Robert Peston Profile picture
17 Nov, 10 tweets, 2 min read
If the UK government came late to the Moderna party, and has bought less of its vaccine than is ideal, the fault is not that of Kate Bingham and her Vaccine Taskforce. It is down to the mandate set her by the PM. He told her at the outset to purchase potential vaccines that...
could be available for use as early as possible, and preferably before the end of the year. And Bingham was clear in July that Moderna - although a world class biotech company - does not have an established distribution network in Europe. So she knew that even if its...
research delivered a good vaccine, it would not be available for use here till the end of March or beginning of April at the earliest. And so it has turned out. That said, it looks an excellent vaccine, and the 5m doses she has secured is only enough to protect 2.5m people (or...
rather 90% of them on current efficacy figures). It is possible that if she had negotiated more aggressively earlier, she could have secured more. But so long as most of her six other vaccine bets pay off, and scientists seem to think there is a reasonable chance of that,...
having less of the Moderna one won't matter so much. One of the six, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, is on a par with Moderna's for efficacy - though is less stable and therefore may be more expensive and riskier to transport from manufacturing plant to arm. And Bingham has...
secured enough of Pfizer's for 20m people, something like 10% of the available global supply. Her biggest bet is the AZN/Oxford vaccine. She's ordered 100m doses of it, enough for 50m people. The efficacy data for AZN/Oxford is a few weeks away. But the scientific community...
seems to think its efficacy will be less than that of Moderna's and Pfizer's (maybe 70% or so efficacy - though this is all gossip). But it may excite "a greater cellular response". As I understand it, this could mean it delivers longer lasting protection, for those...
whom it succeeds in protecting, than the Moderna and Pfizer ones. All of which points to a big looming challenge for the government's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, if a majority of the 355m doses of vaccine ordered by the government turn out to be effective...
in varying degrees. Which is how to decide which of us get which vaccines (there will be none for under 18s, because as yet there are no Phase Three trials involving young people). The politics of allocating vaccines that confer different kinds of protection will be...
challenging. That said, thank goodness we are now moving to the politics of choosing how we organise a return to something like normal life, rather than the politics of simply staying alive.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Robert Peston

Robert Peston Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Peston

18 Nov
The Pfizer/BionNTech efficacy rate in those aged over 65 is 94%. Very good news. Here is the release investors.pfizer.com/investor-news/…
On stability of the vaccine, and ability to distribute it, this very important from Pfizer too: "Pfizer is confident in its vast experience, expertise and existing cold-chain infrastructure to distribute the vaccine around the world. The companies have developed specially...
designed, temperature-controlled thermal shippers utilizing dry ice to maintain temperature conditions of -70°C±10°C. They can be used be as temporary storage units for 15 days by refilling with dry ice. Each shipper contains a GPS-enabled thermal sensor to track...
Read 4 tweets
12 Nov
There was a massive leap in positive tests on Monday. It is odd. I’ve checked and it is not linked to the Liverpool mass testing exercise. Image
To be clear, the Monday figure I’ve highlighted is categorised by date of specimen, NOT date of result. To day we had huge leap to 33,470 in positives declared, but that is distorted by the variable lags between a test being done and the result being known. The reason I cited...
the Monday jump is because it should represent an accurate figure of new detected infections on that day, and it is significantly higher than recent daily figures. And it is especially odd because the rate of infections among students has been coming down. It is a one-off...
Read 4 tweets
11 Nov
Here is the Shakespearean yarn of how Lee Cain was forced out as director of communications. He and Dominic Cummings wanted to introduce American-style televised press briefings. But the candidate @BorisJohnson wanted as on screen press secretary @HMTAllegra - my former...
colleague - would only take the job if she reported to the PM not to Cain. Which felt like a demotion to Cain. So when the PM insisted on appointing Stratton, he felt wholly undermined. And tonight after a challenging conversation with the PM he was forced out. As I said...
the outstanding question is whether Cummings - who is immensely loyal to his ex Vote Leave team, of whom Cain was an important member - quits in solidarity. If he does, many members of the government will be thrilled or relieved. One minister told me “I have my...
Read 4 tweets
9 Nov
I was puzzled by Jonathan Van Tan’s comment that we don’t know whether the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will prevent transmission of Covid-19 even if - as claimed - it has 90% efficacy in preventing us becoming ill. So I asked @michaelgove’s favourite people, the experts. What they...
explained was that some vaccines prevent us becoming ill with a virus but don’t prevent us having the virus and being able to infect others. This is how one put it: “if a vaccine is effective, the remaining question is ‘what type of efficacy?’ Does the vaccine...
protect against being infected (AND being sick of course), or only against being sick, or even possibly only against being seriously sick (that is not being hospitalised)? A vaccine that protects people against symptoms may not be able to also protect them from carrying...
Read 7 tweets
5 Nov
Another striking characteristic of today’s @bankofengland projections is that UK GDP, or national income, is set to shrink by 11% for the whole of 2020, a record. We are losing more than one in every ten pounds of our income, one of the worst performances in the world: the...
fall in US GDP is forecast at “just” 3.75%, the euro-area shrinkage is 6.75% and the global decline is projected at 5.25%. Given that the virus is the same virus everywhere, it is difficult to argue that the UK’s policy response to it has been...
economically optimal, even adjusting for the UK’s disproportionate reliance on services that thrive on the kind of human contact that the virus has made dangerous. It is not over till it is over, but the combination of excess deaths and excessive economic loss in...
Read 5 tweets
31 Oct
These are the measures to be announced by the PM at 5, as I understand it. They will last 2 December. And they are, In effect, a new “Tier 4” that will be imposed for a month initially to the whole of England. 1) All pubs and restaurants to close, though takeaways...
and deliveries will be permitted. 2) All non-essential retail to close, though supermarkets won't have to follow the Welsh example of fencing off non-essential goods. 3) There will be no mixing of people inside homes, except for childcare and other forms of support...
3) Manufacturing and construction will be encouraged to keep going. 4) Outbound international travel will be banned, except for work. 5) Travel within the UK will be discouraged, except for work. 6) Overnight stays away from home will be allowed only for work purposes...
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!