Surely the need to get the vaccines out asap is on the agenda now

[Molly333]

Surely the need to get MASS vaccinations done now is a priority isn't it ?

[quote Nc135]@RealityNotEssentialism that will be one of the tests Porton Down will be doing right now. There was news in another thread that Germany has said it does work on the new strain but I don’t know how reliable that is and whether it is still as efficacious. But we will know soon. The scientists will be ON IT.[/quote]
Thanks. So at the moment, it’s unknown. We could be pouring everything into a vaccine that doesn’t work on the new, more contagious, strain. Great.

@Riapia

Will the vaccine produced in Belgium still get here now they’re closing the border.

Yes, because that's one of the things we would use the military for. They're not going to ride in and save us, but they will be used to keep medicines moving.

Vaccine supply is going to be important - do we even have a date from the manufacturers for arrival of second batch and how big will it be?

@Molly333

Surely the need to get MASS vaccinations done now is a priority isn't it ?

Yes, of course, because before it was on the back burner.

@DirtyDancing

Limiting factor is also getting 80+ to come forward, my local London hospital is tweeting for them to make appointments by phone. I assume to get local families to see & encourage relatives to get it.

Secondly, getting the people to do the vaccinations. You have already hardworking medical professionals already a tad busy, covering for colleagues with covid, have covid/ isolating etc

Are they really having trouble getting enough over 80s? A GP near me achieved 100% uptake- 975 letters went out, 975 people were jabbed. I am shocked uptake is so low in your area that it would be a limiting factor.

I think German scientists have been pretty on this whole thing and I'm sure they are correct.
Yes I agree they should throw everything at vaccine, especially those on the front line in hospitals

@RealityNotEssentialism the likelihood of it is not working on this new strain is slim. It be may slightly less efficacious but it will still work and certainly be good enough for population protection. Also scientists were saying yesterday that the hard part is coming up with the vaccine in the first place. It is relatively easy to tweak it for viral changes. It is what happens every year with flu vaccines.

Be may? Maybe obviously!

Scientists have said now they have the code to fight it like flu, they can tweak it anyway to respond.

It is being delivered as quickly as it becomes available. There are some supply issues. There are some staffing capacity issues.

GPs and others are working flat out to get it into the most vulnerable as quickly as possible. It is a very fragile vaccine though. There are also some prescribing challenges to overcome logistically.

@PandemicPavolova

I think German scientists have been pretty on this whole thing and I'm sure they are correct. Yes I agree they should throw everything at vaccine, especially those on the front line in hospitals

Yiu do actually realise that many on the front line are actually the same people on the COVID wards etc that might be a teeny bit busy

I was wondering why the army or red Cross etc couldn't be drafted in to help deliver the vaccine?
I'm not here to go why haven't they done xyz, I do believe its the highest priority. But there are people in other organisations than the NHS who could deliver vaccinations.

137,000 vaccines given in the first week. Out of 66 million that just isn't enough.
It's poor. I can't understand how it isn't top priority, over and above literally everything else.

I dont think that can be described as poor when a) the vaccine was only approved days before the rollout and b) the logistics of storing and transporting it.
Remember there are several other (more easily stored) vaccines on the verge of being approved.

Instead of seeing a positive that the vaccines have discovered, developed, approved and starting to be administered there are still people wanting to find a negative in it.
Also the plan never was to vaccinate the entire population (I dont think any of the vaccines have been tested or approved for under 18s)
I saw a stat that said the 20% most vulnerable need to be vaccinated to cut deaths (or hospitalization?) By 94%. Granted that's still a huge amount of people but I dont think we can infer that "only" vaccinating 137k people in a week, that the vaccine is not a priority...?

I don’t understand why anyone is worrying about what the numbers were in the first week given the second week has been much more and the third week scheduled to be vastly more again and once the Oxford vaccine is approved things will ramp up even faster.

The video posted up thread said 500,000 vaccines been administered up to now - so I would assume the second delivery of Pfizer has already happened, as they need to keep 50% of deliveries back for second doses.

800,000 doses in the first batch so only enough to vaccinate 400,000 people.

They are scaling up rapidly already. 135,000 in the first week and we've not finished the second week and we are at 500,000.

I think the army and St John's ambulance are vaccinating from the mass vaccination sites, but they are awaiting the Oxford vaccine as we don't have enough Pfizer to use mass vaccination sites yet.

Out of the 100 million Oxford doses we've ordered, 80 million will be made in the UK.

India has 50 million doses of Oxford mare and ready to go. The UK seems to have similar.

If that video is right and Oxford is approved on the 28/29th December then it's going to explode.

It'll be available everywhere. Pharmacists, most doctors surgeries, mass vaccination sites, care homes. You won't be able to move without being offered it.

Apparently there are roughly 20 million people in priority groups 1-7 (so age 60 and up and ECV).

With the Oxford approved I think that will happen pretty quickly. It takes until March because you need 4weeks between doses.

I'm hoping that the first vaccine will still reduce the spread a little as people will be harder to infect.

They are drafting in an army of people to do the vaccinations - St John, local medical volunteers, army, Fire. But while it’s still the Pfizer vaccine it’s just not doable.

[quote Nc135]@TW2013 I would like one or two of the front line workers administering the vaccine and working over Christmas and even in Christmas Day to respond to your comment that ‘I don’t really think that they could be bothered’.[/quote]
Sorry to wake you up so rudely with a dose of adrenaline due to my dark humour!

Apparently there are roughly 20 million people in priority groups 1-7 (so age 60 and up and ECV)

I think that's an underestimate - from an earlier thread:

You can work out (roughly) how many in each group (but of course some people will be in functional groups rather than age groups, and I'm not sure how to adjust for that, so I haven't)

1. care home residents and staff (estimated) up to 1m

2. over 80s 3.2m and frontline NHS probably around 1m (generous estimate from total workforce of around 1.4m) other social care up to 1m

3. over 75s a 2.3m

4. CEV 2.5m and over 70s 3.3 m

5. over 65s 3.4m

6. CV aged 16-64 - this is the category I have no idea about the number for, and I'd be amazed if anyone has worked it out well (I expect it will be the largest category by quite some way)

7. over 60s 3.8m

8. over 55s 4.4m

9. over 50s 5m

‘It'll be available everywhere. Pharmacists, most doctors surgeries, mass vaccination sites, care homes. You won't be able to move without being offered it. ‘

They could draft in an army of chuggers

I doubt that - as we are COVAX members and this vaccine is part of that scheme.

They already are , its a fragile vaccine its new so I think they are keeping watch for symptoms etc after, we only had a certain amount doses at first and for once we are one of the first to even start administrating , they have got a lot wrong but are on top when it comes to the vaccine at the moment
It will take months to get around population its a not a couple weeks fix

@SexTrainGlue

Apparently there are roughly 20 million people in priority groups 1-7 (so age 60 and up and ECV)

I think that's an underestimate - from an earlier thread:

You can work out (roughly) how many in each group (but of course some people will be in functional groups rather than age groups, and I'm not sure how to adjust for that, so I haven't)

1. care home residents and staff (estimated) up to 1m

2. over 80s 3.2m and frontline NHS probably around 1m (generous estimate from total workforce of around 1.4m) other social care up to 1m

3. over 75s a 2.3m

4. CEV 2.5m and over 70s 3.3 m

5. over 65s 3.4m

6. CV aged 16-64 - this is the category I have no idea about the number for, and I'd be amazed if anyone has worked it out well (I expect it will be the largest category by quite some way)

7. over 60s 3.8m

8. over 55s 4.4m

9. over 50s 5m

Thanks for that.

I took my numbers from a telegraph article, which said the 40 million doses from Pfizer would vaccinate groups 1-7 which is the over 60's and ECV. I assume that's based on all of them getting both doses.

Hence 20 million, but happy to accept that won't be totally accurate.

I had a flu vaccine at the doctor's this week. It was done like a conveyor belt, with volunteers (aged over 70, I think!) supplying hand gel and taking my temperature outside, then taking off my coat, and going through to four rooms with the nurses vaccinating non-stop. It took about two minutes, probably, from entering the room, being asked questions, and being jabbed, and out through the back door.

I was very impressed with the speed and efficiency, and am optimistic re the Oxford vaccine and how quickly we could all be vaccinated.

Grant Shapps has been on tv morning saying supply of vaccine from Belgium will NOT be affected because it comes via unaccompanied container not truck. No issue with unaccompanied containers coming across the channel atm though obviously if the trucks situation is not resolved soon you would expect a backlog of containers to build up asap.

What I don't get is that we were told Pfizer would send us 10 million doses by the end of 2020. More recently there was suggestions that it would be 'not quite 10million' but not far off. Is there really several million in the country waiting to be used? I wish the information was more transparent. Obviously limiting factors are the 70 degrees issue and the 975 packs issue but it can be out of the super fridge for 5 days and the packs can apparently now be split so I'm puzzled as to the hold up if indeed there are indeed several million in the country. Let's hope they do manage to hugely ramp up in January. Obviously this would be helped enormously if AZ comes online - I believe 4 million of those are already in the country ready to go as soon as it gets the green light.

I don’t understand why you perceive it as a hold up. Starting with a manageable amount and accelerating is surely the logical way to roll it out so you can keep a grip on the organizational structures and not have pandemonium and loads of doses wasted if something goes wrong.

I think we’re accelerating pretty fast- I don’t know what other posters’ expectations were but I was thinking we would just manage a few token jabs by Christmas for the tv cameras and the fact that I already know people (including mil) who have been jabbed is way beyond what I was expecting.
The idea we might plausibly have done a million by the end of the year is glorious.

Do we think they’ll get to a point where they’ll say “ok that’s most of the over 80s done, now we’re moving onto over 75s” etc? Just asking because I’m phoning my Gran every day (she’s 91) to check if she’s had a call from GP, hospital or whoever. Nothing yet but I know it’s early days.