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!

@sashagabadon I struggle to read it on anything anymore. Always finding the negative angle. Does nothing for my will to live.

@Mumoftwoinprimary I saw deaths were down week on week too! If you look at the cases graph and the deaths graph they eventually mimic each other with a lag. And it’s happening again now! So happy. I think we are going to see deaths really ratcheting down now a lot.

@buttery81 and why do people share articles like this that are so vague. Do they want to encourage people to reject being vaccinated? Really? Media doing this frankly have blood on their hands because if there is one less person who wants to get vaccinated because of this it is such a tragedy.

Yes the parents analogy I heard today by the scientists pushing back at those wanting to vaccinate fewer people with two doses even if the benefit of that is 2% additional protection. The other thing I cannot get my head around too is that the 2% additional protection means that you have a 2% more chance of having no symptoms at all. The other 11% or 9% (one dose vs two doses) is mild symptoms. So why people are getting hysterical about it is because they are not close enough to the studies and the numbers. Must drive Chris Whitty insane.

And by the way. Before anyone asks again. The reason for giving two doses with a 12 week gap is because it confers longevity.

The problem is the press are not giving people your lovely clear explanation of the vaccine efficiency and why the delay is a good thing.

The press are wanting big news stories and they properly also don't understand enough about the vaccines themselves.

@Blessex

And by the way. Before anyone asks again. The reason for giving two doses with a 12 week gap is because it confers longevity.

I love whitty but they need you at those briefings too.

Love the way you make everything so easy to understand and cut through any crap.

The scientists angle so far on the side of caution I think a lot of people get confused

[quote Blessex]@buttery81 and why do people share articles like this that are so vague. Do they want to encourage people to reject being vaccinated? Really? Media doing this frankly have blood on their hands because if there is one less person who wants to get vaccinated because of this it is such a tragedy.

Yes the parents analogy I heard today by the scientists pushing back at those wanting to vaccinate fewer people with two doses even if the benefit of that is 2% additional protection. The other thing I cannot get my head around too is that the 2% additional protection means that you have a 2% more chance of having no symptoms at all. The other 11% or 9% (one dose vs two doses) is mild symptoms. So why people are getting hysterical about it is because they are not close enough to the studies and the numbers. Must drive Chris Whitty insane.[/quote]
I think a lot of the people complaining assume they (or their parents etc) would be in the group that gets two doses, rather than the group that gets 0.

Running some numbers...

When this thread was started, 27 days ago, 1.5 million had been vaccinated. Assume for ease of maths that they were all done on the day the thread started. I know they won't have been, but close enough for some back of the envelope figures.

Immunity would have kicked in 14 days ago. So that cohort has been protected for 13 days as of today. Say two weeks, again for ease of maths.

The ONS were reckoning that around 1 in 50 per week were getting it, right? So, without vaccination, you would expect 1.5 million/50, or 30,000 of those to have caught it, per week. Over two weeks, that's 60,000.

If the vaccine is 90% effective you would still expect 6000 cases in that cohort alone. Plus the tens of thousands who would have caught it in the first two weeks post-vaccination.

Please, check my maths. But, on the face of it, we should not be suprised by reports of cases in the post-vaccination group. What matters is how many of them there are compared to the rest of us. And the Israel evidence is very positive there.

Agree on the irresponsibility of the reporting.

@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum that’s very kind of you. It is frustrating that the government cannot seem to get a very simple bullet point messaging across. It is wishy washy and it does them ZERO favours. But equally I then wonder how much of that is indeed in the reporting. So JNVT today was saying that people who have been vaccinated must be careful. He means they need to be careful for 2 reasons. Firstly, it takes 2 weeks for the Pfizer jab to kick in and 3 weeks for the Oxford jab. Don’t go catching Covid within that period. I keep drumming that into my mum and dad. Secondly they don’t know yet if being vaccinated reduces transmission eg you can still catch it and be symptomless or have mild symptoms so don’t go out and about giving it to others. The press kept covering that today focussing on the second of the two. Why can’t they clearly communicate both. And as said it is highly irresponsible of journalists to report on vaccination if they don’t have very deep understanding of the numbers. They are literally falsely worrying people and putting them off getting vaccinated. Anyway enough of that. Let’s bask in the nearly half a million number today. Everyday that goes by more people are much safer.

@psychomath ha yes I read that today too. People clamouring to give fewer people two doses shut down when asked who they should de-prioritise a first dose to to enable that to happen. They literally shut down.

492,000 vaccinated yesterday (Saturday)

6.4M in total

Very impressive!!

Today’s “target” graph looks good - so very close!

Thank you for this lovely positive thread. I’ve been doing some very rough calculations in my head. Please feel free to correct my assumptions and mental arithmetic. Here goes:
We’re leaving 12 weeks between doses. Assuming the few who got done in December have had their first dose as I know some did early on.
So I’m assuming first doses start 1 Jan. second doses start needing to be done 1 April.
We’ve done just over 6 million right? We’ve got 9 weeks until 1 April when capacity will have to swap over to doing the second doses. If we average half a million a day (reasonable??) for the next 63 days that’s 31.5 million first doses. Plus the 6 we’ve already done gives 38.5 million adults had first dose by Easter. Is there something like 53 million adults in total? So I make that 70% of adults done by Easter. Then maybe 3 months to do all the second doses by which time capacity will probably be increased so the remainder of the adults can be done simultaneously.
I feel like we’ll be such a good position by late spring if everything goes to plan with these vaccines.

I can see the argument for the 12 week spacing- more people getting at least one dose.

On the other hand, the BMA are asking for the spacing to be reduced to 6 weeks and I can see there could be an argument for that too. It would be closer to the original regime in the Pfizer research and there is an argument for the most extremely vulnerable and the most exposed to have complete courses of vaccine sooner.

There is also an absence of evidence for 12 week spacing being as effective (although it might well be, but we don't know at this stage).

I'm very happy to have either one or 2 doses of vaccine whenever it becomes available to me to be honest, I'm just very relieved we have them!

@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum

The problem is the press are not giving people your lovely clear explanation of the vaccine efficiency and why the delay is a good thing.

The press are wanting big news stories and they properly also don't understand enough about the vaccines themselves.

You'd have thought that "Vaccinations up 40% week-on-week" would be a good enough headline. The tabloids shout about increases in cases or fatalities as loud as they can but are strangely quiet when there's some good news to report.

@Zogstart

Thank you for this lovely positive thread. I’ve been doing some very rough calculations in my head. Please feel free to correct my assumptions and mental arithmetic. Here goes: We’re leaving 12 weeks between doses. Assuming the few who got done in December have had their first dose as I know some did early on. So I’m assuming first doses start 1 Jan. second doses start needing to be done 1 April. We’ve done just over 6 million right? We’ve got 9 weeks until 1 April when capacity will have to swap over to doing the second doses. If we average half a million a day (reasonable??) for the next 63 days that’s 31.5 million first doses. Plus the 6 we’ve already done gives 38.5 million adults had first dose by Easter. Is there something like 53 million adults in total? So I make that 70% of adults done by Easter. Then maybe 3 months to do all the second doses by which time capacity will probably be increased so the remainder of the adults can be done simultaneously. I feel like we’ll be such a good position by late spring if everything goes to plan with these vaccines.

12 weeks from January 1st is March 26th. Obviously that is the date by which they must be done at the very latest rather than a start date.

@DdraigGoch don’t they just. Do you think it is just bad news that sells? That’s really sad if so and says a lot about the state of the nation :-(.

@herecomesthsun I totally see what you are getting at here re 6 weeks. If the trial numbers are to be believed though then one dose is enough for short term protection. I guess the trial numbers are all they have to go by.

Love this thread. And my parents got the call to have their vaccine next week. And PILs have been done as well.

@AnneElliott woohoo. It’s such a relief isn’t it. Remember to tell them to really be careful 2 weeks after Pfizer and 3 weeks after Oxford. That’s when it will kick in. So good to hear all these people getting protected.

Do you think it is just bad news that sells?

Judging by 99% of the threads on the Mumsnet coronavirus board? YES!

@peasoup8 and that’s why we love this thread :-)

I have criticised this government throughout the pandemic, heavily. However, the vaccine rollout is incredible and is making me feel so proud to be part of the nation delivering it so efficiently. I feel immensely proud of the NHS and all volunteers involved, as well s the scientists who helped make it possible from all nations. Thank goodness this wasn't given to a third party to administer like the testing was, we wouldn't be anywhere near this stage.

They have been calling the 60+ age group in my area today.

Sorry, I can't read the full thread right now but is the protection really 85% with one vaccine? That's fabulous if true.

@namesnamesnamesnames

They have been calling the 60+ age group in my area today.

Wow really? That is amazing. The first time I have heard any area has got that far. You must be pretty pleased with your local vaccination teams.