Israel is vaccinating 2% of their population a day!

[notevenat20]

Just that. Wow!

Fancy bringing back conscription? Because they are using their conscripted army to do that. #pros and cons

The population of Israel is only 8.6 million, that's less than the number of people living in London. Two per cent of the population is only 175k people. That's impressive and better than the UK but not as impressive as "2% of the population" sounds.

Israel - 8 million
UK - 67 million.

I am pleased they are doing so well though.

What worries me about the newly approved AZ Oxford vaccine, due to be rolled out on Monday (3 days' time) is that for months on end it will be sitting in fridges rather being injected into people because the mass vaccination plan simply doesn't exist.
I can't say I've noticed any drive-through centres, notices in pharmacies/supermarkets - all those places that will be needed to get the vaccination into people as soon as possible.
The GPs simply don't have the capacity - even the deep frozen vaccination is not being administered at the rate required, with all the limitations factored in for tricky logistics etc.

What about pharmacists? Couldn't they vaccinate too?

yes, they can do the flu vaccination every year.

I worry that the priority list is going to cause huge unnecessary delays getting the vaccine to people. I agree with the priority list, but they need to get the vaccine in anyone on the list asap.

What worries me about the newly approved AZ Oxford vaccine, due to be rolled out on Monday (3 days' time) is that for months on end it will be sitting in fridges rather being injected into people because the mass vaccination plan simply doesn't exist.

Most of the ordered doses haven't been made yet. I'd be pretty sure the bottlenecks will be more on the supply side - it can't just be magicked into existence.

I live in Ireland - population of almost 5 million - they reckon we will not have completed vaccination until the end of this year 😡😡😡. The vaccination programme will show which countries have proper, functioning, fit-for-purpose government and which have not - in case you need a hint, Ireland have not.

Yes, pharmacists could vaccinate with training.

Why are our soldiers not being trained to vaccinate? Set up football stadiums with the military and get thousands done in hours rather than days.

@Bobbiepin

Why are our soldiers not being trained to vaccinate? Set up football stadiums with the military and get thousands done in hours rather than days.

They are.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gps-rebel-over-order-to-delay-second-jabs-xsg6qxzcp

This has info both on the supply issue and also
Army medics are on hand to help and Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, said they could administer 750,000 vaccinations a week. He told Times Radio there were “plans for up to 250 teams of mobile, medically trained personnel”.

@ErrolTheDragon

[[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gps-rebel-over-order-to-delay-second-jabs-xsg6qxzcp]]

This has info both on the supply issue and also
Army medics are on hand to help and Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, said they could administer 750,000 vaccinations a week. He told Times Radio there were “plans for up to 250 teams of mobile, medically trained personnel”.

Blimey that would be amazing - I bet they won’t do that straight away though, I can’t imagine them asking over 70s to go and queue at football stadiums! That’ll be for us healthy lot much later on I bet 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

The Israelis are doing a great job for their population- not so good if you're a Palestinian...
And if you want to compare the U.K. against other countries, maybe a good idea to check against somewhere more comparable ...

www.npr.org/2020/12/31/952364150/as-israel-leads-in-covid-19-vaccines-per-capita-palestinians-still-await-shots

Obviously the other European nations have got off to an oddly slow start and hopefully will catch up with the U.K. soon.

I work in Israel and I’m not surprised that they are doing a great job. Very well organised plus they have national service.

I don't understand the comments that suggest it should be easier to vaccinate 2% of a smaller population. Surely resources scale with population size.

Also, in relation to conscription, it's not privates in the army who are doing the vaccinations. We have millions of people on furlough and should be paying and training everyone we can to deliver the Oxford vaccine as fast as humanly possible. The Pfizer vaccine was much more difficult but we don't have to worry about that any more.

Totally agree OP. I don’t understand why each vaccination needs a call to the individual to book an appointment. Surely they can set up an online system similar to the test centres? And why it hasn’t been set up already given that we’ve known for 6 months this is coming?

@formerEUcitizen

What worries me about the newly approved AZ Oxford vaccine, due to be rolled out on Monday (3 days' time) is that for months on end it will be sitting in fridges rather being injected into people because the mass vaccination plan simply doesn't exist. I can't say I've noticed any drive-through centres, notices in pharmacies/supermarkets - all those places that will be needed to get the vaccination into people as soon as possible. The GPs simply don't have the capacity - even the deep frozen vaccination is not being administered at the rate required, with all the limitations factored in for tricky logistics etc.

Mass vaccination plan DOES exist. DH knows several people involved in the planning. Also locally, they are setting up several drive through centres. So, things are happening.

@Bobbiepin

Why are our soldiers not being trained to vaccinate? Set up football stadiums with the military and get thousands done in hours rather than days.

Stadiums are being set up to use for mass vaccinations.

Fancy bringing back conscription? Because they are using their conscripted army to do that.

We could use our own unconscripted army to do the same if we had enough vaccine herecomesthesun No idea why our army isn't brought in to help when we do TBH.

@notevenat20

I don't understand the comments that suggest it should be easier to vaccinate 2% of a smaller population. Surely resources scale with population size.

Also, in relation to conscription, it's not privates in the army who are doing the vaccinations. We have millions of people on furlough and should be paying and training everyone we can to deliver the Oxford vaccine as fast as humanly possible. The Pfizer vaccine was much more difficult but we don't have to worry about that any more.

We still have to consider safety. People need to be trained to deliver the vaccines, need to know what to do if someone has a reaction, infection control procedures, etc. There's a mass recruitment campaign for vaccination staff, but all the applications have to be processed properly. It's not as simple as everyone on furlough just rolling up and starting to vaccinate.

I work for the NHS. We all want this vaccine rolled out a soon as possible and there's a huge amount of work going on to prepare.

Just rtft and the army is on call to help! Excellent. So not just Israel then.

@notevenat20

I don't understand the comments that suggest it should be easier to vaccinate 2% of a smaller population. Surely resources scale with population size.

Also, in relation to conscription, it's not privates in the army who are doing the vaccinations. We have millions of people on furlough and should be paying and training everyone we can to deliver the Oxford vaccine as fast as humanly possible. The Pfizer vaccine was much more difficult but we don't have to worry about that any more.

It must help being geographically small though especially when it comes to the logistics of the Pfizer vaccine.

I don’t understand why each vaccination needs a call to the individual to book an appointment. Surely they can set up an online system similar to the test centres?

Probably because they are starting with the over 80s/over 90s.

And to control the roll-out according to the criteria/prevent a mad rush crashing the system.