1. Over Christmas, Dr Fauci suggested America would need to vaccinate 70% - 90% of its population in order to achieve herd immunity. Today, chancellor & play pretend scientist, Rishi Sunak, says lockdowns will end in the UK when 15 million vulnerable people have been vaccinated.

2. Rishi Sunak is the man who gave us ‘Eat out to Help Out’. His comments are yet another example of this government not having any idea how to tackle this virus. https://twitter.com/adamhamdy/status/1341110308904054784

3. If the UK vaccinates the vulnerable and opens up, it will create a selection pressure towards mutations that can spread in that vaccinated population & give the virus millions of unvaccinated hosts in which to mutate. This goes against everything we need from these vaccines.

4. We’ve already seen the emergence of a variant of concern that has markedly different characteristics to the original and has led to border controls worldwide. We have no idea whether an escape variant is already circulating or how long it might take before one evolves.

5. We should be minimising transmission until there is effective vaccine coverage to reduce the risk of variants that might affect vaccine protection. Another issue with Sunak’s plan is that we have no evidence to show how long these vaccines remain effective.

6. Allowing transmission in this context is reckless even if the majority of the population concerned is unaffected by the virus. But it is a myth to say healthy people are unaffected. #LongCovid affects at least 10%, and it is important they aren’t marginalised. https://twitter.com/dr2nisreenalwan/status/1343113462801686534

7. Once again, this government seems set on gambling the health of the population and the economy on a risky strategy, but this time it will also gamble vaccine effectiveness. Vaccines the rest of the world are relying on.

8. Countries that have been responsible & followed #ZeroCovid strategies to protect their people, economies & give vaccines the best chance of success must be concerned by what they’re seeing in the UK, US and elsewhere. Some governments have created the conditions for failure.

9. We just have to hope we’re lucky. If not, it’s likely #ZeroCovid will end up being our way out of the mess created by a terrible pandemic response. This is what #ZeroCovid and an excellent pandemic response look like.

10. Of minor concern in the Mail’s Sunak piece is the fact politicians are telling us when a vaccine will be authorised. This gives a sense of the political pressure on the vaccine regulator.

11. @yaneerbaryam has written an excellent thread on where we are and why #ZeroCovid is still the best strategy. The UK government clearly has no intention of using this approach, which is a shame because instead of the certainty of an approach that’s been shown to work... https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/1342566923431763969

12. ...we all have to wait to see the outcome of yet another huge gamble.

Roll the dice, Rishi. And while we’re waiting, make mine a ramen.