it will be a mild start on monday. a day of some sunny spells. showers will affect all parts as they push eastwards during the day that they will be some spots in the east with a couple of showers. the rest of the day will be dry with sunny spells. it will be windy tomorrow with gas around 60 mph. with gusts around 60 mph. these are average speeds, blustery particularly as the showers move on through. it is a mild start to the week and it is looking fairly mild throughout the week but with further rain at times. it is exactly half past five. hello, this is bbc news with tim willcox. the headlines: another deadline extended. brexit talks will now continue after both sides agreed to carry on after being

unable to come to an agreement. i'm afraid we're still very far apart on some key things, but we will keep talking to see what we can do. the uk certainly won't be walking away from the talks, you can expect us to go the extra mile. we have accordingly mandated our negotiators to continue the task, and to see whether an agreement can be reached, even at this late stage. following the decision, the prime minister held a conference call to brief the cabinet on their options in the event of a no deal outcome. a warning to the prime minister relax and coronavirus restrictions this christmas could lead to a third wave of infections. germany's angela merkel announces tighter coronavirus restrictions — to run through christmas until january the 10th now on bbc news... in global questions we join

zeinab badawi, her panel of experts and question askers from around the world to discuss the race for a vaccine for covid—19. hello, and welcome to the royal college of physicians in london. we've come here for this edition of global questions to talk about covid—19 and vaccines. well, the united kingdom is the first western country to roll out a mass nationwide vaccination programme, and we're all hoping this will mark the end of the coronavirus nightmare. but questions linger about the durability of the vaccines, and with millions refusing to take the jab, how safe will all the rest of us be? that's global questions. the covid jab: is it really the silver bullet?

well, here in the royal college of physicians, we have an audience drawn from london's multinational community, and they will be putting their questions to our two panellists. so, let me tell you who's in the hot seat this week giving the answers. professor david salisbury is an eminent doctor who has served as the uk's director of immunisation, responsible for the national programme that led to the introduction of many new vaccines. he works extensively with the world health organization on vaccines. and suerie moonjoins us from geneva, where she's the co—director of the global health centre for the graduate institute. her particular areas of expertise are in health governance issues, infectious diseases and a focus on ensuring that all countries get fair access to global vaccine supplies. welcome to you both and also to our audience. remember, you too can join the conversation.

it's #bbcglobalquestions. give yourselves and our two panellists a big round of applause. it's so nice to have an enthusiastic audience with me here. ok, let's get right down to ourfirst question, and it is from azad ayube. azad, your question, please? thank you, zainab. what was the hurry, and was there a race between countries? right, professor david salisbury? why the hurry? was there a hurry? yes, there absolutely was a hurry. the hurry was because people were dying in countries all over the world and we had to get a vaccine as quickly as possible. suerie? indeed, it was a race against the virus, but i think we also have to recognise that countries were racing for scientific prestige. they were racing to be economically more competitive with each other, and they were racing to strengthen

their geopolitical relationships with each other, because of course a vaccine in this pandemic is a strategic asset. was it healthy or unhealthy competition? some healthy, but i think we could have used a lot more collaboration, actually, among scientists and companies. and that would have actually moved us much faster towards the finish line than what we have. azad? was there a race between the nations, or different countries? david, you answer that. was there a race between nations? was there competition nationally, between nations? i think the race was between science groups to get ahead as quick as they can. i think the race was a good race, because everybody was going to benefit from it, and i think that we have seen science doing its absolute best with great collaboration around the world amongst science groups, amongst companies, i think we should really applaud what has happened to get us to where we are now. all right, terrific. applause. you're carrying the

audience with you there. very good, excellent. let's go to our second question. iva na minnelli from italy. your question? thank you, zainab. my question is, if a vaccine is safe and it works, why do we need multiple vaccines from different companies? suerie, it's reckoned by next year that there will be something like 20 vaccines available, johnson & johnson working on one, and all sorts of people. why so many? i think it's actually a great thing that we have so many vaccines in development, and often times the first generation of product is not as good as the ones that follow. we're also already seeing just with the three frontrunners that there's a big difference in safety and efficacy, well, at least on efficacy. and we see a huge difference in price, for example, one vaccine, the astrazeneca vaccine, is about 10% of the price of the moderna vaccine. it'll also be a lot easier to deliver in countries that don't have as many resources as, for example, europe and north america. unfortunately, the efficacy

data is not as good, but what we hope is that with more and more vaccines coming out of the pipeline in the next year, we are going to have vaccines that are affordable, available, that are safe and effective, and that can also, you know, that are also shown to prevent transmission. there's still a long way to go, the race is not over yet. david, the more vaccines there are, the lower the price. is that the kind of thinking? not necessarily. i think the answer to the question is, actually, that no single company or even two companies or three companies could provide the needs for the world. we're going to have to have as many companies as can produce safe, effective and affordable vaccines, and that's our best chance. ivana, does that answer your question? it does to a certain extent. on my way here, the taxi driver told me, who gets which vaccine? how do we decide if i get a vaccine from company a or company b?

all right, so, are we going to be spoiled for choice, then, david? is there going to be a lot of working out of which vaccine is best for who and in which country? i think there are going to be difficult decisions that have to be made, but they will be made, you know, really in line with the amount of vaccine that we can have in each country, the quality of the vaccine that we can get, the contracts that are in place, either done by our countries on behalf of our countries. i don't think we can pick and mix here. i think it's going to be a matter of getting what we can get, adapting it to the best circumstances so that we have got the best vaccine in use for high—risk people, we may not need, necessarily, the same vaccine for people at lower risk, and we've got to adapt to the circumstances. if you're in a country that's cold, that is quite different, it's different than if you're in a country that's hot. so, we will wait and see and hopefully the best choices will be made on our behalf. all right, let's go to our next question.

this is from ang lee from wuhan, china, where of course covid—i9 was first detected. your question, please, ang lee? hi, my question is the following. will people constantly be vaccinated, since the immunity from the coronavirus will diminish eventually? thank you. professor salisbury, this is a question troubling an awful lot of people, what's called the durability of the vaccine. so, you may get your vaccination but then we don't really know how long you're going to be protected for, do we, really? no, it's a great question. we simply don't know how long these vaccines are going to last, and we don't know whether the lesson we learn from one vaccine will necessarily be the same lesson that we learn from a different vaccine, because there are quite different sorts of vaccines in development. they range all the way across the board, from these rna vaccines that are totally new, to long—establishd techniques, we just don't know. we have to follow really carefully

the people who have been in these trials to see if they stay protected or if they can catch coronavirus later. remember that, for the ordinary coronaviruses, the ones that cause the common cold, we don't get very good immunity to them. so, let's watch, we must study, we must learn, then we will know what to do next. suerie moon? i fully agree with what david was saying. i think on top of that, this is one of the reasons why we need that next generation of vaccines to continue to be developed. so, in addition to continuing the trials of the vaccines that are already being deployed, we do need to bring newer and better vaccines, and one of the characteristics that is very important is, how many doses do you need? because you can imagine, if people need to get immunised every year, it's going to make a big difference whether we can just give one dose or whether somebody has to go back twice, for example. what we see with other vaccination campaigns is that

if you need to give somebody two or even three doses, the numbers of people who really show up to do that, they really drop each time. thank you very much indeed. all right, we're going to have two questions, one after the other, because they're kind of related. so, gloria akenyemi, what do you want to ask? during the pandemic, it's been widely recognised that people from a bame background are more vulnerable to dying from covid—19. however, they have not been considered in a higher category to get the vaccination. why has the focus been on age and not on the vulnerability of individuals? thank you very much indeed. and you refer there to the bame community, which is what in the united kingdom we call the black and minority ethnic groups, bame for short. 0k, thank you. dominic kemps, you have also got a kind of related question to that? i do, thank you, zainab. we've seen the first vaccinations this week in uk hospitals of those over 80 and healthcare professionals.

but wouldn't it be advisable to also prioritise young people, 18—24, who are the primary spreaders of the virus at this time, in hot spots, even if they might be less susceptible to complications from the virus? professor salisbury, i'll start with you. they're both kind of uk—related questions. broadly, they're both asking, how do you choose which categories you start vaccinating first? these are two great questions, they really are good questions. and in terms of the identification of priority groups, it really is an issue that some people in some communities are at more risk than others of both dying or getting very serious illness. however, i think what we have to do is come up with a hierarchy that we can implement. we know that age is a risk. we know that having other illnesses is a risk, and clearly there are some communities that are at higher risk. but when it comes to implementing the vaccine, we need to be able to identify

the people who are in those risk groups, and for us in the uk, that means identifying them through their primary care provider. now, to come to the second question, and that is again a really good question, why don't we vaccinate young people to stop them transmitting? i think the answer is that we know who is more likely to die and if we can protect them first, then we can come onto interrupting transmission. i think there are two strategies that we need to implement, and the first is protect the vulnerable, and the second is to stop transmission between people. and that means vaccinating the healthy younger people, and i'm just not sure that we're going to get as high uptake amongst those groups of people that we will get among the higher risk people who know they are at risk. all right, suerie, how do you answer those two questions?

who do you protect first, amongst the vulnerable, or should you target the super spreaders first, the young people? yeah, it is a great question. and i think one thing we have to understand is, of course, what are the characteristics of the vaccines that are currently at the front of the pack? what we know from the way that those trials were designed is that we actually understand very, very little. we have very little evidence, if any, as to whether they block transmission. so, until we do have that data, i think it doesn't make sense, indeed, to vaccinate those who are most socially active, such as younger people. but if i may, i would like to come back to gloria's question, we know that in the us, for example, we have similar trends, black and minority communities who have disproportionately borne the burden of this pandemic. the government has actually said we should take into account, not race, but many of the things correlated with race, occupation, income, living conditions.

there are other ways to try to identify those who are indeed at greatest risk of getting severely ill, and that we should in fact try to immunise them first. one very, very last thing i would like to add is that i think this is an extremely important thing for people to track and monitor. we have to be able to look back and say, were we successful as a society in actually immunising those who truly were at greatest risk, including minority communities? 0r undocumented immigrants, for example? or, at the end of the day, did these vaccines first go to the elites? and this is going to be a key question for all of us to hold our own governments accountable. right, well, two very thorough answers there. gloria and dominic, both of you stand up. i want you to tell me what did you make of what our two panellists said ? gloria, satisfied? yeah, i am satisfied. i especially liked suerie's response, especially about the fact that america seems

to be looking at the different categories regarding race about occupation, job, and how that all counts towards vulnerability and, yeah, i appreciate the fact of both responses. all right, thank you. dominic. i think it goes a long way to satisfy mine. i think as we're now at the point of having vaccines and we're talking about delivery, it's a question of ethics in terms of — and maybe it's a different group of people we need to engage and the decision around who gets vaccinated, but also responsibilities in the population, that we don't become apathetic just because a vaccine's here. all right. let's go to my next question, which is from georgia chisnall. georgia. thank you. a lot of people are very unlikely or uncertain about getting the vaccine. in the uk, for example, it's about a third. why do you think, despite having months during exceeding development, that public concern remains widely unaddressed and what you think should be done now to reassure the public that the vaccine is, indeed, safe? in short, where did they go wrong

and what can they do to fix it? let's go to you, suerie, there are the anti—vaxxers who no matter what you sayjust don't want to take it, but then there are those who are a little worried and concerned and want to be reassured about the safety so how do you tackle that? i think it's totally understandable that people would be concerned because, of course, these vaccines have been developed in record time, which is something that we should, indeed, justifiably be proud of in terms of the scientific and health community. but i think it's reasonable that this would raise questions, and there's a huge variation among countries in how many people are hesitant. we have, i think, up to 50%just across the border in france. and, according to different polls, you know, it reallyjust varies a lot by country. i think one thing we know from the research is that it

does help and it does matter what are the traits of the specific vaccine? what do we know about the safety and efficacy? and what we know from the leading candidates is that this looks pretty good. so, i think that will help convince more people to come forward. but what we also understand about vaccine hesitancy is it's notjust a question of information. it's notjust a question of providing the public with data. you have to be able to communicate and have sophisticated communication strategies so that people hear the message from those that they trust. and for everybody that might not be the government, it might not even be a medical doctor. it might be their teacher, a religious leader, a community leader. i think what's really important is that we have trusted authorities communicating the message to persuade people to come forward and get vaccinated. thank you. david? that was a good question. however, i don't quite agree that it's been got wrong. i think that people have been trying to deal with it, but with at least one if not two hands behind their backs, tied there.

and the issue is nobody was going to tell you that these vaccines were safe and nobody was going to tell you that these vaccines were effective until we had the answers that they were both safe and effective. and those both come at the end of the trials. you can't tell while the trials are going on who's had the vaccine and who hasn't. so, until the trial is finished we can't tell you that the vaccine is both safe and effective. all right, georgia, so what are you going to say to david? he says public concerns — he doesn't agree with you that they remain widely unaddressed. i want to politely disagree, just because on a couple of occasions... so, in terms of having to wait until there's the data there, vaccine acceptance and vaccine hesitancy is more than going at the end of the thing it's safe, it's about ongoing public trust, ongoing public medication, ongoing education about what vaccination actually

is and what it means, not just simply at the end of the line this is safe. because, ultimately, while logistics and the biology is important, if people don't choose to take the vaccine then it's simply not going to be — it just can't work. ok, thanks. our next question is from edric ramirez—valdez, a mexican—american. thank you. your question. thank you. my question's actually along a similar thread, but related to efficacy and logistics. so, given the vaccine needs to be stored at very cold temperatures, what measures are being taken to ensure quality control when mass batches are being supplied from production plants to rural vaccination centres in middle america, for example? professor david salisbury? while a vaccine is in its box, we know what is happening to it. we know that it will go into —70 degrees freezers at the point of distribution of the box. what is really difficult is how you then split the box, which has got 5,000 doses

in it, into smaller quantities that can go out to communities and i think everybody is seeing that as really difficult. the easier answer is bring people to where the vaccine is, but that requires them to be mobile and it disadvantages those who do not have transport or who are frail and can't get to where the vaccine is. it's a huge challenge for low income countries. in fact, we've got a question that relates to that from hannah thomas from singapore. hannah. thank you, zeinab. in terms of first world countries having an advantage in securing many more doses of the vaccine in comparison to third world countries, how do we ensure that there are no vaccine shortages in such developing countries? suerie, so we've heard an alliance of charities coming out saying countries in north america like canada and in europe are buying up millions and millions of doses, far more than their populations actually number. and nothing much left for the lower income countries. how do ensure they get fair access? this is a big topic

foryou, i know, suerie. indeed, and i think it's not a hypothetical. it's a reality that high income countries have secured, in some cases, enough vaccines to cover once, twice, three times, four times over the entire population. meanwhile, we have, the rest of the world, that is going to have to struggle with a lot, lot less. i think one thing to point out that perhaps has not been widely appreciated is that you do have lots of what we would call middle income countries who are able to produce vaccines and who have secured access to vaccines on their own, such as brazil or indonesia or mexico, for example, india and china. but we also have many, many countries who are really relying on a global solution, on a multilateral solution, and there is one called covax that has been developed very quickly.

i think the ambitions of covax are really important and really admirable. they're trying to reach the most vulnerable 20% of people in every single country in the world and that's how you prevent death, that's how you prevent hospital systems from getting overwhelmed. but, unfortunately, right now unless wealthy countries are willing to share some of the vaccines that they have already secured, covax is really going to struggle to meet that objective. all right. david, you have something to add to this, just briefly? i think that countries that have ordered five times the quantity they need on the population bases are not going to draw down all that vaccine. so, hopefully, they will be able to cut back on the contract that they've made so they don't take vaccine that could so well be used elsewhere. i think the worry i have about covax is that, wonderful as it is to help countries protect their most vulnerable and their health services, the quantities

are not going to be enough to stop transmission amongst people, because you need more than 20% coverage to do that. and so, we've got to find ways of getting more vaccine to places where there are many, many vulnerable people to help them. thank you. hannah? yes. well, i kind of politely disagree. because i feel that people from different social economic backgrounds sometimes may have less of an advantage over people that come from higher income families. so, it doesn't exactly answer the question on what we can do to help the vulnerable and those living in poverty. thank you. all right, let's go to ourfinal question. and it's from halima paracha. and you're from pakistan, originally. thank you. thank you, zeinab. my question is how long until we actually start living our normal lives now the vaccine is out? do we have a timeline? sighs. that's what we all want to know, halima! professor salisbury,

when can we go back to normal? well, my family keep telling me why am i being so gloomy? however, i think for a while we're going to be in vaccine, plus i think we've got to see the roll—out of vaccines before we can make any changes to our lives and i think we will continue having to socially distance, wear masks, work from home where we can, and only when we can see that we are impacting on saving lives, saving our health services, and only when we can really be sure that we are impacting with our vaccine programmes can we carefully, gradually move back. i don't know when it will be, i simply hope it will be soon. yeah, well, soon but you don't know when it will be. all right, well, let's hope it will be very soon. suerie moon, last word to you on that? i would agree it is, of course, difficult to predict. but i think that return to anything coming close

to normality will be very different for very different countries around the world. going back to hannah's question, if countries are not able to get vaccines to take the hardest edge of this pandemic, that is to protect those at greatest risk of dying, then we're going to see a much, much slower return to normality in most countries in the world and that does have an impact on countries like the uk, here in europe. because, of course, people travel — want to travel all over the world, because our economies are interdependent, and because our diplomatic relations with other countries. so, there's a real moral imperative as well as a strong self—interest argument that we have to find a solution and make vaccines more available to everybody. take you very much indeed. that's all from this edition of global questions. but before we go, i want to get a quick indication of what my audience here think of this question. so, do you think now we've got the covid—i9 vaccines programmes being rolled out, first one here in the uk, do you think that's — that's it, it's a silver bullet? put your hand up if you think the jab is the silver bullet.

oh my goodness, just one solitary person. so, who thinks it is not a silver bullet? my... well, professor davis salisbury, you said your family tell you not to be so gloomy. you've clearly got some of your family members in this room here with me, because they are also saying that the jab is not going to be the silver bullet. well, thank you very much indeed to you, professor davis salisbury and suerie moon, and, of course, to you here in my audience at the royal college of physicians and, of course, to you, wherever you're watching or listening to this programme. don't forget you can be part of our programmes in the future. submit a question. please e—mail globalquestions@bbc.co.uk. but for now from me, zeinab badawi, and the rest of the global questions team, it's goodbye from the royal college of physicians here in london. until the next time — seasons greetings, stay safe, and goodbye.

hello. after today's rain, we have got a windy night to come with showers and they showers will stay with us for monday. although there will be a few sunny spells around. the persistent rain will clear way north and east as we go through this evening, but look at all the showers that will follow. some of these are going to be heavy, possibly thundery accompanied by some gusty winds as well. temperatures continuing to head up, so temperatures rising overnight across parts of scotland and northeast england. it will be a mild start to monday. and a day of some sunny spells but further showers. i think the showers will affect all parts as they pushed eastwards during the day. but some spots to the east would just have a couple of showers. and the rest of the day will be dry would sunny spells. it will be windy, even more than today across the northern isles for example with gusts up to around

60 mph those are average speeds. blustery particularly as the showers move on through. it is a mild start to the week and it is looking fairly mild throughout the week, but with further rain at times.

this is bbc news the headlines at six. another deadline extended — brexit talks will now continue as both sides agree to carry on after being unable to come to an agreement. following the decision, the prime minister held a conference call to brief the cabinet on their options in the event of a no—deal outcome. a warning to borisjohnson — relaxing coronavirus restrictions this christmas will lead to a third wave of infections. angela merkel announces tighter coronavirus restrictions in germany — to run through christmas until january the 10th.