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Boris Johnson’s special adviser will leave No 10 by end of year, Whitehall sources confirm

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12.15pm GMT
Philippe Lamberts, the Belgian MEP who has been a member of the European parliament’s Brexit steering group, has said he thinks the departure of Dominic Cummings means Boris Johnson is preparing to accept EU conditions for a trade deal. These are from AFP’s Alex Pigman.
Belgian MEP @ph_lamberts , who is a bit of an authority on Brexit, believes the sudden departure of Cummings is "probably the sign that Johnson has begun his u-turn and will in the end accept EU conditions" for a trade deal. 1/2
But Europeans have a lot of work to do, too: For EU fishermen, "if there is no deal, that will be dramatic. If there is a deal, that's not great either. That has to be understood." 2/2
11.58am GMT
Nobody should get fixated on getting hold of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19, because others are coming along that may be better for some groups than others, said Sir Jeremy Farrar, head of Wellcome and a key member of the Sage group of government scientific advisers.
What is important is to build up public trust and understanding of the vaccines and work out how best to use them, he said in an interview for a series from the Royal Society of Medicine. He said:
What’s important at the moment is that countries don’t get fixed on only going to be delivering this one vaccine, because because they are all still in developments. We will learn other things, I believe in the next month of the AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine, probably the Moderna vaccine, maybe other vaccines that we’ll learn the results of including from China, between now and the end of the year.
I think the important thing is we set up the logistics, and the communication strategy. And we start to build, I hope, the degree of trust in the public in these vaccines, [so] that we don’t become narrow minded, and think it’s all about the Pfizer vaccine, or it’s all about one of the others. There may be advantages in cold chain and logistics. Some vaccines may work better in senior people, others may work better in certain communities. We’ve got to retain the idea of a portfolio here rather than get fixed on anyone. Continue reading...