What happens after being vaccinated?

[miimblemomble]

I’ve had Covid, and basically nothing changed. I still wore a mask, still distanced, still had to follow number limits and queue to get into shops. Any immunity I had was ignored pretty much, irrelevant in terms of living more normally.

At what point does this change? MIL is in her 80s and in a dementia nursing home. FIL is just under 80. Assuming that they both get vaccinated soon, whats going to change for them? Will he be able to visit her in person, hold her hand? Will the care home staff stop wearing PPE and start activities etc again as soon as they and the residents are vaccinated?

Is there going to be any programme of antibody testing post-vaccination to confirm that it has worked for individuals?

You would hope some normality will happen for care homes once patients and staff are vaccinated. Some are doing rapid testing of relatives so they can visit now. I doubt they would do any antibody testing on a large scale, but I know they do test people in hospital either as inpatient or outpatient.

It depends on what Whitty and Co dictate
I don't recall voting for them at the last GE?

@tortoiseshell1985

It depends on what Whitty and Co dictate I don't recall voting for them at the last GE?

No, but you voted for politicians knowing that they would be calling on expert knowledge to formulate their policies in all sorts of areas.

Eventually everything would go back to normal. Then, at some point, the shadowy world government would activate your microchip and subliminally order you to carry out an assassination. Allegedly.

It's likely that things will improve but some changes will be very slow

Since not everyone who gets vaccinated is protected, safety isn't really achieved until herd immunity at the world level is achieved

Hugs may become possible but care staff still in ppe is most likely over the next 12 months , so yes, still a set of compromises , just a different set

Wish I had emigrated to New Zealand

But SAGE are now saying immunity will only last 90 days so...

@ElephantWhaleRabbit

Eventually everything would go back to normal. Then, at some point, the shadowy world government would activate your microchip and subliminally order you to carry out an assassination. Allegedly.

Cool I wonder who I'll get!

I don’t think sage are saying that.

They are saying it lasts at least 90 days. It might be longer, they don’t know because they haven’t had time to get that data.

But of course, do feel free to pour oil on any positivity.

But SAGE are now saying immunity will only last 90 days so...

Is this statement true? Can you provide a link to the original source? I assume what it really says is at least 90 days.

I think the little full stops are supposed to be a bit menacing........

Since not everyone who gets vaccinated is protected

Is this the 10% of people who still "get" Covid even though vaccinated?

What level of "safety" are we going to be aiming for here?

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03441-8

This article makes it clear that getting the vaccine into people is only the start, there is going to have to be a massive, ongoing commitment of time, money and manpower to monitoring immunity (individual and wider population). And still so many more questions to be asked. I guess I'm trying to rein in my expectations of what is actually going to change in the short or even medium term here, (I haven't seen my family for nearly a year now, we don't live int he UK and they do).

@tortoiseshell1985

But SAGE are now saying immunity will only last 90 days so...

Not really

A NERVTAG report has said (inter alia) that no known human coronavirus has produced immunity of less than 3 months, and there is no reason to think covid will be less than 90 days. Para 8

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/940896/S907_NERVTAG_certifying_COVID_immunity.pdf

I’ve no idea and I work in a nursing home. Quite a few of our residents are younger (55+) are refusing the vaccine as are a couple of staff. Obviously that’s going to have quite a big impact and I’d imagine that it’s not just the home I work in. We’ve already had a member of staff resign because she didn’t want to wear a mask. Her Dr refused to sign an exemption form for her thankfully as she was trying to take out a tribunal against the home around “enforced mask wearing” .

Not everyone is going to comply and if that’s the case social distancing, PPE, having strict rules for visits etc will have to stay in place for quite sometime until Covid-19 is no longer at pandemic levels.

As it is, even if we start vaccinations in care homes in the next few weeks with the Pfizer, things won’t really change until January. We need two doses and immunity doesn’t really kick in until at least a week after the second dose.

Our employer is actually thinking of closing if too many staff and residents refuse the vaccine . It’s been an awful year, it’s a small family run home and the owners are very hands on and CV or ECV themselves. They’ve just been holding on for a vaccine and some normality. Having staff and residents refuse is a massive kick in the teeth. But it’s also their right to refuse...so nothing to be done.

The vaccine is one additional tool to break the spread. IIUC People will still be able to spread it via contact, even if vaccinated, and we are not 100% sure whether it can be spread via air by vaccinated people. What we do know is that the vaccine stops most people getting seriously ill and dying.

OP “ At what point does this change? MIL is in her 80s and in a dementia nursing home. FIL is just under 80. Assuming that they both get vaccinated soon, whats going to change for them? Will he be able to visit her in person, hold her hand? Will the care home staff stop wearing PPE and start activities etc again as soon as they and the residents are vaccinated? ”

I doubt it. Sorry OP.

I imagine the government will lose all control of private socialising that they can't really control. I certainly intend to see friends and family as soon as we've been jabbed. They'll also be under a huge about of pressure economically to let hospitality open up, with the fact that people are otherwise going to be socialising in houses putting further pressure into that. Visiting people in care homes is slightly trickier, as there's no huge economic pressure to do this, and it is something that the government and/or care homes themselves can control. But I would hope they'd relax that eventually, under pressure from families and residents themselves. Once people are vaccinated, what else are we waiting for? We're not likely to be able to eradicate it completely - due to children, anti-vaccers, and other countries being slower to roll out a vaccine. So we will have to let people make their own choices soon.

It will be a slow gradual process, maybe things will look more like 'normal' by the summer, but I suspect some things, careful hand washing, masks distancing may remain as a tool to be rolled back out at the slightest indication of cases starting back up. There won't ever be a 'right as you were, to see here' moment. It's a process.

To be honest, I think it's a complete mess.
There's never going to be a truly mass rollout as we don't have the facilities to administer the vaccine to the whole population.
Given then any effect from the vaccine is relatively shortlived (possibly only a few months - not even a year!) the vulnerable would need to be vaccinated again before less vulnerable groups had been done the first time.
It supposedly doesn't stop infection, just severity, so herd immunity for the sake of the vulnerable who cannot be vaccinated wouldn't work, as it could still spread. If anything, I imagine this would make it more dangerous, as fewer people would have symptoms bad enough to recognise that they may have it.

I honestly believe that the government will use the vaccine as a way of trying to 'prove' they're in control, and they'll announce something like 'x% of the population are now vaccinated, we can go back to normal!' and slow stop reporting on stats etc and basically brush covid under the carpet.

People are putting far too much weight on this vaccine when it comes to getting back to normal.

The vaccine that's just been approved, we've been offered 800,000 doses. Wow. That's nothing. So when do we get more? See what I mean about it probably never making its way down to the majority of the population?

I guess my outlook is a bit more positive than many on here. I think that, when care home residents and staff are vaccinated, visiting will get back to normal.

I think as more and more of the population is vaccinated then numbers of COVID patients in hospitals will fall and other things in the NHS will get going again.

I think as we come into spring the restrictions on our lives will lessen and by summer the amount of coronavirus around in the population will be a lot less making more things possible.

@Redwinestillfine

It will be a slow gradual process, maybe things will look more like 'normal' by the summer, but I suspect some things, careful hand washing, masks distancing may remain as a tool to be rolled back out at the slightest indication of cases starting back up. There won't ever be a 'right as you were, to see here' moment. It's a process.

Umm...no it needs to be getting back to normal in the spring.

I hope you're right. I just can't see it happening that fast. They're already talking about a possible third wave 😞

I listened to the BBCs How to vaccinate the world podcast (recommended). It’s quite clear that the way the media / CEOs of the big pharma companies are reporting the “success” of the vaccines is quite quite different to the way the scientific community are talking about it. The research / discoveries that are happening are amazing and fascinating - but they are no silver bullet. There is so much more research to be done, such an immense amount of work to go into further research and policy making.

As ProudAuntie pointed out, some people are not going to accept the vaccine. How do we accommodate / protect them? And get anywhere back to normal? If my MIL takes the vaccine, but the lady sitting next to her hasn’t, how can anyone visit the home without masks / distancing etc?

There is a good article on the BBC News website this morning that explains more about how herd immunity after vaccination works and why it may not necessarily be as quick as we hope (i.e. not really "back to normal by spring").

www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-b6360f40-84f9-469b-b6a3-a4568e161c4f

@LindaEllen

There's never going to be a truly mass rollout as we don't have the facilities to administer the vaccine to the whole population.

We haven’t needed them before now. We are in the process of building them up - facilities are being rented, staff are being recruited and trained.

Given then any effect from the vaccine is relatively shortlived (possibly only a few months - not even a year!)

This is simply not known yet. Given that the number of reinfections confirmed to date is teeny tiny, immunity appears to last at least 9 months - otherwise we would be seeing mass reinfections by now. Vaccine immunity is likely to be longer, but we can’t be sure until more time has elapsed. Know this: the vaccine trials are still following their volunteers, monitoring for signs of immunity waning.

It supposedly doesn't stop infection, just severity, so herd immunity for the sake of the vulnerable who cannot be vaccinated wouldn't work, as it could still spread.

Again, this is not known yet. The trials were set up to test whether the vaccine prevented disease. If you think about it, how could you test whether it prevented transmission? You would have to mix a bunch of vaccinated and unvaccinated people in complete isolation from everyone else, it’s just not feasible. So the scientists, being scientists, have said we have no evidence that it prevents transmission. That’s doesn’t mean it doesn’t, just that we can’t prove that it does. One of them is also on record as saying he believes it will reduce transmission. I think this is something that statisticians will be able to work out in time.

If anything, I imagine this would make it more dangerous, as fewer people would have symptoms bad enough to recognise that they may have it.

This is a risk and is the reason why being vaccinated will not exempt you from masks and SD an all of that for quite some time. A public awareness campaign will be needed.

I honestly believe that the government will use the vaccine as a way of trying to 'prove' they're in control, and they'll announce something like 'x% of the population are now vaccinated, we can go back to normal!' and slow stop reporting on stats etc and basically brush covid under the carpet.

I don’t often say this, but you’re being paranoid. The stats are published daily. You can bet that the opposition would be down on the government like a ton of bricks if they tried to stop.

If you know where to look, you can find the statistics on every notifiable disease.

People are putting far too much weight on this vaccine when it comes to getting back to normal.

People are happy to have some good news and hope of things improving. If you listen to the scientists rather than the politicians, you will hear plenty of more tempered messages.

The vaccine that's just been approved, we've been offered 800,000 doses. Wow. That's nothing. So when do we get more? See what I mean about it probably never making its way down to the majority of the population?

800,000 doses straight away (already in the country), more in the New Year - we have ordered 40 million doses.

And don’t forget the Astra Zeneca Oxford vaccine, which is highly likely to be approved within the next couple of weeks. There are millions of doses of that already manufactured and ready to go.