A clearly delighted Kate Bingham, chair of the UK’s vaccine task force, appeared on the Today programme this morning following last night’s brilliant news of a new vaccine from Novavax showing 90% efficacy against the new Kent variant; the UK having ordered 60 million doses, all of which will be made in Teesside.

While there’s lots to be excited about, government sources emphasised to Guido last night that the jab will not roll out until the latter half of the year, with MHRA approval set to take weeks. Bingham explained to Today listeners that scale-up is already underway in Teesside and going well “but it just takes time, we are growing up mammalian cells from low volumes up to the high thousand-litre volumes and it’s very complicated”.

Bingham also opened the interview by revealing she was so pleased with last night’s news she broke dry January early with a glass of wine.

Have one on Guido, Kate…