There’s also a huge difference in the number of staff - eg. over 40% more French nurses than UK (per capita). My Dad spent a lot of time in UK hospitals in 2019 - in the months before his death - all were very obviously seriously understaffed - and one regularly relying on Red Cross volunteers to actually treat people in A&E! Over the previous few years I had spent a lot of time in my local hospital here in France - believe me, there was absolutely no comparison between UK and French hospitals, even before the pandemic.
Johnson has obviously - and predictably - made a complete hash of things - the ‘cronyism’, the madness of ‘eat out to help out’, etc - but to be fair the NHS was ruined by previous Tories, and it is this that has shaped many of the Johnson government’s responses to the pandemic.
But they’re a better class of infection Ronald and at the risk of being a tad controversial, if the UK hadn’t nicked a large chunk of AZ production maybe things would be different
Nevertheless, IMHO, despite our difficulties, life here in France is continues to be great. Stay safe.
I know Izzy. All the more for the rest of us I’m thinking of starting with an AZ and then upgrading later in the year to a Pfizer or Moderna or maybe even a Sputnik. It’s hard to keep up with the changing fashon.
Chris Witty has still not endorsed the automatic return of all schools on the 8th March, quite rightly too in my opinion.
The latest figures are showing a large rise in the number of teenagers and schoolchildren contracting the virus.
What I got out of it was that even though it’s thought that AZ may be less effective up front, the authors of this article believe it may be more enduring than mRNA over (a short) time.
The worrying points for me were the fact that the JVI made their 12 week delay recommendation based on so little data. "The resulting 89% efficacy (95% CI 52–97) was based only on roughly 20 event”. So 15M people vaccinated based on 20 events. (I have long suspected that the rush to get the numbers up was politically not medically driven.)
Secondly, this innovative (read half arsed) approach of ignoring the manufactures’ recommendations could "create selective pressure facilitating the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants”. I guess this is exactly the approach you would take to encourage and train the virus to mutate.
The BBC news just now presented some very dodgy stats on vaccine effectiveness and also slipped in that the Government was considering a booster shot in the autumn.
Not terribly comforting reading as I sit here 11 weeks out from my 1st dose.
The one tiny crumb of comfort being that they hone in on the same two weaknesses in the government’s analysis that I recognised when it first came out), but quite alarming that they have a model of sorts to counter the strategy.
We’re told at work that there “will be an announcement this week” regarding 2nd doses - hope it’s just a time & place to turn up & get vaccinated (again).
That is what worries me too. The manufacturers’ recommendations are based on the results of the trials so to change the regime and use the vaccine in an 'innovative" way is potentially risky.
On the other hand the Queen still has her hair and the same style.
She has also come straight out and told people not to be selfish and to get vaccinated.
Good on you Your Majesty.
Stay safe.
I’m thinking of starting with an AZ and then upgrading later in the year to a Pfizer or Moderna or maybe even a Sputnik. It’s hard to keep up with the changing fashon.
