=#BF0000What opportunities - I see far more aggressive approach to sales, marketing and distribution - product innovation e.g. pharma - where are the lipids for the Pfizer vaccine coming from?

In response to ZZB.

I think we could have planned a lot better for Brexit. But I understand the reasons (good, bad and inevitable) why we didn’t. Ultimately, people weigh the costs and benefits differently and we all made up our minds a long time ago.

The AZ-vaccine nervousness within the EU seemed very much to come at the national level. The EU regulatory body (the EMA) approved the AZ vaccine in all age groups and didn’t suspend approval in response the reports of thromboembolic events. I assume that was national health technology assessment agencies exercising an, imo excessive in the circumstances, degree of caution. Just as England has NICE (and Scotland has the SMA and Wales has the AWMSG), France has HAS and Italy has AIFA etc. The approval of all these vaccines was ‘expedited’, so I could kind of get a slightly wary reaction in countries that haven’t been hard hit by COVID. Where they’ve had it nearly as bad as us, it seems perverse to me. But these are independent, sovereign countries and they can make their own decisions.

I should have Googled commercial banking.

Dear Me,

What a very disingenuous response you slipped in there.

Your just a paid troll on here, most likely in the employ of the conservative and unionist party

Why do you keep saying "the EU" when you mean individual nation states?

You're the one who keeps raising them. Again, questioning someone else's loyalty to country just because they aren't right wing zeolouts is something that happens all too often and is something I find personally pretty despicable.

Well we need to start with education. And investment in that sector costs money. And I'm pretty sure you don't want anything close to an increase in our tax base. So what are we looking at? Wishing it into existence? Tax breaks for people who pretend to tick training boxes (been there, done that)? Anything which will actually address the issues we face?

Are we getting good value for money in our state education system - is the current system delivering the best outcomes and I don't mean loads of GCSEs. Perhaps before spending huge amounts of extra cash we develop a system that delivers maximum value and then start to re-invest - just a thought?

The 1.9m is on the HM Gov site - go check and come back when you can confirm your 20m jabs?

There was a couple of cases in Norway - but no correlation to AZ jab was ever made yet Germany, France etc jumped on the bandwagon - why? There were known side effects of the Pfizer jab which were far more prevalent than those of AZ jab - anaphylactic shock, respiratory problem, facial nerve paralysis yet nothing - why AZ and not Pfizer - the logic doesn't stack up.

I don’t know, and I don’t want to spend the time required to gain a proper understanding. Balancing the benefits and risks can be tricky (although this seemed very odd to me, maybe it was just legal ass covering) but my point here is that the judgement was made by countries individually not by the EU as a bloc.

A very quick Google indicates that in the EU, Sweden (where the Astra-bit comes from), Latvia, France, Austria, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Portugal, Slovenia, Germany, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Denmark and Ireland suspended use. Which means a dozen EU countries didn’t.

European non-EU members Iceland and Norway also suspended use. The Swiss still haven’t even approved it yet AFAIK.

Outside of Europe, Thailand, Indonesia and the DR Congo suspended use.

Brexit has been our national political-cultural obsession, the rest of the EU and world do not care nearly as much and are perfectly capable of making poop decisions irrespective. It is bleakly reassuring to know that we don’t have a monopoly on COVID related idiocy, and that we’re doing better in this regard.

You do fall back on nirvana fallacies a lot. Like for healthcare, the ‘we can never spend enough, so we shouldn’t spend more’ argument.

Relying on stereotypes of conservatives, would you take the same attitude with the military or roads? Like, ‘we can never be completely safe from attack, so why even bother with an army, navy and Air Force.’?

Fair enough, I assume you’re not saying do away with schools and hospitals - so that is an exaggeration, I admit.

Or you could put the link up you are referring to

Not at all what I saying is our current education system doesn't deliver the outcomes it should when compared to other countries e.g Finland/South Korea. So rather than throw even more money into a failing system as Ghost would do why don't we fix the system by taking the best of other education idea adapt them to suit our culture first and them increase the spending - these are not difficult concepts for most of us to think through.

Just throwing good money after bad is not is a great solution - more teachers teaching the same way - is that as good as it gets?

You could also put your 20m flue jabs link up also?

Considering that all over 55's are offered the flu jab, plus those with particular medical needs, the 1.9 million figure is very ,very low.
I cant find a figure but, the uptake is supposed to be 2/3 of those eligible, somewhat more than the number you have given.
Also, there were 750,000 given to NHS employees. OK some of these will fit into the over 55 category but, I think your figure is wrong.

It is a bit of a leap from not best to failing. Education is a bit of a political football unfortunately and reforms rarely last long enough in the UK to even allow their level of success to be assessed, before another Education Secretary comes along with a new vision.

It is entirely possible to try to optimise and invest at the same time, and those things might well be complementary. I can understand a degree of nervousness about handing over billions of £s to Gavin Williamson to spend effectively, admittedly.

The Tories will do nothing to manage the education system better because to make the changes you need ala Scandanavia you have to fundamentally see education as about encouraging learning for the sake of learning and to develop independent thinking.

Every announcement by the Tories about education is about controlling what is taught and emphasis on exams and testing not a love of learning. Hence their love affair with targets and ofsted.


Simple starter on education would be No Formal Learning until children are 7 years old. The first 3 years is all about socialising children, developing co-operation and communication and developing a love of learning.

A good post and my view too - education is about delivering rounded students at all levels with the necessary skill set to advance at what ever level into adult life.

I agree with the last paragraph provided you have a clear vision of what you are trying to achieve and a clear strategy of how you are going to get there

I was wrong - the number was c10m but it still makes the latest vaccine roll out on a different scale to the annual flu jab roll out - timescales being one thing, volumes being another, the nature of the vaccine especially the Pfizer.

Vaccines usually take at least a decade to become available, so this vaccination programme is indeed a few levels above anything we've had rollout before.

most of the vaccines for covid are old tech.

the mrna ones are new, but they are not brand new, they have been a decade in construction and half a century in design.

sure the timescale has been shortened to get it to market but no trials were rushed they were just done in parallel.

You lied.
And you are still lying

I didn't lie I made a mistake - what is you excuse?

I was closer to the real number than you!!

Was that with your first, second or third attempt to guess the figure or, all of them ?