Prime Minister to make an announcement tonight at 5 p.m.

[Calmandmeasured1]

The Express reports:
"No indication has been given as to why the briefing has suddenly been called, however, it comes less than 24 hours after false reports in the German media caused alarm by claiming the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was ineffective among over-65s."

It could also be to make the announcement about hotel quarantining for those entering the country. I would imagine both subjects.

And whinging about Keir Starmer trying to score political points when all he's doing is trying to score political points.

Pathetic

And he had a non answer to the idea of vaccinating teachers at half term.

'Nearly a quarter of all deaths from the pandemic have happened in the last month - something has gone amiss in the response more recently than last February/March.'

Great swathes of the country were already in tier 3 in Dec which restricted household mixing with tier 4 announced later on in Dec. Yes they did allow Christmas mixing but for one day only not the initial 5 days and as was always said just because you could didnt mean you should, but so many went on and on about not complying anyway.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/19/pm-announces-tier-4-covid-curbs-and-curtails-christmas-mixing-in-england

The deaths we have had in recent weeks are a result of the variant and poor compliance to the already existing restrictions.

The deaths we have had in recent weeks are a result of the variant and poor compliance to the already existing restrictions

The current statistics for people self isolating when told is about 18% who complete the full 10 days

www.itv.com/news/2021-01-22/we-could-do-so-much-better-expert-attacks-covid-containment-strategy-as-just-18-complete-self-isolation

They need to do something to ensure that people do self isolate - and to understand and tackle the reasons people don't self isolate.

This has been called for since the start of the pandemic.

Getoff London wasn’t, the East of London, and Kent (in spite of being put in a higher tier ) went shopping and out up west crowding the shopping streets and restaurants. That last night before the second lockdown London streets were jammed with traffic and all the shopping streets and restaurants were rammed. Within days the infection rates with the variant started to climb into the highest rates in the country and yet the schools remained open. Having created the perfect conditions for the virus to mutate (or at least if it came from elsewhere) transmit by letting high rates of infection persist in Kent they then created the perfect conditions for it to take off (again, as it did in March) in London. Boris said yesterday that they couldn’t have done more. So in other words he will continue not to learn the lessons he should have learnt in the first wave and again in the second. It was painfully obvious what was happening in London in December, everything should have locked down before it had chance to take hold just as it should have done in March when 1.5m got it (17%of Londoners had antibodies by June) and the 1300 on ventilators in hospitals are evidence of the harm done. Now with full lockdown cases are halving each week. It wasn’t compliance that was the issue...

@JiminyLeeCricket

God, Boris Johnson is being a vile arse at PMQs right now. Veering between pointless insults and rambling prevarication.

This is not leadership. It's embarrassing.

Agree.

If he really does believe what he did was right then fine - defend that.

But defending your actions is explaining what and why you did them. Not tearing down people who dare challenge your decisions.

'God, Boris Johnson is being a vile arse at PMQs right now. Veering between pointless insults and rambling prevarication.'

Funny how we all see it differently! I thought Johnson was his usual polite self, albeit with a couple of well deserved withering comments. Starmer, nasally whining on 'what would Johnson like him to say on his behalf' 🙄.

Can we all at least agree on what a relief it is that we aren't part of the EU's shambolic vaccine programme, despite some mnetter's Armageddon predictions about Brexit.

The PM is despicable. No better than Trump. A vile, ignorant, incompetent braggart.

Getoff It must be some comfort to Boris that there are people who will stick by him despite all the measurable evidence of his incompetence, lack of integrity, economic and business illiteracy, and lack of the personal qualities that would make him fit to lead. Literally enabling the unnecessary deaths of a greater proportion of his people than any other country in the world, figures in 6 figures when other countries with wildly differing political systems, some of similar densities and roles as world travel hubs, have kept them in 4, 3 and even single figures and still you have no problem with him, the only distinguishing factor with his nodding dog Cabinet from the rest of the world . Clearly armageddon for the fishing industry, small businesses trying to export and import and 6 billion transferred out of our equity markets on 1 Jan 2021 doesn't touch the sides of your support for Boris either.........

Funny how we all see it differently! I thought Johnson was his usual polite self, albeit with a couple of well deserved withering comments. Starmer, nasally whining on 'what would Johnson like him to say on his behalf

You would do.

What did you think of Johnson's non answer about vaccinating school staff over half term?

HIs non answer about the fact that so many pupils can't access remote learning easily?

The current statistics for people self isolating when told is about 18% who complete the full 10 days

Such statistics irritate me. Fair enough use stats like this for the satisfaction of a product, but for information about a pandemic...no one actually knows who isolates and who doesn't, least of all this so called expert.

'It must be some comfort to Boris that there are people who will stick by him despite all the measurable evidence of his incompetence, lack of integrity, economic and business illiteracy, and lack of the personal qualities that would make him fit to lead. Literally enabling the unnecessary deaths of a greater proportion of his people'

Regardless of whoever was in charge we would be in the same position, probably worse we've the Labour administration in Wales as an example. They would have used the same advisors, the same resources, had the same demographics, cultural issues and the same poor compliance issues.

Again. Drakeford, Sturgeon and Foster have had high infection rates and have high death rates despite being devolved administrations and doing things their own way.

It is a grim situation however saying Johnson is illiterate and has no integrity is bollocks.

'What did you think of Johnson's non answer about vaccinating school staff over half term?'
As he's just said in his statement, the priority groups are decided by independent medical experts. If teachers are in these groups they will be vaccinated. If they aren't which priority groups would you take them off in order to vaccinate a fit and healthy young teacher first?!

@chomalungma

Funny how we all see it differently! I thought Johnson was his usual polite self, albeit with a couple of well deserved withering comments. Starmer, nasally whining on 'what would Johnson like him to say on his behalf

You would do.

What did you think of Johnson's non answer about vaccinating school staff over half term?

HIs non answer about the fact that so many pupils can't access remote learning easily?

One of the view things I agree with Boris on is the vaccinating of teachers not superseding the vulnerable.

And I work in education!

Purely because it won't stop transmission and won't stop the community spread from school spread.

And those teachers who are vulnerable will be included in the JVCI priority list anyway.

If they aren't which priority groups would you take them off in order to vaccinate a fit and healthy young teacher first

I would think about exposure.

There are people who are more exposed to the virus than others - and so are more likely to catch it.

I think I am in a higher priority group than teachers - but I am far less likely to be exposed to it - and so far less likely to suffer the long term effects.

Teachers are exposed to it more than others - even though they might not be in a priority group, there is the risk of long term effects.

'would think about exposure.'

Yes but tbh the vaccine isn't about stopping people catching it, it is about stopping serious illness, hospitalisation and deaths. Those in the priority groups are more at risk of hospitalisations and death so they are in the priority groups. Where would you put teachers, before or after CEV? Before over 60s even though there are many of that age group in ICU?

That's why we have medical experts to make rationale scientific decisions, not one's based on someone's opinion. Thank god.

That's why we have medical experts to make rationale scientific decisions, not one's based on someone's opinion. Thank god

Teachers and police should be considered for vaccinations after the most vulnerable have been immunised, NHS England's chief executive said today.

Sir Simon Stevens said there should be a 'legitimate discussion' about vaccinating public-facing workers such as teachers after those most at risk have received their jabs

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/teachers-and-police-should-be-next-in-line-for-covid-vaccines/ar-BB1d7mEv

Regardless of whoever was in charge we would be in the same position, probably worse we've the Labour administration in Wales as an example. They would have used the same advisors, the same resources, had the same demographics, cultural issues and the same poor compliance issues.

That does not wash, the response to the pandemic in England was very much a Boris/ Cummings project and the leaders of the devolved nations are seen as having handled it better. I doubt very much that May would have diverted all the funding to her inexperienced cronies to set up test, track and trace from scratch when she had public testing and health resources in place that could have been expanded. Those resources have valiantly carried on with their sense of public duty finding funding in the absence of direct government funding wherever they can. Shamefully hospitals like Great Ormond street had effective staff testing at the start of March only because Cancer Research UK stepped in to fund it. Meanwhile the superlabs and track and trace are unsafe and face staff shortages because they are run like call centres and treat staff like commodities. The failings in the national test and trace system are very much at the root of the causes of our record deaths. Cummings had dallied with the concept of herd immunity for years (it is in his blogs)and they ensured they had a compliant SAGE that would agree to it by skewing the membership to government employees and sitting in on it himself (he is the least qualified scientific / tech enthusiast in the world who has ever been given power to implement crackpot ideas ). Again as an experienced public servant May would I am sure have put together advisors that presented her with the scientific consensus, not just those willing to agree a strategy not implemented anywhere else in the world ( even Trump didn't do it deliberately). This has continued with Boris giving his ear to scientific outliers funded by the right wing like Heneghen and with the delaying of the second vaccine dose which most scientists agree risks letting the virus mutate to a more vaccine resistent variant. A dangerous experiment involving the whole UK that no other country is risking.

It is a grim situation however saying Johnson is illiterate and has no integrity is bollocks. I didn't say eh was illiterate, please don't resort to the usual straw man shenanigans. I said he was illiterate in terms of economics and business as evidenced by ignoring the service sector in his Brexit deal. Say what you like about Thatcher but she had a coherent economic plan for the country and established a successful service economy accounting for 80% of our economy and a large proportion of tax receipts. Johnson will go down as the man who killed her fatted goose. Ask small importers / exporters about his business acumen, Britain will prosper mightily gagged by red tape at our borders

For integrity, see passing bucks to cronies above..

PMQs was and is continuing to be painful to watch.

The only questions he answers are about vaccines and I have to give it to him he is very clued up about the process.

But schools are safe - they are just vectors of transmission.

So no safer than any of the other places shut then? And I would suggest in terms of transmission they aren't as "safe" as gyms, pools and restaurants.

'Sir Simon Stevens said there should be a 'legitimate discussion' about vaccinating public-facing workers such as teachers after those most at risk have received their jabs'

Oh I see, yes once all other priority groups vaccinated.

When you said -
'What did you think of Johnson's non answer about vaccinating school staff over half term?'

I thought you were suggesting they should be prioritised as half term isn't long.

When it gets to the general public's turn then yes bus drivers, teachers, and retail staff should be vaccinated before say those wfh although I would imagine it would be an administrative nightmare. Far better to just use all man power to crack on with it as it stands.

Cummings should have fallen on his sword, not because he did anything wrong

He absolutely did do something wrong. He travelled the length of the country while positive for COVID when mere mortals like you or me were not allowed to get in a car and drive at all in order to go for a walk even if COVID negative

I thought you were suggesting they should be prioritised as half term isn't long

I suppose it comes down to where they should come in the priority - are they more vulnerable than people such as the over 50s - who are in the 1 - 9 group - but as someone who is over 50, I personally have a much lower exposure chance than a teacher does.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9189205/Teachers-police-officers-line-Covid-vaccines.html

'Our current proposition that once we have offered a vaccination to everyone aged 70 and above, and the clinically extremely vulnerable, then the next group of people would be people in their 60s and 50s.

'But there will also be a legitimate discussion in my view that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation will have to advise on as to whether or not there are certain other groups who should receive that priority.

'People with learning disabilities and autism, certain key public service workers, teachers, the police, they will have to be factored in that post-February 15 prioritisation decision.'

Sir Simon said reducing the number of hospital beds occupied by Covid-19 patients was not 'the only consideration' policymakers would take into account when deciding the vaccination priority lis

So once the extremely vulnerable people get their vaccine - which will hopefully be soon - who should get them next?

(which was the point I made about should people in the over 50 group get them before teachers and other public workers in the front line)

And you will see that the date is 'post February 15th' - so in time for half term.

I suspect this will happen - and we can then quote Johnson's PMQ response from today.

I wish MN had a like button. emilyontmoor - I think you're spot on about everything.

I'll just leave this here: www.facebook.com/ledbydonkeys/videos/311365813382316/