The vaccination programme worked quickly and effectively because it used readily available data to allow prioritisation decisions to be made. We don't have ID cards, or other compulsory registration, so trying to link up factors like employment to work the prioritisation would have choked the rollout - whereas the NHS's patient records allowed a pretty good view of age and key health conditions. I'd expect the same to apply to boosters - they've got the dataset, so they can just work through the list.
As I understand, that prioritisation choice covered virtually all of those at seriously increased risk, even though there were some around the edges who arguably should have ended up in a different priority group.
As for the risk by age, it rises dramatically by age - I'm 47 and an otherwise identical 52 year old would have a much higher risk from Covid.
You've been reading too many newspaper health supplement magazines. Turning 50 doesn't trigger some dramatic rise in risk, if two people aged 47 & 52 have similar lives and body statistics & diet, then the risk is similar. Yes risk will increase over time, but age is not the only factor here.
I'm not so sure Labour are that bad. Indeed, 'Boris' rather than Starmer seems to me to be more of the sort of egotist type that would demand everyone worship him. However I think Labour have done themselves political damage by taking an overly hardline approach - remember how strict the Welsh leadership were, for example - imposing a hard border between England and Wales; complete nonsense given Wales had Covid too. Just like the UK government's restrictions on travelling abroad in April and May this year.
There is no party at the moment offering an internationalist (anti-Brexit, pro-immigration), left of centre on social issues (against benefits cuts for example, and pro employee rights) but also libertarian (against overly strict restrictions such as long and repeated lockdowns, and against excessive government interference in people's personal lives in general) stance. Such a party would I suspect gain quite a bit of the vote if it existed.
Don't get me wrong, I would vote Labour in an election, but not because I admire them, but rather because I intensely dislike the Conservatives, particularly since 'Boris' got in. To be honest that has been my stance since 2001, I was only ever a "fan" of Labour in the nineties, before they got in.
My comment was a little tongue in cheek. However Labour's performance in all of this has been dire. They have acted purely as restriction cheerleaders, not caring for one minute about the people they wanted to have suffer the most dire economic consequences even though these same people were at the heart of their supporter base. They are so self-absorbed, self-entitled, loathing & frightened that they may as well just re-brand themselves MumsNet. And Starmer is the worst of them all, he literally makes my skin crawl, like some creepy uncle that always shows up at family events. His "I haven't got time for this" tantrum with the pub landlord in Bath just demonstrated the contempt he has for anyone not lauding over him and his policies.
If they had been in charge I dread to think what state we would have been in. And this comes from someone who has voted Labour for most of his adult life.
A large amount of furlough payments have been offset by the income tax on them and also the NI contributions.
VAT on what recipient's have spent the furlough payments on also claws back an additional amount.
I seem to remember it being somewhere between 40% and 50% of payments made being returned to the treasury.
I'm not sure how you have come to this conclusion. For a start income tax & NI paid through furlough replaced income that would have come from the private sector, so that is an outright loss. Furthermore people on reduced incomes, especially those on lower incomes tend not to spend more. So any VAT they did pay on goods and services would have been reduced, and again came from the public purse and not privately owned companies. Plus many businesses were closed for mong periods of time, meaning it wasn't even possible to spend as much if people had spare income (which many didn't thanks to a 20% pay cut). All this was demonstrated by the fact that the economy shrank during furlough & lockdown periods.
There's no dressing up the big gaping hole left by all this I'm afraid. Its why from next year many people face higher NI bills, and this is just the start.