Briefing By Boris Johnson 20/4/21
This was a strange briefing. Normally Boris comes to deliver good news or put a gloss on bad [ at the start of the 1st lockdown was the only 1 I recall as it happens] .
This time , we had a briefing saying people should get vaccinated , and nothing else ; primarily by his GP sidekick . The nothing else bit was emphasised by Boris forgetting about the mandatory graphs and needed to be reminded at the time . In short, a bit of a mess saying nothing . Remembering that briefings were only going to be public for important things , which this categorically did NOT qualify . Finally the length was much shorter than others .
It is barely possible that HMG was trying to get UK vaccination rate above the 85+% ? it's already achieving and someone managed to persuade Boris to forget his normal reticence of staying in the foreground and delivering what to him would be something below his attention span , but does seem very unlikely.
If one looks at the news around at the time, UK had just given a red light to travel in India, the virus ex India had been overwhelming that country and was mentioned in the media as being a cause for concern as it had 2 major mutations . A briefing after that lot , seems to indicate that it was going to be flagged as a serious [potential] problem, and that someone downplayed it [ presumably till more data was forthcoming rather than an out an out cover up ?] .
Lets hope the above is wrong or the decision to wait was correct
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