When plans go wrong, it may well be that some unforeseen change in circumstances negated the (at one point) valid assumptions and logical processes used to create those plans. It may well be that the inevitable post mortem on the coming vaccination fiasco – for such it will be – attributes the virus mutation to the disruption of previously sensible preparations.

However, every item of evidence points to this not being the case in the planning by the hapless Matt Hancock for the COVID vaccination schedule. On 30.12 the government’s own website was still stating that two vaccine doses would be given between 21 and 28 days apart. It was on the basis of the results of rigorous tests of that regimen that the UK regulator (MHRA) approved both the Pfizer and Oxford vaccines. Yet just one day later, Hancock and his co-conspirators slipped out that this accepted regimen was to be abandoned. It was done surreptitiously without announcing the rationale for this up front, and it was left to the press and others to tease out the reasons.

Essentially, after having made statements about the rate of vaccinations and the deliveries of doses, it became clear that the inventory was not there to support that rate, and hence the change to pushing back the second doses to ‘up to’ (a common politician get out phrase) 3 months after the first – and making this retrospective for those already vaccinated. They also changed guidance to include mixing vaccines for the first and second doses.

Chis Witty and his fellow national medical chiefs shredded whatever little professional integrity they had left by issuing a statement which included the words “the great majority of the initial protection from clinical disease is after the the first dose of vaccine”. The wording is subtle as an attempt to prevent this from being an outright lie, but it is unequivocally intended to deceive. It was promptly disputed by the inventor of the Pfizer vaccine, which said they the 21 day gap they specified was because “the data tells us that is the best way to do it”. They went further and refuted Whitty completely and said there was “no evidence that any protection was given 21 days after the first dose”. So Whitty and Hancock know better than the vaccine developers ?

Professor Adam Finn of Bristol University was one of several sundry ‘experts’ recruited in a PR exercise to avoid more flak, and directly contradicted the makers and said that people who got the first jab would have 91% protection, which would rise only marginally to 95% after the second – but Pfizer’s press release makes it clear that that have no data to support that with a 3 month gap. As the US regulator put it, the UK government had abandoned science and were making it up as they went along.

Grumpy’s main complaint about this is that on 30.12 when Hancock was receiving plaudits for the vaccine delivery, stating that the country would “be out of it by Spring”, and would be performing two million inoculations each week from January 4th, he already knew that the inventory was not there to deliver that (as he announced the next day). Worse, the ‘army of volunteers’ to perform the jabs was already evaporating because they did not have certificates for their fire safety and anti-radicalisation courses required by the government – beyond belief.

Hancock’s utterings, and those of the discredited Witty are not simply spin or sophistry – they are lies, plain and simple as he knew when he uttered them. Disgraceful, and no wonder faith in British politics by the populace continues to decline.

Footnote : Part of the government disinformation campaign has officials and politicians stating that the Oxford Vaccine is 70% effective – read the test results as Grumpy has done. This is not the case; it was found to be either 62% or 90% effective, depending on dosing protocols – there is no such thing as 70% for an individual. In fact, since a full dose regimen will be used, that first does will provide just a 3 in 5 chance of warding off COVID, with no data about the effect of the 3 month gap thereafter.

Also, Moderna and Pfizer have stated that “mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are not interchangeable with either each other or with other COVID 19 vaccine products. The safety and efficacy of a mixed product series have not been evaluated. Both doses should be completed with the same product” Yet the UK regulator has issued guidance that mixing vaccine types is permissible, prompting a virus expert at Cornell University to say that the “UK are now just trying to guess themselves out of a mess”