Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

UK political set too busy having private, small-scale dinner parties, traveling while infected but not feeling ill and going for eye exams.

Exactly - it's just so grubby and tawdry compared to private jets to Cabo and world-famous high end restaurants.

It really sums up the difference between the UK and the US

I am also suspicious of countries who have not had these types of scandals. It may be that some have very responsible leaders (Germany), but I suspect that in other cases they may just have a slightly more deferential press to a politician's "private" conduct.

[The Larch]

That lack of ambition for corruption is compensated with smugness and arrogance, apparently.

Gavin Williamson: UK is 'a much better country than every single one of them'
Education secretary lauds vaccine rollout saying scientists in UK better than in France, Belgium or US

The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has claimed the UK was the first country in the world to clinically approve a coronavirus vaccine because the country has "much better" scientists than France, Belgium or the US.

Williamson said he was not surprised the UK was the first to roll out the immunisation because "we're a much better country than every single one of them".

Asked whether Brexit was to credit for the world-first, Williamson told LBC radio station on Thursday: "Well I just reckon we've got the very best people in this country and we've obviously got the best medical regulators.

"Much better than the French have, much better than the Belgians have, much better than the Americans have. That doesn't surprise me at all because we're a much better country than every single one of them, aren't we."

It is unclear whether Williamson made his remarks in jest but they came barely 24 hours after Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said the UK was the first to approve the vaccine "because of Brexit". He contrasted the UK approach with the "pace of the Europeans, who are moving a little bit more slowly".

Hancock's claim was contradicted by both Downing Street and the UK's medicines regulator. The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which is in charge of approving the vaccine for the European Union, also issued a rare robust statement suggesting that the UK had prioritised speed over winning public confidence so that it could be the first to roll out the jab.

Williamson followed up his claim about the UK having "much better" clinicians than other countries by saying we were "able to get on with things", a remark which could be seen to be a swipe at the pace of the European approval process.

Asked a second time on LBC whether he meant that Brexit was to credit with the development, the education secretary said: "I think just being able to get on with things, deliver it, and the brilliant people in our medical regulator making it happen means that people in this country are going to be the first country in the western world – in the world – to get that Pfizer vaccine.

"A real competitive advantage. But do you know who it's down to? It's down to the brilliant clinicians in the regulator who've made it happen so fast, so our thanks go out to them. By doing what they've done, they're going to have saved lives."

The UK government announcement of the decision said it had taken place under a provision of the Human Medicines Regulations, passed in 2012, which permits the rapid licensing of medicines in the event of an emergency such as a pandemic.

The UK is still under the remit of the EMA until the end of the Brexit transition period on 1 January, and EU laws also allow other member states to approve medicines for emergency use without EMA authorisation

At a government briefing on Wednesday, the head of the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority, which made the decision, cited EU rules. "We have been able to authorise the supply of this vaccine using provisions under European law, which exist until 1 January," said June Raine, the MHRA's chief executive. Boris Johnson's spokesman also pointedly declined to back the health secretary.

[Sheilbh]

Let's not forget Williamson was fired by May for leaking national security secrets and has presided over some of the biggest clusterfucks in the UK response (the exams, universities going back etc). He's not fit for high office and a bellend.

Although I think there is an interesting Brexit angle around the vaccine approval - it's not quite the one they've argued.

[Syt]

Let's not forget Williamson was fired by May for leaking national security secrets and has presided over some of the biggest clusterfucks in the UK response (the exams, universities going back etc). He's not fit for high office and a bellend.

So how did he get this job if he was so patently unqualified?

[Sheilbh]

So how did he get this job if he was so patently unqualified?

He's a good political operator. He was by all accounts a very good Chief Whip (so probably knows people's pressure points) and was key in getting the DUP to agree to support May's government so he was rewarded with the defence portfolio. He still vehemently denies leaking the information about Huawei (and annoyingly if he did I actually think he was probably right to leak it - it's annoying that it's the one thing I agree with him on ), but was fired for that.

But he was still a good operator and was, I think, very helpful to Johnson in building up support for his leadership campaign among MPs (again, he used to be Chief Whip) - he was certainly one of Johnson's early backers. There was a veiw that Johnson couldn't appoint him to another security sensitive job, but he should be rewarded with a role in the cabinet - so education it is. It probably helps that education is an area where the Tories don't really have a big reform agenda (so there's not much to do but keep things ticking over) because that was delivered by Gove during the coalition.

Edit: And incidentally in 2015 he apparently privately said he'd do everything he could to stop Johnson becoming PM and was one of the first MPs to back May - which started his climb into the cabinet. In 2019 he was one of the first to back Johnson and was important in bringing May down. As I say - he's a good operator

[alfred russel]

UK political set too busy having private, small-scale dinner parties, traveling while infected but not feeling ill and going for eye exams.

Exactly - it's just so grubby and tawdry compared to private jets to Cabo and world-famous high end restaurants.

It really sums up the difference between the UK and the US

I am also suspicious of countries who have not had these types of scandals. It may be that some have very responsible leaders (Germany), but I suspect that in other cases they may just have a slightly more deferential press to a politician's "private" conduct.

Really you are just touching on part of the difference.

In the US, for Democrats, you get the private jets to Cabo and world-famous high end restaurants.

In the US, for Republicans, it is a point of pride to ignore even the most basic rules. This leads to a basic personal immunity to covid scandal -- and also covid as they seem to inevitably contract it.

[Sheilbh]

In the US, for Democrats, you get the private jets to Cabo and world-famous high end restaurants.

In the US, for Republicans, it is a point of pride to ignore even the most basic rules. This leads to a basic personal immunity to covid scandal -- and also covid as they seem to inevitably contract it.

That's fair and hypocrisy is (was?) the ultimate sin in a scandal. If you're never telling people they need to follow basic rules, it's not hypocritical if you don't follow any of them.

It's a bit like Trump's great discovery that a lot of scandals only really matter/have any impact if you have a personal sense of shame.

[Legbiter]

This is rather wild, but the Catalan Health Department has today said that they have yet to have a flu test come out positive this season. Doesn't mean nobody has caught the flu, because there isn't that much flu testing being done, but it's still pretty remarkable.

Yeah no flu here either. The death rate is down compared to regular years. Probably because the seasonal respiratory ailments are not doing their usual work on the very elderly.

[Legbiter]

648 deaths reported today, highest since mid-May.

We seem to regularly hitting 500-600+ deaths recorded. 

Vaccines will start arriving early January though so there's a light at the end of the tunnel. But yeah the next six months will be grim.

[Duque de Bragança]

Less of a lockdown in France since November 30, with shops reopening and more restrictions lifted by December 15 if indicators such as ICU, growth rates etc. keep going down.
Since there will be lots of travel for Christmas and New Year's celebrations, I expect another surge in January however.

Latest famous Covid-victim: Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, 94, former French president cf. the other thread about him.

[Legbiter]

Since there will be lots of travel for Christmas and New Year's celebrations, I expect another surge in January however.

Yeah, that's guaranteed. Probably the most effective measure we did was mandatory quarantine of all incoming travelers. We're almost cut off from the world because of it, but it works. The problem is we get continual reinfection because we rely on everyone self-quarantining at private residences and all it takes is one infected individual "nipping" out for cigs to rekindle an epidemic. 

[Sheilbh]

So the UK government still has the potential to fuck this up. But there was a piece a while ago in the FT about governments making orders for vaccines and, from memory, the UK had the most diversified and largest per capita. A lot of that procurement included a big pre-order as soon as it's approved plus new orders in the next year. I think this is the chart:

So hopefully this isn't going to happen. But despite the fact that we will be taking delivery of the Pfizer/BionTech vaccine very soon I'm starting to see reports that GP surgeries who will be key in delivering the vaccine are not receiving any information about the roll-out and they're not being given any information on what the plan is.

On the other hand the NHS is generally pretty good at running vaccination programs (as someone who is slightly at risk with flu and gets a flu vaccine ever year) so hopefully this'll be fine....But......

[Richard Hakluyt]

We need a vaccine tsar, preferably someone who is friends with several tory ministers and of no discernible talent. That way we can guarantee a world-beating vaccination program cockup 

[Tamas]

To try and be fair, maybe GPs can't be involved until we get a vaccine that does not need -70C storage temperature?

[Sheilbh]

To try and be fair, maybe GPs can't be involved until we get a vaccine that does not need -70C storage temperature?

How the tables have turned