WMC and Julie – is it just me or have we not heard anything about the issues you describe in the press? All we seem to get is widely varying (inaccurate?) stats about number of deaths/infections. Oh, and Boris, of course, spouting usual bunch of porkies. CW – thing to bear in mind with the publication you mention is that there is always another agenda with it. In this case, I believe, it is the long-term aim to see the NHS privatised. It is just laying down ammunition to be cannoned at us later.
The mainstream press tries to interpret what it finds in the science journals but it needs science journalists to write articles & they work for “general science for the masses titles” such as New Scientist, Scientific American, Medical Xpress, etc. All of which I’d recommend having a read of. I read the scientific papers themselves, the oft convoluted & difficult to digest papers written by the scientists themselves, I’ve written some of my own down the years & they are admittedly difficult to understand. But, I also read the “general science” stuff to keep abreast of what’s happening in the other sciences & medicine.
I don’t think we can expect the mainstream press journos to have in-depth specialist knowledge of every possible subject & hence I’d not expect them to necessarily pick up the same points, but they do try.
Here’s a dark paper that’s not in my field, it’s epidemiology (statistics), but it tries to explain the mathematics behind why vaccinating the most vulnerable people first is the way to simply save the most lives – science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/01/21/science.abe6959
Remember that politicians have to make their decisions on what limited information they have, at the right time, and it’s all too easy to point the finger after the events & with hindsight.
As for trusting the NHS, no, I can’t do that, too many administrators trying to create their own little empires competing with each other, plus it seems to be run for the benefit of the NHS themselves. Caveat emptor applies just the same with medicine as it does with goods & other services, find out what you can & make a decision on vaccines, but understand risk when you make that decision.