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!

It's an absolutely massive achievement. It makes me feel really proud. I STILL have people on my Facebook going 'fucking Boris, fucking Tories messing the vaccination programme up,' and despite the fact I am not remotely right wing I am still baffled by their relentless negativity. They've been like that through the whole pandemic. We are storming ahead getting as many protected as possible. Every day that goes by we are moving towards things being better, however horrendous things are in hospitals right now.

But properly, which is two doses.

Except there is lots to suggest that waiting longer between the doses leads to better immunity. So...

What choice do you have but to rush when people are dying in droves?

Every day that goes by we are moving towards things being better

This. I’m actually looking forward to the daily government briefings that will share the vaccination figures. I stopped watching the briefings ages ago but will be tuning in again from Monday!

We’ve got a long way to go to hit the 13.9 million target, but there’s no doubt that there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. Come on!!

@Peggyslantern

But properly, which is two doses.

Except there is lots to suggest that waiting longer between the doses leads to better immunity. So...

What choice do you have but to rush when people are dying in droves?

And we are in a race against the new variant. The trade off is vaccinate more with one dose now but lower immunity or fewer with two doses and higher immunity. The UK experts have advised that they think the first option is likely to save lives.

That said some people are obviously still getting two doses because I keep seeing it on the news.

** It's very good news, hopefully my mum will get one soon.

Does anyone know why we seem to be so far ahead of the rest of Europe?

I heard on the radio it was something to do with the fact there wasn't clear consensus between the countries & signing it off took longer.

Israel has done fantastically too but I've not read how.

Well done to all those involved in the vaccination programme.

Keep going and up the monty - let's get all the over 80's done and all care home residents whatever age/their carers and NHS staff ASAP

Then the next group...

I feel far more optimistic about this at the end of this week than I did at the start of the week. It feels as if things have moved on significantly and communications are far clearer. I emailed my MP at the start of the week to express my concern as to how progress felt very slow in our area and got a really good response detailing local statistics. He confirmed that they are not as on target as they would like due to the availability of the vaccine (also reported in the press) and not because they aren’t prepared for the humongous task of getting it out to people. There is an expectation that the vaccine will be much more widely available particularly now that there is more than one option. Hopefully we will see some real progress now.

Does anyone know why we seem to be so far ahead of the rest of Europe? They seem very slow in administering it so far

They were a bit slower to get regulatory approval. This then ran into the Xmas holiday season (not joking). Foot was taken massively off the gas as people took their regular annual leave and the roll out projects either halted or ticked over until the new year. Genuinely.

@herethereandeverywhere

Does anyone know why we seem to be so far ahead of the rest of Europe? They seem very slow in administering it so far

They were a bit slower to get regulatory approval. This then ran into the Xmas holiday season (not joking). Foot was taken massively off the gas as people took their regular annual leave and the roll out projects either halted or ticked over until the new year. Genuinely.

Got to love our approach over this.

@Propsneeded

Good post Props. Let's 'av it!

Some good news for a change!

We also have 3-4 ways to treat sufferers that we didn't in the beginning.

Ideally the dashboard would also display how many people have had both doses and acquired full immunity.

You can easily foresee a situation in four months where hordes of vulnerable people still haven’t had their second dose and we don’t how much immunity they now have (20%? 30%?). Either due to not enough capacity, or because we’ve used up all our Pfizer vaccine on first doses, so the only choices are to leave them with only one dose, or top up with a different vaccine (eg Astrazeneca), which they’ve already signalled they would be willing to do, and which is completely unproven as a strategy.

I don’t trust the government not to fuck up this rollout long term, like they have everything else in this pandemic.

It does exactly that, 21,313 have had a second dose.

@Peggyslantern

It's an absolutely massive achievement. It makes me feel really proud. I STILL have people on my Facebook going 'fucking Boris, fucking Tories messing the vaccination programme up,' and despite the fact I am not remotely right wing I am still baffled by their relentless negativity. They've been like that through the whole pandemic. We are storming ahead getting as many protected as possible. Every day that goes by we are moving towards things being better, however horrendous things are in hospitals right now.

Boris Johnson could dive into a river and save a drowning newborn and people would find a reason to moan about it.

Both my parents have had their second pfizer dose, unfortunately today loads have had to cancel bookings due to the snow and being unable to travel, hopefully the doses can be given to healthcare workers and not wasted

Don't forget they want thousands of volunteers to help with Marshalling... Please ease please if you have any time.. Sign up.

Also many pharmacies are asking people to contact them to help out.

There is interesting data here on covid vaccinations. We seem to be vaccinating about 50,000 a day although the data only runs to Jan 3rd. Hopefully more recent data shows a ramping to get near the target.

@Forgetmenot157

This post reminds me of when a MumsNetter was handwringing about Johnson staying up to do the night feeds and to give Carrie a break, and that’s why he wasn’t around doing the briefings.

If someone has a track of being a flop - failed Test and Trace, Operation Moonshot - it’s safe to assume that will continue unless there’s evidence to the contrary. It’s not cynicism, it’s common sense.

@cathyandclare
I think it's a combination of the MHRA being set up to be flexible and responsive to applications, so approval was quicker. The EMA approval meeting for Pfizer was way after it was approved in the UK. Also we were able to procure vaccines independent of the EU. I'm an ardent remainer but it's one area where we were able to be more responsive than Europe

Its great news we have vaccinated so many but its simply not true to say we 've done this independent of the EU, we were in transition last year, subject to ALL the rules as any other EU country, EMA/EU rules allow for any Eu country to procure its own vaccine and give it emergency approval,
One downside is now the MHRA have to give separate emg approval for each batch of vaccine..... thats slowing things down, as its taking 20 days, they plan on getting it down to

There is some concerns that vaccinating with one dose could lead to the virus learning to ‘dodge the vaccine’ when there are a lot of people waking around with renewed confidence having only been half vaccinated. It could go horribly wrong. Fingers crossed it doesn’t.

One scientist said that when he is trying to create a vaccine resistant mutation for research purposes in the lab he would do exactly what the Uk are doing which is concerning.

In my local area they are already onto the over 75s group. They did all care home residents and staff in 2 days. It’s amazing.

I had mine yesterday
And I am also a vaccinator for my trust! It felt SO GOOD to be fighting the coronavirus bitch as I injected my colleagues!!

What's this - an uplifting thread?
And now they have another vaccine on board - 10m will be available from March!
Onwards and upwards and jabs in arms!
news.sky.com/story/covid-19-uk-approves-use-of-modernas-coronavirus-vaccine-12150649

@Turnedouttoes

Does anyone know why we seem to be so far ahead of the rest of Europe? They seem very slow in administering it so far

I think there was a slow start as individual EU countries were not allowed to go ahead on their own and the EU were much slower than us to approve the vaccines. A small benefit of Brexit I guess?

As well as the numbers vaccinated I would like to see where those numbers are. Health care is very much a postcode lottery and I live in an area which does badly in many ways. When I had cancer treatment it was very different in my area to that in London and big cities.