Vaccine roll out news this morning

[outofthemoon]

Quite shocking. Only half the population listed. Over 80s before NHS staff. Nothing for under 50s. No mention of teachers, bus drivers... Entire focus on very elderly.
So all this suffering, destruction of economy and young people's futures has been to protect the boomer generation and those even older?

I understood that they would be vaccinating everybody at some stage. Age is the biggest risk factor with covid so it makes perfect sense to roll it out to the elderly first.

As for children, perhaps it will take longer to test properly whether it is fully safe for them? I think developments down the line will see the whole population vaccinated, once safety and efficacy can be assured. With limited amounts of vaccine available initially it is a simple fact that we cant vaccinate everybody at once.

@Lweji

Why say the aim is to only vaccinate 30 million people - less than half the population? That’s not going to give us herd immunity.

How do you know?
Have you done the maths yourself? Do you have a good model? Have you seen a good publication with the calculations?

No, I haven’t.

But say 30 million people get vaccinated. That’s around 45% of the U.K. population.

Herd immunity needs a higher proportion of the population immune for most diseases.
And theres been no mention of herd immunity in any of the news articles I read about the vaccine plans, or 45% being above the herd immunity threshold.

But say 30 million people get vaccinated. That’s around 45% of the U.K. population.

I agree, that's not enough for herd immunity, but you have to add in the number of people who already have antibodies from having had covid, even an asymptomatic case. In some parts of New York, where I am, that's already about 20% and growing.

Herd immunity needs a higher proportion of the population immune for most diseases.

Hence my question about specific calculations for covid.

I don't know of any specific studies, other than an old one showing that the herd immunity necessary would actually be lower than the 60% discussed at the beginning, if the spread was slow.

And the number of immune people to achieve herd immunity varies according to the disease and how it spreads.

That is why I asked how you could be so sure to make such a definitive statement.

Thank you

Dr John Campbell believes that around 10% of the population has already been infected. By spring that could easily increase to 20 or 30% (say 20 million). So, if another 30 million receive the vaccine, that means around 50 million will have immunity, out of our total population on nearly 68 million.

There will perhaps be some doubling up, where frontline NHS workers/carers have already had the virus and then receive the vaccine too, but I feel that having 45-50 million people with immunity will be a great result, if not full herd immunity. I think things will be much easier by the summer.

You’re welcome to mine. Plus vaccines get less ineffective as you get older
www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

We simply don't know how long people who've had the virus are immune for. There is some evidence that many people may only have antibodies for a few months. Having said that, the key immunity may not depend on antibodies, but on cellular immunity. And this is really difficult to evaluate in the population.
Plus, there are already reports of people who got infected twice. Some with less severity, but others with increased severity.
So, basically, we do not know if vaccines will actually be effective in preventing the disease or reduce severity. And we don't know how the population who've already had the disease will react.