If @BorisJohnson has a political philosophy it is that he will not restrict our liberties unless there is an overwhelming reason to do so. That may prove to be sub-optimal in respect of our health and prosperity (public health and economics)...
But it may also be popular, especially if his big bets on vaccines succeed - though he will have to survive the public inquiry he promised (itv.com/news/2020-12-3…) What is telling...
both in my interview last week and today’s on Marr, is he appears (for now at least) to have his confidence back.
Or to put it another way, the prime minister has chosen to make a virtue of what many criticise as his slowness to lock down in March and his refusal (against scientific and political advice) to lock down in September. It was remarkable to hear him saying...
today that more restrictions on our lives are probably just days or weeks away, in the face of the rampant virus, while keeping open a glimmer of hope they may not be necessary. What I can’t judge is whether most of you will judge this as disastrous Micawberism or...
prudent patience, as political cowardice or courage, as weakness or leadership.

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More from @Peston

5 Jan
As I mentioned yesterday, in a fortnight AstraZeneca will be putting 2m doses of the vaccine into vials. At that point the limiting factor on how many people can be vaccinated will switch from manufacturing to distribution - and in particular how long it takes to...
"process" each person who turns up to be vaccinated. It allegedly takes three times longer in the UK than in Israel to do the on-site paperwork for each vaccinated person. Which, if true, means the UK would be vaccinating only a third of the numbers of people it could be...
vaccinating every day. And in the current raging epidemic that would not be an academic underperformance but it would have a big and huge cost in lives. This excess of bureaucracy in the UK feels real to me, in that when I took my 90-year-old mum to be vaccinated before...
Read 9 tweets
4 Jan
This is important. AstraZeneca expects to be able to supply 2m doses of the Oxford/AZ vaccine to the NHS every week by the second half of January. This week the number is "only" 500,000 because the company kept the vaccine in "drug substance" form pending approval. But AZ is...
ramping up fast and filling vials at a rapid rate. The government knows this. But perhaps it is not surprising that @BorisJohnson and @MattHancock are steadfastly refusing to confirm the 2m-a-week target, in that vaccine manufacture is far from simple, and they're...
presumably scarred from all those other targets they've announced and missed during this crisis. But the politics pushed to the side, it is realistic to expect a massive vaccination programme to be well into its stride within a fortnight, so long as the...
Read 4 tweets
30 Dec 20
The big point about the first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is that it massively reduces the risk of serious disease and hospitalisations. In the trials, no one given the vaccine was hospitalised. Which is why the government has decided to increase to three...
months the gap between the two doses. It means that the 20m people regarded as the priority for vaccination, those aged over 50 or who are clinically vulnerable, can all receive at least one dose by the spring. It in effect doubles the pace of vaccination. All...
that said, it is important to receive two doses, to obtain long term protection against Covid19. Much more clinical detail will be provided shortly by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. But as I said earlier, this is probably the most important decision...
Read 4 tweets
22 Dec 20
1) The data shows that the vaccine reduces serious illness and risk of mortality from around 10 days of having just first dose. 2) The risk of acute illness, hospitalisation and mortality is highest in the tenth of population who are over 80 or clinically most vulnerable...
3) Tier 4 lockdown is designed primarily to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed by those whose Covid19 symptoms require hospital treatment. 4) Tier 4 lockdown is coming to a region near you very soon, if you are not there already. 5) Tier 4 is economically devastating...
6) The costs of a military style operation to vaccinate us would be huge, but they would be a fraction of the economic costs of Tier 4 lockdown. 7) The top priority, by a country mile, of any rational government would therefore be to create the infrastructure for millions of...
Read 6 tweets
19 Dec 20
So here are the CovidUK headlines. Nervtag thinks new British strain is 70% more infectious than existing strain and may increase the R or transmission rate by more than 0.4. So London and SE go into new Tier 4 (very similar to last lockdown) tonight and...
Everyone in ALL tiers should stay local. And no foreign travel if you are in Tier 4...
Lawful Christmas will be reduced to a single day everywhere in England. This is a disaster for non-essential shops, hairdressers, gyms and so on in the capital and surrounding area. In London and SE no intra household mixing even on Xmas day...
Read 4 tweets
14 Dec 20
The current government timetable is to announce any tier changes on Wednesday for implementation 00.01 Saturday. But there is evidence that when people fear their tier level will rise, which is a well-grounded expectation in infection-growing London, they bring...
forward socialising, they discount the shift to increased restrictions. There is evidence these behavioural changes increase infections by 10 to 15 per cent. It is a basic flaw in a system of tiers being reviewed every couple of weeks. By the way,...
there is also evidence that when an area comes out of restrictions, it is like unpopping a cork of a fizzy drink: there is such a sense of relief and release, that again people accelerate their virus-spreading socialising. All of which is an argument for having fewer tiers,...
Read 5 tweets

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