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THE UK APPROVED a Covid-19 vaccine without compromising safety, the country’s medicines regulator said after America’s top infectious disease expert questioned the level of scrutiny.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned the speed at which the UK approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine could undermine confidence in the jab.
Dr Fauci told CBS American regulators would do a “more thorough job”, although he later backed away from the comments, saying he was not implying sloppiness on the part of British authorities, in whom he had “great faith”.
However with the first doses of the vaccine now believed to have arrived in the UK, there was still confusion over who would receive it first, with Scotland planning to deliver the jabs into care homes from 14 December, but NHS England not committing to a date.
The comments came as the coronavirus death toll in the UK passed the 60,000 mark, jumping to 60,113 after a further 414 fatalities were announced on Thursday.
The UK has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer jab, enough to vaccinate 20 million people, with 800,000 doses expected to arrive by next week.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said: “We have rigorously assessed the data in the shortest time possible, without compromising the thoroughness of our review.
Covid-19 vaccines, including this one, are being developed in a co-ordinated way that allows some stages of this process to happen in parallel to condense the time needed, but it does not mean steps and the expected standards of safety, quality and effectiveness have been bypassed.
It added a rolling review of the vaccine data started at the beginning of October, and the agency said it had made good progress on the review before the last submission of data was received.
“Any vaccine must undergo robust clinical trials in line with international standards, with oversight provided by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
“No vaccine would be authorised for supply in the UK unless the expected standards of safety, quality and efficacy are met.”
— Max Foster (@MaxFosterCNN) December 3, 2020
The Times reported MHRA head June Raine will conduct a round of interviews with regional radio stations in an attempt to convince people concerned about the vaccine, believing people are more likely to trust what they hear on local radio.
Dr Fauci told CBS News that Britain “kind of ran around the corner of the marathon and joined it in the last mile” adding: “They really rushed through that approval.”
“The FDA, the United States of America Food and Drug Administration, is the gold standard of regulation,” he said.
“They are doing it in a careful way, appropriately.”
He warned the speed of the approval could damage confidence, telling Sky News:
When we did a survey here in the US, there was a considerable degree of scepticism and reluctance to get vaccinated and we were concerned that if we did anything that looked like it was cutting corners that would feed into the scepticism.
But in a later interview with BBC News, Dr Fauci said he did not mean to “imply any sloppiness”, adding: “I do have great faith in both the scientific community and the regulatory community at the UK.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) offered a toned down response to the MHRA decision, simply stating the approval had been “acknowledged”.
Dr Siddhartha Sankar Datta, WHO regional adviser for vaccine-preventable diseases and immunisation in Europe, said: “The national regulatory authority of a country will review the different elements of a system before they make the vaccine licensed for use – (based on) the safety, efficacy and quality of the vaccine.
“That is what the UK’s national regulatory authority has done yesterday with their evaluation. We have learned about it and we acknowledge it.”
The European regulator has criticised the approval of the vaccine using emergency powers, insisting that its own, slower approach is more appropriate.
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Don’t Understand Party can only say NO.
@WoodlandBard:
perhaps you are in part the reason why the DUP says NO ?
@WoodlandBard: Does this mean bye-bye to the £2Bn???
If they don’t hold up confidence and supply for the Tories, do the Tories have to pay them?
@Moorooka Mick: so are you an apologist for a party leaving aside their unionist politics that wouldn’t get elected in any of the other parts of the UK? They have views that went out of common acceptable in the 1800s
@WoodlandBard: DUP are not are not in step with the Business, Farmers and even the majority in NI. They are been left behind like belonging to another century
@Moorooka Mick: The D.U.P. have slowly cone to realise… You can’t trust a British government.
the dup voted against brexit deal before they could have had time to read it;they’re definitely a no no no party
@☘: they are notorious for saying no. They want to remain in the stone ages
@☘: how can they call themselves a political party, they’re not even voting on whatever the legislation was in front of them, but on ‘sending messages’.
Sammy is some craic. A total basket case.
@Etherman: he looks like he’s been hitting the bottle hard.
@Joe Bloggs: The Devil’s buttermilk! Never
@Joe Bloggs: or even better would be if a bottle hit the little orange shite hard
ULSTER SAYS NO… again and again and…
@stephen: Have the D UP ever said yes to anything other than would you like more cash
That’s what happens to Theresa May when she sold her soul to the devil to get into bed with them animals. They have have neither the people or business community of Northern Ireland in their hearts. All they have is their small minded ideas and interests, which only represents an extremely small portion of the north. A party like that should never have been near such important decision making in Westminster, they can now effectively hold this entire process to random.
@Graham McGuinness: I don’t disagree with your points in general, but recent polls suggest they are representing about 36% of the population of NI, which is not “extremely small”.
@Danny Rafferty: True and they have nothing to fear from an election, they will always be elected. It’s an interesting situation. (!)
@Caroline Otoole: as will SF who could make a difference if they attended Westminster instead of just saying ‘ah sure we are making a point’
@GClare: No they couldn’t, they don’t have the numbers.
@Graham McGuinness: Britain would sell its granny no loyalty as the DUP found out. Still I think it’s Karma Ireland should never have been divided.
This isnt related to this article but just wondering why the journal.ie didnt post even one article on International Mens Day which was yesterday. Contrast that to International Womens day last year which had eight articles on that day……
@Lee Mac Eoghain: The overt and politically-acceptable bias against men is only getting started. What a sad country to be born a boy.
@Dr Richard DeWitt: LOL
@Dr Richard DeWitt: Agree completely Richard,
76% of Suicides are Men
85% of homeless are Men
70% of Homicide Victims are Men
Men on average serve 64% longer in prison
Men on average are 3.4X more likely to be imprisoned than women when both commited the same crime.
Not one article on the journal yesterday highlighting those issues…
@Lee Mac Eoghain: I would agree, particularly suicide. A friend found a young man hanging in the park, we learnt later that his mother had been desperately seeking help for months, had hidden all knives and implements, got him to a hospital where he was just sent home with pills, he hung himself with the dogs leads.
Terrible, and he is not the only one unfortunately.
@Niamh Breslin: yes misandry and men’s own values need to be addressed in our society.
@Mjhint: Not into divisiveness or group identity stuff, mental health shortfalls affect everyone but sometimes the focus should be on one group to try and improve services in the day that it was (Men’s day)
Unfortunately men are more successful at suicide because of the methods they use, so focusing on the subject might help to make changes to the services that are supposed to deal with it especially in a crisis situation.
You don’t want to be different constitutionally to the rest of the U.K. but you don’t want to allow same sex marriage or reproductive rights legislation? How does that work then? A la carte Brits
@Martina Jones: Indeed. The DUP want to cherry-pick what the cherry-pickers pick.
The British don’t want them and who’d blame them? We don’t need anymore religious fundamentalists down here either. We don’t need anymore bigots either. A real case of nobody’s child methinks.
Is there anything to be said for saying another mass ?
@Damian Kelly: I love a good mass
@Damian Kelly: Not sure about the mass, but a general election? yes please!
@Damian Kelly: Another Service?
@Damian Kelly: Did you see Gene Hackman in the Posidon Adventure?
@Matt Connolly: I don’t think an Election here will affect the DUP.
Sure send the DUP and the Brexiteers (terrible band name) in to negotiate brexit so.
Considering all the leaders of the main business groups and farmers associations in the North welcomed this deal speaks volumes in itself about the DUP. I have a feeling their own electorate are going to punish them at the polls the next time out for their stupidity.
@Cal Mooney: You know they’ll campaign that a vote for the UUP = a SF First Minister. Disgusting sectarian party of bigots.
@Cal Mooney: NEVER NEVER NEVER
@European Bob:
You are absolutely right about how the DUP would phrase any election campaign but remember, SF do the very same
If it’s a no deal we will see a United Ireland courtesy of the DUP.
Dinosaurs
Theresa should demand her billion back, that’ll show em..
@ianglen: I’m sure they waited until all their blood related businesses and “community defense organisations” got their alloted funds.
@Edmund Murphy: May could always turn up the (renewable) heat under some of the active terrorist organisations that associate with the DUP… and let’s not pretend that the PSNI doesn’t take orders from Westminster when it’s politically expedient….
@ianglen: I actually don’t think most of it has been handed over yet
The DUP have been DUPed.
May is so close to an agreement with the EU she can smell it.
Labour for all their ranting will not force an election until after March 29th.
When it’s put to the house I think May will have enough cross party support
to get her deal through and the DUP will have no deciding influence.
@Padraig McGowan: agreed Padraig.
The numbers of mps sending in 1922 committee letters has dried up.
@Padraig McGowan: the DUPs position is not that strong and they know it.if the votes were there to remove May as pm it woukd have haopened when the deal was agred. The other alternative is a general election which could see a Labour government which will reduce DUP influence to zero. They’re stuck and they know it. They’re just reduced to pot banging now. Noisy but ineffective. The best they’re going to get is money thrown at them.
With everything that’s going on, I’m sure Theresa and co. are just beside themselves with worry about this.
@Cathal O’Donoghue: Theresa and co need the DUP votes to keep in government. This can and probably will get messy.
The irony is that the DUP’s stance of championing Brexit’ both pre and post referendum , irrespective of the majority and business leaders positions in NI,has undermined the future of the Union !
They still don’t get it do they? They call themselves British but to the rest of the world and most importantly to mainland Britain they’re just a bunch of mad Paddies. England doesn’t give a Queens fart about them
@Roy O’Rourke: yeah, you only have to look at the recent polls in England, long story short the average englishman/woman would quite happily sell-out NI. Arlene & Co. need to realise that people are going to resent the future of nearly 60m British being held to ransom by some 16th century NI bigots.
@Roy O’Rourke: of course we dont but then neither does rip off ireland
The days of the DUP are numbered
Does this mean they have to give the money back?
Down with this sort of thing………..
They are living in the past and just never want to towards the future
Pity they wouldn’t flex their muscles and f**k off the planet altogether
Now there’s a surprise….Not.
Bigots, everyone of them
The problem is, the UUP are also Brexiteers and havent come out in favour of the deal, so If Remain Unionists wont vote DUP at next election, who will they vote for?
@Kieran Mccarthy:
They will vote DUP, to vote anyone else risks a SF first minister.
In the last stormount election voters rightly punished the DUP over that financial scandal but they came within spitting distance of having a SF first minister.
The DUP share of the vote was up in the subsequent Westminster election.
Catholics in the South have had almost 100 years to secularise the State and reach out to Protestants in the North with the objective of unification. For example , how many out there have made any attempt to socialise with a Protestant family in the North?
A good way to interact with NI families is to list one’s home on “homes for exchange”. during holiday periods. We have used homes for exchange and it was amazing the relationship that living in another person’s home and socialising with their family and friends can do albeit only for a few weeks.
When I was a child and adolesent there was no opportunity to interact with Protestants;
essentially it was a parochial apartheid arrangement….us and them.
My first experience of having contact with a Protestant family was a year after I emigrated to Canada.
A fellow worker invited me home for dinner and I had an inkling that he was a Protestant.
He and his family had migrated from Armagh a few years earlier. I arrived with a bottle of wine which was not a great introductory offering because the household was teetotaller
and at the time I was a pioneer myself. We had a laugh about it later.
I immediately got on with the son and daughter and we became very good friends,
hung out together at clubs and I took to soccer which, according to the GAA then, was a banned sport.
Last year at my primary school 150 year commemoration a priest (SJ) asked me if I could choose one thing in my upbringing which I could change what would that be and without hesitation I said that I would have liked to have been brought up as a Protestant.
@Moorooka Mick: I was born into a mixed Catholic/Protestant family. In the Republic apart from where they go to church on Sunday or which school they attend there is really no difference between Catholic and Protestants.
In the North however, your idea might work with middleclass Protestants who are Unionist with a small u but try it with one of the Shankill headbanger families and they would probably accuse you of trying to induce them into Popery.
@Moorooka Mick: I was living in Belfast years ago and a girl studying with us was having a party, she told me I couldn’t come because her Da wouldn’t let Catholics in the house, I explained I was not a Catholic and she said it didn’t matter. Treating people different because of silly superstitions is not now or was it ever OK.
Sammy looks like he’s been on holidays….. in Sri Lanka with Ian Jr
Perpetual Irish hater breathing with fire
@Kevin Stanley: Self hate
Reckon if there was an all Ireland vote on unity it would be reflected. I for one would vote no. Who would want to have anything to do with these horrible bigots..
@Sean Dermody: Funniest thing is that your Avatar picture is of someone who said they vote SF and want a United Ireland. Think and engage a brain before you post next time.
@Cal Mooney: People can be fans of actors and not fans of the actors politics. So maybe you might “engage your brain” next time too.
@Sean Dermody: so you would continue to leave Northern catholics/Nationalists/Republicans standing alone and trying to cope with them. Would you really refuse to stretch out a helping hand?
The DUP have been offered a better than the republic, they would get direct access to the EU and UK markets but still won’t accept it. Sadly there is no nope, they wish remain in the 18th century and want everyone else in NI to do the same.
DUP could trigger an election, allowing republican sympathiser Corbyn to be elected; sounds mad but they supported Brexit with out seemingly considering the consequences.
My congratulations to the new labour PM!
Bitter racist homophobic bigots. At least the world can see them for what the are now
A hatd border could be a blessing!
The DUP like them or loath them have to be respected for standing by their principles.
@Mark Jones: and what exactly are their principles? Defrauding their own state “cash for ash” accepting improper political bribes Ian Paisley Jnr or rabble rousing during the marching season????
@John Hetherton: Don’t he’s a troll – only tryingh to get a rise out of somebody
DUP cutting off their nose to spite their face. Peurile tactics that will come back to bite their ass.
Check out @ClaireByrneLive’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/ClaireByrneLive/status/1064663862337658880?s=09
NO SURPRISE THERE
Jacob Rees mogg somehow related to Stephen fry.
Rees Mogg for PM!
The business leaders and farmers leaders in the north want to support the deal but the DUP still say no. The Scots are demanding a similar deal as they realise the potential benefits but the DUP still say no. They are now between a rock and a hard place. If they don’t support May there could be an election which Labour could win putting the DUP back into irrelevance in British politics. Maybe that’s where they want to be!!
The DUP will say NO to the Brexiteers,give them time,because they have said NO to everyone and everything else up to now.’Ulster’ says YES (to Europe) but the DUP says NO !!!! I wonder what they call the militant wing of the DUP- the ‘No-Alls’ ??? !!!
DUP finding out you can’t trust the Brits. They have no interest in Northern Ireland and would give it away tomorrow.poor Sammy such a shock.
have your say