In May 2020, a group of scientists at Oxford University loaded three 30ml and five 6ml tubes into a small polystyrene box, carefully packed them in dry ice, and sent them off to Heathrow. thetimes.co.uk/article/the-in…
There was no unusual security for this – no outriders, no armed guards. Yet it was almost certainly the most important package on the move in the world at the time.
From Heathrow, the tubes, which contained the result of months of work by a team led by Professor Sarah Gilbert, were flown to Gaithersburg, Maryland.

There, Per Alfredsson was waiting to receive them. Now he had to make enough to vaccinate half the world.
Blond, tall and perfectly bilingual, Alfredsson, exudes the sort of effortless Scandinavian competence you would want in a moody detective investigating Arctic Circle murders or, say, in the manager of a vaccine logistics operation.
Alfredsson is senior vice-president of Global Biologics Operations at AstraZeneca, with 24 years’ experience in Big Pharma, but he had never experienced anything like it.

“I’ve never seen it in the industry before, everyone coming together. Everyone wants to do the right thing.”
The hardest moments, though, have been due to the actions of governments – and journalists.

It has been when Emmanuel Macron, the French president, was saying it didn’t work, or when the German press was claiming, incorrectly, the vaccine had minimal efficacy in older people.
“From time to time, you know, you feel a bit sad. You know that everyone has done their part, that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people are sacrificing their family lives and may not see their kids at all. And then you read things in the paper.”
At the end of last month, the billionth stopper was put on the billionth vial, and the company took a big step towards fulfilling its stated mission: to provide a vaccine for the world.

Read the full interview by @whippletom: thetimes.co.uk/article/the-in…

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More from @thetimes

6 Aug
#WorldatFive 🌎: Tokyo during the #Olympics has been a city split between two versions of reality jarringly at odds with one another.

Coronavirus cases are soaring while the Japanese sense of cohesion is fraying. thetimes.co.uk/article/olympi…
In spite of climbing cases, much has gone right from the point of view of the host country.

The bureaucracy of testing and quarantining has been handled as well as could reasonably be expected. The absence of spectators from the stadiums has not ruined the Games.
But outside the Olympic “Bubble” of athletes, officials and journalists is a city in crisis. The coronavirus pandemic is worse than it has ever been.
Read 5 tweets
6 Aug
#Olympics update:

The British cycling team of Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald have swept to a golden victory, crowning Kenny as the first British woman to win gold medals at three consecutive Games.

thetimes.co.uk/article/pole-v…
Galal Yafai, the youngest of three boxing siblings from Birmingham, won his flyweight semi-final in a hard, close contest, to suggest that he could be worth his weight in gold.

thetimes.co.uk/article/galal-…
Lauren Price will box for a gold medal after overcoming a point deduction for holding in her bout with Dutch powerhouse Nouchka Fontijn.

thetimes.co.uk/article/tokyo-…
Read 6 tweets
5 Aug
Cuban artists, actors and musicians have been propelled by protesters who appear to have overcome their fear of taking to the streets | ✍️ @STHGibbs

#WorldAtFive

thetimes.co.uk/article/an-old…
Happy workers in sugar fields. The dashing Che Guevara. Bearded heroes clutching AK-47s. And, of course, Fidel Castro. Love it or hate it, the Cuban revolution has been one of the most successfully-marketed political projects of the 20th century.
But the most important audience for the revolutionary mythology was the domestic one: inside the island.

The largest protests for six decades which rocked the country in July, are seen by opponents as evidence that most people want change.
Read 4 tweets
5 Aug
With her ten Somali brothers and sisters, Rawdah Mohamed spent her childhood in a Kenyan refugee camp. Now she is editor of a new Vogue magazine. The 29-year-old tells @JuLlewellyn her extraordinary story.

thetimes.co.uk/article/rawdah…
As a child in a refugee camp, Rawdah Mohamed was allowed to buy one dress a year, for the festival of Eid.

“I was obsessed by that dress. I would go around the tents and show it off,” she says. “Fashion’s always helped me out of bad situations I’ve been in.”
Her family gained asylum in Norway when she was eight, where her passion for clothes continued.

But she knew her chances of working in the fashion industry were almost nil.
Read 11 tweets
5 Aug
In the picturesque seaside village of Hope Cove, second home ownership is running at an alarming 80%. 🏠 thetimes.co.uk/article/the-de…
The ageing residents who remain in the south Devon parish fear that the march of the holiday home is increasing.

“The place is like a graveyard [out of holiday season],” said retiree Tom Windle, who moved to the parish in 2009.⁠⁠
In winter the dark streets are often only punctuated by lights in the windows of every third or fourth house in a row.⁠⁠
Read 7 tweets
5 Aug
#Olympics update:

“I started the year in a wheelchair and I was not willing to end my Olympic campaign the same way.”

Katarina Johnson-Thompson said it was a “miracle” that she had made it to the Olympics Games after a series of injuries.

thetimes.co.uk/article/katari…
Hector Pardoe told how he feared he had lost an eye after being struck by a stray elbow in the latter stages of the men’s 10km marathon swimming in Tokyo.

thetimes.co.uk/article/tokyo-…
Dina Asher-Smith returned to the Olympic stage this morning. Six days after she broke down after failing to make the 100m final, the sprinter helped the 4x100m relay team to a British record in the heats.

thetimes.co.uk/article/dina-a…
Read 7 tweets

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