The Long Shot: The Inside Story of the Race to Vaccinate Britain

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Johnson is benignly hands-off til he has to become positively hands-on in reigning in spinning misinformation about the VTF coming out of Number 10.

Kate Bingham’s new book, The Long Shot , is a gripping account of the UK Government Vaccine Task Force’s response to the pandemic by a remarkable, determined, thoughtful, and practical individual who was at the heart of the critical decisions that had to be made. An excellent read… Capturing the exceptional pace and energy of everyone involved in discovering and producing effective therapies against Covid-19. From a small cottage, Bingham juggled vaccine suppliers, Whitehall, the media circus – and her daughter’s exams. nearly complete absence in the civil service of scientific, industrial, commercial and manufacturing skills'. The author warns that information spinners are a vast workforce in Whitehall; they are numerous and expensive and an absolute drag on efficiency and exist to spread misinformation if that suits the political purposes of the departments in which they reside.

A blueprint of how industry, academia and government can work together to address a question of global importance, with lessons for other future crises. No and the book argues that Britain will probably be less prepared than it was for the covid pandemic.

She is Managing Partner at life sciences venture capital firm SV Health Investors where she co-leads SV’s biotech franchise which has a long history of developing transformational new medicines. One of the most notable is where she highlights the lack of relevant skills in the Civil Service and highlights the '.For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. I sympathise greatly with her thoughts on the internal politics within HMG: private sector and public sector are like oil and water - they don't mix well. The Long Shot is published as readers appear to have tired of Covid-19 and the miraculous vaccines have become more of a seasonal chore. This is a brilliant account of the UK's world-beating COVID-19 vaccine project and makes excellent reading for anyone wanting to understand both the story of the UK COVID-19 vaccine programme and also how a successful large-scale project is delivered. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed.

The book warns this kind of success is not likely to be repeated without mass production facilities in Britain. The book does start rather slowly with Bingham using the first four chapters to set the scene and explaining how the task force was put together and its members selected. Finally, Bingham finishes off the book with reflections on working with government and the issues that hold Government back from delivering on service and projects. I spoke with her frequently through 2020 as we battled logistical headwinds and the media storms in development of the Oxford vaccine and was always better for our chats, absorbing the positive energy that she emanates and benefiting from her wisdom. Catapulted into a national crisis, Bingham's eclectic team secured the first vaccine doses administered in the West and saved thousands of lives in the UK as new variants struck.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Matt Hancock eventually recognises that the Department of Health was not up to the job of hosting the Vaccine Task Force; Michael Gove appears (surprisingly) as a more results-orientated minister than a spin-orientated minister. An incisive behind-the-scenes look at the challenges Bingham faced in her role… The authors combine a lucid explanation of the scientific breakthroughs needed to create the first Covid vaccine with an insider look at the politics that hampered the taskforce’s efforts. We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. But I have to disagree with the title, because the book shows that it really wasn’t such a "long shot" with Kate at the helm.

Interesting insider insights contained in the book are: Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock and Michael Gove do not come off badly in this book. Of course, having a working vaccine is only part of the story, it also has to be manufactured and administered which presented their own challenges as described by Bingham.

From a cottage miles away from Westminster, Bingham juggled vaccine suppliers, Whitehall, the media circus - and her daughter's exams. This is the insider view into how the Vaccine Taskforce beat those long odds and delivered a scientific miracle.