Covid 19 vaccine vaccination numbers, why won't they tell us?

[MG2020]

I've been looking for a few days about the number of people vaccinated in the UK. However, this appears to be some kind of secret.

Does anyone know how many people have been vaccinated and how many vaccinations we have in the UK and what we can expect by mid Jan 2021?

I fear this secrecy means that things are not going to plan and when Matt Hancock said the other day that tens of thousands of people had been vaccinated, it was far from true.

You may recall the figures about Covid 19 tests when we were told x amount of tests were carried out but they failed to declare that everyone had at least two tests and many NHS staff and others in hospital were being tested several times a day therefore 100k tests may have been 20k tests in reality.

I want the jab and so do our children but both are severely allergic so we are praying for others to come on line ASAP.

@alreadytaken

Where would you rather the effort go - into getting the vaccines into arms or counting the arms, I know what I want,

They’ll already be counting the arms, they won’t just be randomly vaccinating people until someone notices the freezer’s empty.

Scotland’s going to publish its numbers once a week so I suppose you could take those figures and multiply by 10 for the whole U.K.? It was 5,330 for the first two days.

975 gets quoted as it’s the size of a batch.

@alreadytaken

Where would you rather the effort go - into getting the vaccines into arms or counting the arms, I know what I want,

Yep. We don't need daily running totals. What a waste of energy. Plus, some days the numbers will likely be lower than others, leading to panicked threads on MN. I understand the suspicion of this government, but I do think the vaccination programme is one thing they have got right.

Deciding who is going to get those precious vaccines is a very responsible job isn't it? I would not like to be the person doing that

Do they stick a pin in a list of over 80s or do every 3rd one? Bit unfair if it's alphabetical. You'd like to hope it's most in need first but that would be a huge job to review all the records to decide that.
Can you be too much in need? Ie if you are on palliative care right now perhaps you wouldn't get one.

Tough tough decisions for someone to take.

@notevenat20

There are capacity and consent issues for very many care home residents with dementia. Imagine if they sent out batches and large numbers refused to be injected, lacked capacity to consent etc.Plus they need trained staff to administer which they wouldn't have in residential care settings

I assumed they would give a touring freezer lorry manned with staff who can give the vaccines. Also, clearly it needs planning but that's not impossible is it?

Yes that is impossible. The freezers are ultra low, not the usual freezer lorries.

The vaccine is transported in cartons of 195 vials in polystyrene boxes with dry ice in, but these aren’t likely to be going to the care homes (195 vials is 975 doses). The whole thing is technically very difficult and use in care homes will be quite tricky without resulting in waste.

@Parker231

975 gets quoted as it’s the size of a batch.

975 is the number of doses in a carton of 195 vials.

A lot of people would find it quite encouraging to see daily vaccination figures. It would be nice to have a count of something good to go alongside the daily cases/death/hospital/ventilated figures.

I think people would immediately extrapolate from whatever the first week was as though that would be the rate forever, and worry about that, but I don’t find that in itself a very compelling reason to not publish the figures.

There will be a list of names, they'll tick them off and if anyone is unable to be vaccinated that day they'll try to get someone else in. I believe a batch can be stored 5 days in a normal fridge and I'm quite happy to wait and be told 975 have been done.

One local surgery has been ringing round checking who wants to be vaccinated so they dont waste any of the first batch.

@rslsys

I want to know whether the entire first tranch of vaccine will be given and then hope we get a second batch within 21 days. Or they keep half the batch back for the second injection? Would make a vast difference to the the numbers being treated.

This

@rslsys

I want to know whether the entire first tranch of vaccine will be given and then hope we get a second batch within 21 days. Or they keep half the batch back for the second injection? Would make a vast difference to the the numbers being treated.

The blurb from the MHRA makes it very clear that only one batch has been authorised, and because of this it needs to be used in such a way that anyone vaccinated can get both doses within the stated timescale from this batch. We only have 800K doses of that batch, so that’s 400k people.

When the next batch is authorised & available we can relax a bit more.

Yes that is impossible. The freezers are ultra low, not the usual freezer lorries.

Sorry there were two confusions there. I meant the planning might be hard but not impossible. Separately I thought the lorries might contain the ultra low temperature freezers. But that is probably wrong.

You only get -70 freezers in labs not lorries.
They will start shouting about numbers once (if) the AZ vax is approved and the mass vax sites open, which is expected in a couple of weeks.

Or when they need to distract from brexshit.

@notevenat20

Yes that is impossible. The freezers are ultra low, not the usual freezer lorries.

Sorry there were two confusions there. I meant the planning might be hard but not impossible. Separately I thought the lorries might contain the ultra low temperature freezers. But that is probably wrong.

Yes that’s wrong. I don’t even think such a freezer van exists. ULT freezers take up a lot of energy and don’t deal with power outages very well so I doubt one run by a van would work. And nobody can go inside a ULT freezer - far too dangerous. That’s why the vaccine is shipped in insulated boxes.

They will have to be taken to care homes in smaller amounts at fridge temperature - which is in itself tricky because the shelf life has to be reduced and the vials are very tiny.

Ebola vaccines needed to be stored at similar temperatures in Democratic Republic of Congo. Somehow the doctors/Aid Agencies managed to sort that out.

Equally bull/ram semen is stored/transported around the country in liquid nitrogen and we somehow manage to have plenty of baby cows and sheep.

My local GP practices (group of 5) will have 975 vaccines to dish out next week.

That is great. I wonder why 8 London boroughs got the same number between them.

Very high percentage of older people here.

@notevenat20

My local GP practices (group of 5) will have 975 vaccines to dish out next week.

That is great. I wonder why 8 London boroughs got the same number between them.

Last week vaccine could only be sent to some hospital trusts who had licensed facilities to accept it. Or everywhere got it.

Next week it will be issued in refrigeration (out of the freezer) to GP practice sites. They get a box of 975 doses. At the moment they are not allowed to move from the site they are delivered to. And they cannot be packed down (sent out in smaller packs) for use in care homes.

There is very little waste allowed from a box. So close to 975 vaccines will be administered from each site.

Last week that was 50x 975 - less any waste. This could be high in the first week.
This week expect way more sites and therefore a lot more vaccine administered.

I'm just going on how hard it was to give even the flu vaccine on our dementia ward. They would all benefit. They all lacked capacity. We had to track down all their families and some didn't have any or were anti vaccine. Some whose families did agree were kicking and screaming at the thought of having an injection they don't understand. Should they be restrained? For flu we decided not
For Covid? Well what would you do?

Not completely straightforward like just go out to the care home and jab em all in the arm is it?

Some will be able to consent for sure and will have families who agree but I suspect many will wind up missing out for above reasons

@sashagabadon

I’m quite glad we don’t get daily updates. It’s just another thing for obsess about and once they start they can’t stop it easily. It becomes an expectation for the armchair experts. It also puts unnecessary pressure in the medics. Look at the threads when the daily cases/ deaths are an hour late. Full of discussion as to why blah blah. Leave the experts to just get on with it without the media yet again breathing down everyone necks. I would like to see monthly updates but daily/ weekly is too much.

That is your choice but IMHO it is their duty to tell us all in order to see if they are messing it up again. Like I said re tests, they failed to mention that the number of Covid tests did not relate to the number of people tested but the 2/3 tests per person and some tested multi times in a day. The Gov only put their hands up when the press got hold of this info.

Being vaccinated and the numbers must be made public in order for all of us to decide if the government is still as incompetent as ever. Otherwise we may be being fed with more BS and hearing hancok and his tears then find out only 40k people have been vaccinated by Christmas, ie far short of what was being touted. So asking this question is necessary, appropriate and will hold them to account.

I agree with GoldenOmber that there could be feel good factor.

I’m less concerned about people stuffing it up and haven’t been indication it will be.

I think it’s a bit pessimistic

Thank you all, even those that disagree with me and those that have shared insight.

Accountability is required otherwise we are left in the dark and time may be being wasted.

Too many billions of our money has been thrown at a few people with poor results re PPE, track and trace, testing etc, it is only correct we get figures re vaccinations ASAP.

My DF is in a care home and has been there for nearly 2 years. Please don’t let’s get bogged down too much with care homes, they are extremely tricky to manage. Most of the residents in the dementia side don’t often know their names and as a PP what happens if a dose is allocated to them and they refuse. Move on, hold them down, spend xxx mins/hours that you don’t have trying to persuade them, get a relative with POA in.

I am glad they are doing other categories as well as trying to get on top of care homes.

Aren’t another 1 million coming next week or have I dreamt this?

Where is the Oxford vaccine? That will make is much easier and speed things up.

I agree with others. Don’t give the media something else to focus on by announcing daily figures.

When, what day is Scotland doing the figs, please?

Yes that’s wrong. I don’t even think such a freezer van exists. ULT freezers take up a lot of energy and don’t deal with power outages very well so I doubt one run by a van would work. And nobody can go inside a ULT freezer - far too dangerous. That’s why the vaccine is shipped in insulated boxes.

I am sure you are right and in any case it might not be practical. But aren't they being taken around the US by lorry currently?

@MG2020

When, what day is Scotland doing the figs, please?

Not sure. Nicola Sturgeon said last Thurs it’d be published weekly, but of course that was two days in already, so guessing either Tuesdays or Thursdays?

@Bathroom12345

My DF is in a care home and has been there for nearly 2 years. Please don’t let’s get bogged down too much with care homes, they are extremely tricky to manage. Most of the residents in the dementia side don’t often know their names and as a PP what happens if a dose is allocated to them and they refuse. Move on, hold them down, spend xxx mins/hours that you don’t have trying to persuade them, get a relative with POA in.

I am glad they are doing other categories as well as trying to get on top of care homes.

Aren’t another 1 million coming next week or have I dreamt this?

Where is the Oxford vaccine? That will make is much easier and speed things up.

I agree with others. Don’t give the media something else to focus on by announcing daily figures.

With respect, if the media, Joe public does not get the figures, how do we know they at number 10 are telling the truth? You may recall the Covid test figures were not what they made them sound like and you recall the PPE, gloves, a pair of rubber gloves was counted as TWO UNITS - can you really trust Boris & friends?