Must have missed that!
Since countries had to order before they knew whether the vaccine would be safe, would work, and be authorised then they had little choice but to hedge bets and order more than might be needed. I just hope they hand it on for free to other poorer countries once supplies start flowing.
To hedge bets on approval/delivery dates Alex.
As John said.
I guess that this will come back to haunt the politicos come election time.
I doubt it - everything will be blamed on the UK. 
Must increase my baguette order from one to three now “to hedge bets” 
Seriously though, it’s more than 3X the number that need it as I included everyone even infants but in reality it’s 5+ times as much as needed and they are now ordering more! Of course more may be needed if they find out that a twelve week delay between jabs means the vaccine has not taken properly or it’s effectiveness is too low.
In fact Alex, to be safe, if you need three baguettes and you’re worried about quality and/or supply you should probably order nine, three from three different boulangers. The good news is once you’ve secured your three edible baguettes you can free up the other six for use elsewhere. Remember these baguette purchasing decisions were made when nobody knew which boulanger would come up with the goods nor whether mRNA technology baguettes would be effective. So that might mean you need to order three bien cuit and three pas trop cuit from each boulanger. So even though you only need three baguettes, to ensure supply of three edible baguettes you’ve ordered eighteen.
I’ve ordered 36. Better be safe 
Now don’t start me on pain au chocs… 
But it won’t work.
The Commission has messed up big time.
I totally agree about Kate Bingham. What a shame she wasn’t cloned and put in charge of Test and Trace.
On the radio today - BBC R4 , one of the experts on the subject - forget his name - was saying the number of people in older cohorts was limited as they were shielding. Studies were done however to check the response of older people to the vaccination. The result was that they were reacting in the same way as younger cohorts in producing similar antibody levels. I think this vaccine is up there with it’s competitors.
I certainly hope so Michael. I’s just like to know why such a shambles was made of the data.