Vaccination for elderly & CEV, herd immunity for everyone else

[CollateralDamage1]

It's obviously the option chosen by our government. I've not heard of any mass vaccination programmes for everyone else yet have you? As a key worker I feel that my life is collateral and if I die or suffer badly it's half expected and is seen by our government as for the greater good of our country. It's totally shit. They'd never openly admit this though.

Anyone who thinks we are being slow have a look at this chart and compare our progress with our rest of the world

international vaccination tracker

What makes you think a huge roll out isn't happening? People over 80 are being vaccinated. GP surgeries are doing it. Obviously it takes time to get round everyone.

It's great that we have started to vaccinate people.

But key issues are going to be

• getting the supplies out to people who need them

• in a timely way with the right volume and speed

• picking up when and if repeat boosters are needed

• getting the formulation right re the order of people vaccinated, their vulnerability and risk

It is possible to imagine a scenario in which we are slow with roll out after this point, or supplies get given to the wrong sections of community (eg they decide bankers and somehow more important than nurses or that private patients should be allowed to buy their way up the queue).

Also, I note that even if Germany, for example, gives out the vaccine 1 or 2 months after we start, they have a reputation for formidable efficiency . And also their Public Health services are well funded and maintained at local level. It may be that they hit the ground running with great determination and organisation.

It could well be the tortoise and the hare.

(let's hope we knock this out of the park though).

They've set it up so that once the top 8 priorities are done, overb90% of deaths and countless hospitalisations will be prevented, and we can all get back to normal.

It's kind of like the Great Barrington declaration, but with protection that actually works, and reduces the risk to the vulnerable to something akin to a healthy u50 year old.

I was told today about three keyworker friends who had the vaccine this week.

@SandysMam

If you have had it, do you still need the vaccine or do you then wait until next round IYSWIM? I take it it’s like the flu jab where you will need to every year?

You have the vaccine regardless of whether you have had it.

We don’t yet know how long vaccine immunity will last. Annual boosters are a possibility but it might be that we will need them less frequently than every year.

Thank you for answering!

@MorrisZapp What is embarrassing?

@Haenow I’m in the same position but statistically, older people are at higher risk of hospitalisation and death even compared to people who are CEV. People need to take a pragmatic approach.

What are you talking about?

I didn't say that I should be vaccinated before people older than me (although I probably have the same or greater risk of hospitalisation or death if I catch covid as an average person aged 70-80 from the available algorithms).

The problem is one of enforced exposure to risk. We formally asked for home ed for the children but this was refused.

If we could home ed without the kids losing the places we could all stay safe until a vaccine eventually turns up.

So I have the clinical vulnerability but I also have the potential exposure to risk (secondary school children are the group in the population with the highest infection level right now) .

I' m fine to wait for a vaccine, but we need to reduce exposure for as many vulnerable people as possible while we wait (so we have fewer deaths meanwhile).

Regarding dying during the wait, my main concern would be the effect on my kids, who are still quite young.

I think the exposure/ risk thing needs some further thought, really.

Keeping the vaccine roll out by age does have the advantage of simplicity, because it probably the most important single variable and it is clearly measured.

Everyone seems to have missed my point. Not surprised really...

I'm a practice nurse. Our surgery, like many, has opted out in the initial phase. We do not have the staff capacity or physical space/storage.
Our patients are being asked to travel up to 15 miles away to our local 'hub'. They're going ballistic. Blocking the phone lines and shouting at receptionists. Many won't go.
I've a thirty year vaccinating history as a nurse yet haven't given a single COVID vacc yet and given no imminent plans to do so. My clinics are full into next month of other things.

[quote CollateralDamage1]@Dawnlassie

Not so much relying on it. But the way things are going we might achieve herd immunity due to the sheer amount of people that get infected this winter.

Exactly. But my opinion is this was an expected route, but government will never admit it.

We will need a vaccine regardless because there are two strains so if you've had one you could still catch the other.

We will need seasonal vaccines because it mutates.[/quote]
No proof (yet) that you could catch another strain . There are many strains. Sure antibodies might lessen over time but that's another discussion.

I have psoriasis so 6th in line but don't really understand why

older people are at higher risk of hospitalisation and death even compared to people who are CEV

The risk to the CEV has never been fully established, because shielding meant their exposure was sharply reduced. More recent JCVI minutes show that the rating of equivalent to the over 70s was a best guess assessment and not particularly well evidenced. The actual death rate for that group was on a par with the over 60s (original placement on list) but that did not factor in the extreme isolation regime

It's the elderly and ECV who are collateral damage, if this vaccine was any good, all key workers would of been given it first.

@cptartapp
If people are that desperate for a vaccine a 15 mile journey wouldn't be much of a deterrent. It also makes little sense to use in demand senior nurses to vaccinate when it can just as safely be done by more junior staff and those not yet fully trained to provide other services.

My gp practice are distributing the Pfizer vaccine after Christmas and my friend who works at the local hospital is being drafted from her normal work to doing vaccinations in the new year, so there's definite signs of momentum in my town.

Agreed. But very many frail, elderly people are simply saying they can't get there.

Didn't think herd immunity was possible seeing you can catch more than once..... we only retain immunity for a couple of months or so.

@Yuppie20

Didn't think herd immunity was possible seeing you can catch more than once..... we only retain immunity for a couple of months or so.

Not true that we only retain immunity for a couple of months. Antibodies fall off but that’s not the same thing as the immune system retains the memory of how to make more. Two research groups published research about a month ago saying it definitely lasts 8 months (since that is how long they have had since the pandemic began) and almost certainly much longer. A few people have been shown to get it twice but on a population level it looks like most people retain immunity so no reason to think herd immunity isn’t possible.

@scaevola

older people are at higher risk of hospitalisation and death even compared to people who are CEV

The risk to the CEV has never been fully established, because shielding meant their exposure was sharply reduced. More recent JCVI minutes show that the rating of equivalent to the over 70s was a best guess assessment and not particularly well evidenced. The actual death rate for that group was on a par with the over 60s (original placement on list) but that did not factor in the extreme isolation regime

Except that we are not one homogenous group and risk factors are more complicated than you are suggesting.

It is possible to have more than one risk factor, for example. As I have.

There aren't any plans to vaccinate healthy under 50s in the UK as yet- the JCVI will be looking at whether or not to do this and in what order of priority in the future. Kate Bingham has also said that the vaccine would be for the over 50s only. Restrictions and social distancing etc...will be dropped once the CEV and over 50s are vaccinated. It's very worrying as cases will then skyrocket- once millions get infected more under 50s may need hospital treatment in a very short space of time.

@CollateralDamage1

Apologies if your points haven't been addressed.

I'd agree that, although herd immunity is not seen as a valid concept by reputable scientists, it lurks temptingly in the fringes of right wing consciousness. If only they could forget all the masks and social distancing, and let all the proles just catch the bloody disease! How much money it would save!

The underlings need to get out to work, buy their bloody sandwiches on the way and earn money to spend on holidays, Wetherspoons and shoring up the shopping malls.

And so on.

I don't myself think they are actively holding back the vaccine however.

It will be interesting to see how we are doing with vaccine roll out compared with other nations in 6 months' time. There has been so much government incompetence/negligence in other areas,

Well you won't do yet will you? It's been made pretty clear that it's being done in a certain order.

You’d like a detailed vaccination programme for 65 million people, arguably the biggest logistical exercise in the history of the NHS, a few weeks after the first vaccines are approved for use?

Are you for real?

They are going great guns at my local surgery, and I'm sure there are plenty more doing the same. They are literally running something like a production line with patients going in one door, getting the jab then they have to go to a socially distanced waiting area for 15 mins before going out the other end.

@Biscoff2020

There aren't any plans to vaccinate healthy under 50s in the UK as yet- the JCVI will be looking at whether or not to do this and in what order of priority in the future. Kate Bingham has also said that the vaccine would be for the over 50s only. Restrictions and social distancing etc...will be dropped once the CEV and over 50s are vaccinated. It's very worrying as cases will then skyrocket- once millions get infected more under 50s may need hospital treatment in a very short space of time.

There are however enough doses of vaccine purchased in order to do this, which is a positive (although this is contingent on various vaccines successfully continuing their journey through the approval process).

The UK now has access to a total of 357 million doses of vaccines from 7 different developers.

(We could comfortably donate a lot of that to the developing world and still vaccinate the vast majority of our population).

www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-secures-additional-2-million-doses-of-moderna-covid-19-vaccine