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!

Had my first vaccination this morning (frontline NHS).
It’s the second day of vaccinations. Extremely well-managed, the whole thing, including the 15 minute rest after, took 45 minutes...form filling, seeing a doctor to ask you some questions, and the vaccination itself. Very impressed, and those working there said they have had an amazing uptake, lots better than flu vac, which is encouraging.

Yesterday, when I was wearing full PPE, the thought of starting this process gave me a bit a of a lift, as the past few weeks have been one long nightmare.

We were on about 1 million at the beginning of the year I think.

So that is 500k in the first week of the year.

So 71k a day.
So about 3000 an hour.
49 a minute.

Roughly one every second.

Bam, someone else is now at less risk.
Bam.
Bam.
Bam.
Every single second.

Please let it also reduce transmission. The world will get so much better really quite soon if it does.

@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

We have the MHRA. When Boris was crowing about the UK having al osrts of world beating procedures etc, DNA testing for example, he actually wasn't kidding. We have one of the most flexible and responsive systems.

Anyone moaning about the check and measures slowing things down, like batch testing, or the patchy logistics, uneven coverage, needs to stop and think about the differences in roll out between the UK and other countries.

Then again, it could just be luck, or a mistake, or something that happened because... Martians! I'll wait and see what Robert Peston thinks... Pshaw!

@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

A few reasons but I think the main one is that until two days ago they only had one vaccine approved and it was the Pfizer one that's logistically the hardest to distribute. They also approved it later than us so are still ramping up, and will presumably get faster over the coming weeks and months. If and when they approve AstraZeneca they should be able to speed things up considerably.

There was also some controversy about the EU having ordered too few Pfizer doses and so now having to wait until the later part of 2021 to get more, as it's being distributed to countries on a first come first served basis. They were hoping to acquire an equal number (300m) from Sanofi, but they've had some issues with their trials, so those ones are not available yet and won't be for some time.

In addition they've committed to distributing vaccines among member states fairly according to population size, but that means the countries that are going faster (e.g. Germany) might end up running out if they vaccinate people faster than they can get new doses delivered, while others have spare shots in storage. There was talk recently about a few countries ordering vaccines for their own use directly from the manufacturers but I don't know whether anything has come of that.

Finally there's the usual administrative cock ups at a local and national level that happen everywhere. The Netherlands had to delay the start of the program because they set up the infrastructure for the AstraZeneca vaccine and didn't have the capability to distribute the one they actually got, the French system required people to fill out two consent forms and had a mandatory waiting period of days to allow for a change of mind, and in a few isolated places patients were mistakenly given a full vial of vaccine (!), which contains enough doses for 5-6 patients and is supposed to be diluted.

You have to remember though that the vaccines have only been approved for a few weeks and there are nearly 450 million people in the EU. It's a huge logistical challenge and I'm sure most of the problems will be ironed out once the systems get properly up and running.

Weepingwillow22 I'm scrolling all over that data at the moment! ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

And an opinion piece in the Washington Post last week about why the USA should consider delaying the second dose www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/03/its-time-consider-delaying-second-dose-coronavirus-vaccine/

Also some good news on the second vaccination. Firstly, all the people I know who had received the Pfizer version have had their second innoculation. Secondly, a friend who had her first Oxford jab yesterday asked if, when it came time for the second, would that slow down the rate of first jabs for other people in 12 weeks time. He was told that giving the second jab would be much quicker because if they hadn't had any reaction to the first they would not have any to the second. Meaning that there would be no waiting around for 10-15 minutes afterwards and they probably wouldn't even be seated so it would really be a production line. In - jab - out. Also no cleaning between patients.

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.

That information is coming imminently I think. The government dashboard has a section for number of vaccinations performed (under 'Healthcare') but at the moment it just says N/A if you look at anything lower than national level. The fact that it exists at both regional and trust level means the numbers should be filled in shortly though.

ConcernedAuntie - good, practical points. No consent or medical conditions questions either presumably.

And the numbers of GPs coming on board, addition of more pharmacists too, the geographical gaps will be filled more quickly.

The data will filter through to that dashboard quite quickly.

@thatgingergirl

ConcernedAuntie - good, practical points. No consent or medical conditions questions either presumably.

Yes, assuming that all done at the first visit. I'm sure they will just have to tick off names to record the second instalment.

The Moderna vaccination has now been approved in the UK, too. We won't start getting the supply until spring but it's good news - the more vaccination available, the quicker this will go.

One big difference between here and France is that in France it is up to the individual to make their appointment for the vaccine, whereas here you are called up automatically.

Why are other countries so slow?

We can big ourselves up on this occasion, but it'll be important to have a lot of people vaccinated in Europe once everyone goes off on their summer holidays.

That’s very interesting ConcernedAuntie.

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.

It’s the second day of vaccinations. Extremely well-managed, the whole thing, including the 15 minute rest after, took 45 minutes...form filling, seeing a doctor to ask you some questions, and the vaccination itself. Very impressed, and those working there said they have had an amazing uptake, lots better than flu vac, which is encouraging.

Excellent!

We were on about 1 million at the beginning of the year I think.

So that is 500k in the first week of the year.

So 71k a day.
So about 3000 an hour.
49 a minute.

Roughly one every second.

Bam, someone else is now at less risk.
Bam.
Bam.
Bam.
Every single second.

Great post @Mumoftwoinprimary!

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

Two reasons:

1. They paid a higher price in exchange for getting the available vaccines before other countries

2. Their population is small so it was physically possible for the manufacturers to fulfil the orders. A country like the US wouldn't have been able to get such a high percentage vaccinated by now even if they'd paid a premium for first delivery, because no-one has the production capacity to make ~80 million doses in such a short space of time.

psychomath - thanks for that. I went off to see if Israel were using the delayed 2nd dose protocol to help their rollout, and they're not, but they are worried about supply issues. www.timesofisrael.com/israels-vaccination-drive-said-likely-to-be-briefly-halted-next-week/

Hopefully the different suppliers in the UK and the dosing protocol will prove to have been the best options.

I torture myself with the bad news threads, then reward with threads like this
Loving the bam bam comment @Mumoftwoinprimary another one done, hurrah.

It's great but it'd also be great if I could actually get through to the booking line to book my blind 96 year old grandads appointment.
Not sure what it's like elsewhere but I've tried upwards of 30 times a day this week.

thatgingergirl no problem. I've been obsessing over the global vaccine rollout because it's more cheerful than obsessing over our own rising case numbers

@Mumoftwoinprimary

We were on about 1 million at the beginning of the year I think.

So that is 500k in the first week of the year.

So 71k a day.
So about 3000 an hour.
49 a minute.

Roughly one every second.

Bam, someone else is now at less risk.
Bam.
Bam.
Bam.
Every single second.

Please let it also reduce transmission. The world will get so much better really quite soon if it does.

Best post I’ve seen for a while 😁

@bravoy

** 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.

Israel has a small population, 9 million and due to conscription high numbers of military personnel and they are using the military to give out the vaccine.

Right now you sound like a vaccinating Barry Scott @mumoftwoinprimary. But, in a few weeks, when we triple that you'll sound like a machine gun

There was some speculation that Macron delayed the vaccine rollout in France because he was waiting for the French Sanofi vaccine to finish its trials - he wanted to support a French product instead of a British or US one.
The French in general are also much keener on complex bureaucracy and piles of unnecessary paperwork. Ask any poor soul who has tried to set up a business over there!