I am interested in this lie, and the more subtle truths around it.

It appears the government wants to claim a big victory by being first to authorise a Covid vaccine, and that they want to link this putative achievement to the even more dodgy claims of Brexit sunny uplands. https://twitter.com/bbcrosatkins/status/1334226019973287937

I think it’s well-established by the diligent fact-checkers that the vaccine approval has been accomplished within EU regulations and using an existing EU process that is still in force here until 1 January, so in that sense has nothing to do with Brexit.

The particular claim for a Brexit dividend is clearly bullshit.

That said, it is true that UK has cleared the vaccine for use first, and no other EU country has approved the vaccine under these same conditions, which they could equally have done, under the same regs.

Maybe then it’s fair to say that a Brexit-y mindset in government made it more likely that UK would take this permitted path to faster approval.

And from a political point of view it’s understandable that those with a Brexit-y mindset would want to promote this as evidence of UK’s lionheartedness, compared with the sheeplike Europeans clinging together to a slower process.

If we approve a good, effective vaccine, with minimal side effects, more quickly than other countries, and are able to get it to more people more quickly we may be able to save many more lives and restore society to ‘normality’ faster than anywhere else.

That would be a good claim to be able to make because - goodness knows! - govt has been devastatingly slow and late and frequently wrong in almost every piece of decision-making during the pandemic, with a consequent appalling loss of life and devastating impact on the economy.

But the speed at which we approve the vaccine for use is only a tiny part of this process, and for UK to get the early vaccine dividend all the other elements have to fall into place.

One important ‘other element’ is that the approved vaccine does actually have to be safe, and effective.

With that in mind, I’m significantly more reassured by Andy Burnham’s non-partisan endorsement of the quality of the MHRA’s work, informed by his time as health secretary, rather than the irrelevant Brexit cheerleading from Rees-Mogg, Hancock and others,

You’d want your vaccine to a) prevent the disease and b) not have any nasty side effects, at any time, and for any population receiving it, but arguably even more so on this occasion, because the first people to be vaccinated will be healthcare, and then social care workers.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Get this right and it brilliantly bolsters our health and care response to the virus. Get this wrong and we could be taking a scythe to our health and care workforces when we need them most!

For this thread, I’m going to assume the MHRA processes have got this right, and we have a safe and effective vaccine available. Logistics is the next big issue.

The conditions in which this vaccine needs to be kept are not available outside hospitals and similar facilities.

(I’ll tweet some more about logistics later).

Back to thinking about logistics.

For this particular vaccine, that UK govt have speedily endorsed for use, specialist facilities are needed for storage because of the super-low temperatures this particular vaccine needs to be stored at.

This probably means either:

a) we have to create a network of brand new, super-low temperature storage facilities
b) the population will have to be organised to all pass through the limited number of existing facilities to be vaccinated
c) this vaccine isn’t for most of us

Different people will have different views about which of these is more likely, but ... it’s gonna be c, isn’t it?

I mean, yes, we did ‘build’ all of those (empty, impossible to service) Nightingale hospitals. But a cold storage facility, much colder than standard cold stores for food, with a clinical base attached, in every population centre? Not likely is it?

Re b) the logistics just of getting the community-based health and care workforce through the vaccination process in the hospitals where these cold storage facilities are already available is a challenge in its own right (the more so when obeying Covid-safe restrictions).

Also, there are other, easier-to-store vaccines just a little bit further down the track, which are much more likely to be amenable to a mass vaccination programme in the community (also a considerable logistical challenge by the way!), so mass vaccination will wait till then.

Which means this announcement was pure “fanfare” (with a cynical added toot to please Brexiteers), but actually not a substantive announcement at all.

Remember how many times we’ve been told optimistic stories during this pandemic? (Testing numbers, Nightingale Hospitals, herd immunity, ‘over by Christmas’). None of these has been true.

What’s the probability that the people who have been lying about things since the start of the pandemic are suddenly telling the truth now?

There is a positive story to tell.

There are good signs that safe, effective vaccines suitable for a mass vaccination programme are on their way, faster than we’ve ever been able to achieve before. Scientists based in the UK have played an important part in that, as part of a global community working together.

A global problem, requires a global, collaborative solution, and there’s no reason why we can’t be pleased and proud to have a role in that.

We don’t need to beat the world. We are part of the world.

I’d love it if our politicians told that - true - story more often.