One of the better lines on PM's question by SNP's Blackford

Ah my bad. I thought you meant compared to FPTP

He's copied that line from numerous twitter posts taking the piss out of the SNP.

The Chesham and Amersham by election result may be explained by the two main parties offering leaders who are either clowns or make John Major look like Hunter S. Thompson.

Whilst I think that the 4 week delay that seems to be 4 nationwide seems disproportional, I get it. The frustrations being felt now are amongst people who don't have the luxury of working from home or whatever. It's a ****ing travesty that this could have been avoided had we put India on the red list at the start of April. So annoying for us to have wasted all of that head start because brexit morons wanted a trade deal with India of all places.

That would have made no difference, and I don't see why you're bringing Brexit into wanting a trade deal with one of the world's larger economies. As an aside, I guess you must have missed the Indian rates disappearing just as quickly as they were brought up by the media?

Indian rates of what? Because if you're talking about the coronavirus variant then you're only showing your own lack of knowledge here as the Delta variant (the one that originated in India) is over 90% of new cases in the UK.

Come on, of course it would have made a difference. As stated above, 90% of new cases are of the salivating gimme a trade deal variant. If you slow that transmission rate by red listing India even a week or two earlier, case rates would not yet be where they are, allowing the vaccine program to get ahead of it without the need for england to delay their re-opening.

You have to admit it's pretty funny if you're anti-tory like myself to see this government's rank incompetence on full display. They literally can't get anything right.

I assume he means cases are dropping in places like Bolton, where the virus originated:

Bolton's Covid infection falls again, figures reveal

I think a spike now will ultimately save many more lives in winter - I know that's not the governments intention, but I guess the point is I agree with people who say we can't get spooked every time there is mention of a new variant, as we could be living with this for a long time.

The vaccine manufacture, procurement and roll out?

Developed by a university, manufactured in Germany and Holland, rolled out by the NHS....

Procurement is a fair point, but it was such a no-brainer that I'm not sure exactly how much credit we should be giving them. Is the bar really that low now? Maybe i'm overly cynical, but the big EU countries are fast catching up with us and this "head start" we had is fast being eaten up due to rank incompetence.

The government made the decision to fund mass production of the vaccine in the UK last summer, well before it had been approved or clinical trials had been undertaken. This is why manufacturing was so successful in the UK compared with the EU, as the UK had a ~6 month head start in refining the process.

Plus, if procurement was "a no-brainer", how did the EU botch it so badly?

The roll out was ultimately the governments responsibility and they would have carried the can if things had gone badly, so they deserve some credit here.

They definitely would not have carried the can. They would have blamed bureaucracy within the NHS had they not stepped up in such a grand manner. Again. Despite over a decade of defunding.

As I said, Germany, France, Italy are all rapidly catching up with us and will no doubt overtake us soon. Not sure what the EU botched exactly? Countries could definitely have approved emergency use faster, like us, not sure what that has to do with the EU though. It seems like, despite this 6 month head start, that we will get to that 80% fully vaccinated target at the same time. We were in a 1 mile race with a half mile headstart and still couldn't win. That's rank incompetence.

We're already at 81% first doses, which is the key number as this gives significant protection against hospitalisation and death. It's also important as it indicates these people are willing to have a vaccine in the first place.



I'd happily take the bet on the UK reaching 80% faster than the EU.

"The EU" is disconcertingly vague. Love partridge. Anyways. If it's a bet on both dose vaccinated, UK v say Germany, 80%, i'll take that for a charity bet if you want? Say £100 to a charity of choice?

Literally just spat my cornflakes out.

If you're not prepared to take the bet v "The EU", lets take £50 each on UK v Germany (to charity) and UK v France (to the winner - I want my schadenfreude).

Not sure why? In that instance you're betting on one country versus twenty-seven countries and you only have to beat one to win. Seems lopsided.

But yeah I'm up for those bets. Fine with those terms also. Cancer research UK is my charity of choice, they do great work.

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/

GL GL

You've managed to pack a lot of wrong into a fairly small post, well done.

Quoted to book. I'm happy with Paypal for the personal aspect, unless you want to suggest an alternative?

My charity is Schnauzerfest. They do great work raising money to support dogs rescued from puppy farms. Many are in terrible condition when rescued, suffering from emotional and physical trauma and the money goes towards lifesaving operations and rehabilitation.

https://www.schnauzerfest.org/

Regarding data sources, I'm happy to use the official government figures (as per my post above) for the adult population of UK, Germany and France.

GL

Yeah that's fine with me on both counts. Paypal all good and govt sources. Can you send me the url you're using?

Great charity btw! Good choice.

Right, time for a fathers day breakfast apparently.

Enjoy!

Here is the UK government figures for vaccination numbers:

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Likewise, can you send the Germany & France databases you are using?

This might be useful fro fully vaccinated:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/s...id?time=latest

Currently:

UK 45.5%
Germany 30.2%
France 23.7%

EU as a whole is 27.1% which is a tad embarrassing for France

You need to strip children out of those figures, as they are unlikely to be vaccinated.

Indeed, I think it's a bit selfish for countries to vaccinate children (death rate something like <1 in 1,000,000) when vaccines can be donated to countries who have a shortage of vaccines and/or significant infections/death.

ok

I dont really buy the selfish argument. If it was correct to vaccinate children (not convinced it is but let's assume) then the best approach would to do so and then spend the money saved because of treatment avoided on vaccines/treatment for others*. Even a fraction of that money would go much further than donating vaccines that we need. This is not a zero sum game.

*I'd support spending far more but that's another issue

Just using...

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations