I’ve read the article now and this is the full quote,
"I just reckon we’ve got the very best people in this country and we’ve obviously got the best medical regulator, 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.”
He said the UK had a “real competitive advantage, but do you know who it’s down to? It’s down to those brilliant, brilliant clinicians in the regulator who’ve made it happen so fast, so our thanks go out to them because by doing what they’ve done, they’re going to have saved lives.”
It does actually sound like he’s having a bit of banter rather than making a serious claim to that effect. Even so he should probably know by now that there’s no place for humour in politics. I’m sure it must be easy to forget that when all he sees are clowns everyday.
The big fucking ‘only made possible due to Brexit’ scrolling banner during Johnson’s press conference might give you the clue. This was to one-up the EU.
To tell you the truth I’m not bothered about the rush. The UK is practically relying on the vaccine working as it has no other plan, so I’m completely behind it being rolled out fast. There haven’t been any cases in the trial of people’s arms falling off after a week or some other unusual side effect, so if the worst case is that its similar to injecting water into your arm then lets give it a shot boom tish. I still have serious questions about the gigantic hole in the trial data about asymptomatics as has already been discussed on here, so as a pessimist I still think this has only a small chance of being successful, but its better than doing nothing.
Besides, somebody had to jump head-first into this. Deep down somewhat selfishly I’m slightly relieved this vaccine will be further tested on the UK populace before my parents-in-law in France with comorbidities are offered it.
I spoke to my friend who is a doctor, who made these two important points.
Testing has been rushed, so we really don’t know all the possible side effects that could arise from the vaccine.
If inadequate dose is given to a large number of people, then the disease will develop a resistance to the vaccine.
She still thinks these issues are relevant but minor and that we should go for the vaccines. She also mentioned that we might see some cases of wrong treatment, but the bulk of them would be confined to underdeveloped or developing countries, which won’t be talked about or rather brushed under the carpet.
I’m well used to the ‘it’s only banter ’ defence (ka the Clarkson manoeuvre) across a variety of issues, but it’s the first time I’ve heard it applied to a representative of the UK government.
Let’s call it ugly nationalism, because that’s clearly what it is.
And do think a minister of state should be taking a bantz approach to international diplomatic relations?
This is the fucking problem right here in a nutshell. A minister of the fucking crown is doing a professional broadcast interview about the vaccine, with the EUs warnings not helping public fear about how the speed of the development might have compromised safety, and he decides to stoke nationalistic sentiment and insult nations we’re still apparently hopeful of striking a deal with before the end of the year.
And you give him a pass because it’s ‘just banter’.
No they’ve come to expect it now. It just feeds that Brexit voting arm of the country that they need to keep feeding to ensure they dont wake up come January.
No, I don’t think it’s appropriate in a minister of the Crown and I’m not giving him a pass (see my previous posts). I’m just saying that I don’t see it as intending to be a jingoistic statement designed to stoke nationalistic sentiments. It just doesn’t come across that way.
My daughter’s school is going back to home learning for next week. 30+ teachers are currently MIA due to needing to self-isolate. I don’t know if that’s because they have symptoms/are confirmed or its because they are a close contact of the confirmed COVID students. School has a total of just under 100 teachers.
I’m just wanting to demonstrate how far away we really are from normal. I don’t know where teachers are on the vaccine priority list, so it will be interesting to see whether the government will relax the guidance for schools if teachers are vaccinated quite early. But if they don’t then the whole of 2021 is going to be a bit of a see-saw for students.