1.5 million people vaccinated already - brilliant!

[buttery81]

They’ve vaccinated 1.5 million people so far and the target is 13.9 million people (the top 4 groups in the attached graphic) by the middle of February, according to ITV. It’ll be a fantastic achievement if they can hit that target.

The government will be providing daily updates on the vaccine rollout progress from Monday 11th January.

It’s such a relief that they’ve got this vaccine and are rolling it out quickly across the country. Considering that it’s only 8th January today, I truly feel like 13.9 million by mid February is achievable.

Come on, let’s do this!

Yes take up expected to be around 70% but they are saying it has been better so far.

Plus as a poster on another thread pointed out. The official count of vaccinations is probably a bit short. Likely there are vaccinations done but not officially recorded yet. Look at the way deaths are announced for a start.

Good. The more the better. But even if there's 'only' a 90% take up, you can significantly close the daily gap between what we achieved yesterday and the daily number required to hit the February goal.

Due to snow and the clientale (elderly who mostly can't realistically walk to the hub in normal times unless they brave very muddy foothpath) -- I'm pretty sure no vaccines are happening at our local hub today. I'll let you know when I go by later!

Daughter got done yesterday as she was volunteering at the vaccine centre and they had left overs!

Numbers are going to go up massively per day over the next week or so as well.

The pharmacies are starting up over the next week or so. The city I live in is getting a “second wave” mass vaccination hub from Monday and presumably this is one of many.

I’ll be very interested to see how many they do at the weekends. If they can keep the rate up at the weekend I reckon they will make the Feb 15 date.

Figures for yesterday were 3,234,946 people who've received at least one dose of vaccine, and 3,316.019 people who've tested positive for covid in the UK since March. Even allowing for the expected number of new infections, that means by the end of today we should have more people vaccinated than confirmed to have had covid since the pandemic began!

Oh my god, please save me from the rest of this site. I know this is scary and worrying and hard but the number of people who are determined we will NEVER open up again because the vaccine isn't enough on its own to save us. What are people really expecting? That we all sit in forever more because if we do otherwise, there will be deaths. We can't get rid of this virus permanently. It's really really bad for vulnerable people to come on here and see all the endless doom and when you're at your lowest it's quite hard not to get sucked in.

I keep thinking even in 2 weeks we'll all feel a tiny bit brighter. The longer days will help, we'll be that bit closer to spring and so many more will be vaccinated.

I also saw this excellent chart that someone made showing the percentage of the vaccinated population scaled to mortality rates. I don't think it's exactly accurate because I think they're using estimated average mortality of everyone in groups 1-4 for the red bar, when in reality some of the people who've had the vaccine will be elderly and some will be carers and NHS staff with very different risk profiles. But it gives a good general indication of where we're currently at.

The way to interpret it is that if everyone in the UK became infected with covid now, the top bar estimates the percentage of deaths that would be prevented if a single dose of vaccine is 100% effective. The current target is to hit the end of the red region by February (so May for the second dose).

When you look at it like that, it really does look like we could be getting closer to the end of this thing in this country. Combined with today's headlines that all UK adults will be able to get vaccinated by July if current rates continue, this year already looks much brighter than last.

I read this column by Janice Turner in the Times this morning and thought people on this thread might like it.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-vaccine-has-brought-out-the-best-in-us-ztjh9ct8n?shareToken=cef7f0f89265a5353d82a26b4820c0ba

“all UK adults will be able to get vaccinated by July if current rates continue,‘.

At current rates in Scotland, we will take about 6 months longer...

Not according to Sky, pawsbaws!

ErrolThe Dragon - that's a great article!

[quote ErrolTheDragon]I read this column by Janice Turner in the Times this morning and thought people on this thread might like it.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-vaccine-has-brought-out-the-best-in-us-ztjh9ct8n?shareToken=cef7f0f89265a5353d82a26b4820c0ba[/quote]
Great article, thanks for sharing! I loved how the author said she was reminded of the London Olympics spirit of coming together to achieve something 😊

@psychomath
When you think about deaths, then I agree. It looks very promisingly that they will come down massively in the next 2-3 months.
However that doesn’t help the working age adults who don’t die from it so much but many many many end up in intensive care. It is they who are filling up the ICUs not the elderly(extremely few 80+ are put in ICU). You can’t have hospitals permanently full of covid patients because of means more people will die of other things.
So unfortunately I think we need to have the majority of adults vaccinated before we really can breathe a sigh of relief. Personally I think there is a strong case for all key workers (including teachers) to be vaccinated ASAP as they are the ones both most likely to catch it, to inadvertently spread it, and also in many cases most likely to end up in ICU. Vaccinating the 70 plus group will help the deaths a lot (which is good) but I do think will necessarily help the general case rates (as the 70+ I know are hiding at home anyway) or the hospitalisations in a significant way

Ps @psychomath
Obviously if we do manage to vaccinate the vast majority of adults by July that is amazing and will be the game changer. As it would suggest that a very large chunk are vaccinated by May or so.

But the issue isn't specifically the number of people in ICU, its beds in hospital taken up with covid patients.

If an over 80 is taken to hospital they may not go into ICU but presumably they are still in a hospital bed having some sort of treatment to ease their symptoms, even if it is on a more palliative level. There are also a number of patients who dont require hospital treatment but are stuck there because care homes can't/won't take them back.

How many of these "younger" people end up in ICU because they weren't able to get adequate treatment because of the lack of beds in standard covid care wards?

@InterfectoremVulpes
Yes you are quite right I was merely saying that if we vaccinate 88% of those likely to die, that is obviously very good, but doesn’t help the hospital situation (much) so although it does get the death rate down it doesn’t bring us anywhere near ending the pandemic
Vaccinating working age adults however will be a massive step forward

But it does help the hospital situation.

The over 80's still account for the largest group being admitted to hospital. If those numbers were reduced that would mean there would be greater capacity in terms of beds, staff and equipment to treat the younger age groups and prevent them becoming ill enough to require ICU.

Re the additional major hubs, I work in racing and we’re aware of at least 5 racecourses that have been approved to operate as vaccination centres but to my knowledge only 1 (Epsom) is currently operating.

From what I’ve read they are aiming for 50 such centres online by the end of January - only 7 are currently open. Getting those online will see a massive ramping up of vaccination numbers.

@CaveMum
that's great. Let's hope they can get the supply sorted as there seems to be issues with the Pfizer at least.

@psychomath

I also saw this excellent chart that someone made showing the percentage of the vaccinated population scaled to mortality rates. I don't think it's exactly accurate because I think they're using estimated average mortality of everyone in groups 1-4 for the red bar, when in reality some of the people who've had the vaccine will be elderly and some will be carers and NHS staff with very different risk profiles. But it gives a good general indication of where we're currently at.

The way to interpret it is that if everyone in the UK became infected with covid now, the top bar estimates the percentage of deaths that would be prevented if a single dose of vaccine is 100% effective. The current target is to hit the end of the red region by February (so May for the second dose).

When you look at it like that, it really does look like we could be getting closer to the end of this thing in this country. Combined with today's headlines that all UK adults will be able to get vaccinated by July if current rates continue, this year already looks much brighter than last.

The message we get is every 20 vaccines in care homes saves a life.

[quote Frazzled2207]@InterfectoremVulpes
Yes you are quite right I was merely saying that if we vaccinate 88% of those likely to die, that is obviously very good, but doesn’t help the hospital situation (much) so although it does get the death rate down it doesn’t bring us anywhere near ending the pandemic
Vaccinating working age adults however will be a massive step forward[/quote]
I’m not sure this thread is a place to endlessly debate this point. The thread is aimed success not disagreement. Experts have weighed up the options and the benefits to the Nation. Let’s leave it there.

At the end of the day the country won't properly open up until every adult that wants a vaccine has had both doses.

We need to see the number continually going up and capacity increasing to get this done ASAP. There are benefits and drawbacks to whatever order this is done in.

I will continue to volunteer at least until that is done. Hopefully we will see gradual and small easing of restrictions. We just need to know that the vaccine supply isn't going to slow us down,

@LemonTT
Fair point, I’ll 🤐

I’ve just done some sums. This link from BBC news gives the likelihood of people of different ages being Covid positive and in hospital in general and intensive care:-

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55586994

I nabbed population off the government site (note - this isn’t perfect as the rates are for England and the population numbers are UK but close enough), shoved it in a spreadsheet, did a little sumproducting and can give the split of age groups who are Covid positive and in intensive care:-

0-15 2%
16 - 44 17%
45 - 64 43%
65 - 74 27%
75 - 84 10%
85+ 2%

This means that once we are through all 65+ (So first 5 groups - there are about 3 million 65 - 69 year olds so will take about 9 days so hopefully by Feb 24th) then that is 39% of current intensive care bed holders no longer there.

For Covid positive hospital admissions in general the over 65s are 61% and the over 75s (so first 3 groups) are 44%.