shut. For ever.

didnt he break self isolation rules?

I don't listen to the man who took us into an illegal war based on a dodgy dossier.