It's a pity that the 50 million citizens vaccinated milestone has been largely unheralded, but equally understandable since it's a day with plenty of heavyweight headlines going around. Still it's a good achievement and we have now got 23% of those aged 12 to 15 vaccinated, compared to 1% on 1 September.

Also interesting to me is the fact that we can give 200k boosters but not catch up the remainder of doses 1 and 2 for the other cohorts. Yet my boss' 17yo doesn't know if she can go to France skiing in December because she can't get her second dose 10+ weeks after the first!

The Evening Standard decided to recognise the milestone. It’s an outstanding and historic achievement.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/c...e-b963940.html

It's a milestone, but in terms of the percentage of the population that has received at least one dose (which is what that 50 million figure represents) the UK is only 32nd in the world, behind even Australia, whose own vaccination programme started disastrously and very late.

The thing that gets lost in that statistic is the size of the population under 16 or under 12. UK and Israel have a younger population that can't be vaccinated. In the case of Australia, the difference is small and UK only has slightly more youngsters but the UK is quite a lot younger than places like Canada and Germany, Israel much more so, with nearly a third of its population being children. Australia therefore has 88.7% of those 16 years or older first vaccinated, whereas the UK is 87.0% of those over 12 but 90.5% of those over 16 years. Plus 14.5% on boosters on the 12 year old cut off. The UK fairly late on decided to vaccinate people under 18. Since vaccines are now being authorised for those over 5 years old then this gets more complicated in the future.

Conveniently forgetting how many lives our fast rollout saved.

Absolutely true, and it's just such a shame that the programme has rather stalled. We all, I suspect, have our various explanations for that, and no doubt there's some truth in all of them, but it is fair to look at overall performance.

For me, being able to travel again, has made the subtle but significant differences between similar nations much more stark. We now have a point of comparison - how is life in the UK vs Italy vs France vs xxx and vs yyy really different? Where have we struck the balance between which freedoms we have recreated vs which we have ignored? Because, for example, I'm not clear that it is real freedom to permit anyone to squeeze onto buses or tubes unmasked, if it means that elderly people are then pushed off those same services because it's too dangerous to use them. That's just as much of a freedom lost as an unvaccinated person being denied entry to a nightclub.

It's a difficult balancing act and, having seen at first hand where other countries have drawn the line, I'm not convinced that we have done it very well.

The only picky point for me in that post is that it is the people that have stalled (well apart from the delay in jabbing kids) not the programme. As for masks, well they made that law, make vaccinations law.

Good point. My time is split between Lisbon and the UK. Portugal isn't mentioned so often in terms of Covid, but the country was having a torrid time earlier this year, yet now it's well ahead of the UK in the important Covid stats: deaths, infections, vaccine penetration.

A major difference in the Portuguese approach is the role of a no-nonsense but avuncular naval officer in re-vamping the vaccine programme, and being involved in other aspects of the civil response to disease control. Taking the logistics out of the hands of here-today secretaries of state, and steering policy away from political manoevering, appear to have been key to success.

On a Euston to Manchester weekend train only a couple of us in my well-packed carriage were masked: on a Porto Lisbon train it was an inverse masking ratio. The same goes for tube vs metro, buses, commuter trains, in shops and, starkly, on the street. Mobiles are routinely flashed to get into Lisbon's pubic spaces and entertainment venues: it is routine. The success of the vaccine programme allowed a raft of control measures to be lifted, but masks are still required accessories on public transport.

I haven't detected much resentment among Lisboetas at any perceived loss of personal freedoms. Most seem to be relieved, and grateful, that weekly death rates are down from the February peak of 200+ per million to the current less than 2 per million - largely, they believe, to the work of Admiral Gouveia e Melo.



Of course the country has experienced something of a Brexit benefit as an army of health workers have returned from the UK. But that's another story …..

Steady on! :D

There are, of course, further restrictions on that sort of entry ….

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/02/u...2T20%3A11%3A04


BJ, distracted by Amanpour from clowning around in front of delegates, continues the Rees Mogg meme of familiarity eliminating the need for Covid precautions….

….but he seems to be out on his own on that one.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...68e6067f6.jpeg

You'd imagine that Boris, having (allegedly?) almost been brought to his deathbed by this virus, would be at least doing the token gesture of showing that he respects Covid protocols... But now, like back in the day when he was about to fall ill and he wanted to still go see the Queen for his weekly meetings, he continues to be the same selfish moron.

It’s a good job he’s technically on UN territory rather than Scottish territory, where he would be breaking the law…

Daily data:

Cases 41,297 (43,941 last Wednesday)
Deaths 217 (207)
Patients admitted 888 (929 on the 23rd)
Patients in hospital 9,517 (8,870 on the 26th)
Patients in ventilation beds 1,024 (950 on the 26th)
People vaccinated up to and including 2 November 2021:
First dose: 50,071,683
Second dose: 45,752,487
Booster: 8,652,842

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 9.7% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is up 13.0%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 163.0 today.