We need to be given an end date

[Billie18]

Vaccinations being rolled out and there will be a date when the elderly and/or vulnerable will have been vaccinated. It should be possible to announce a date now when this will have happened. On this date all restrictions should be lifted. Why has no date been given?

Mothering whites: good question. I used to work in vaccine manufacturing so here is some explanation.

There are a number of stages to making vaccines. You first need to culture the actual vaccines in large quantities. This is very specicialised as viruses reproduce in cells of other hosts. So they have to be cultured by introducing them to host cells...that can be eggs or cultivated cells. It then goes through a process to make it safe in humans, either through deactivating it or fragmenting it or similar. Then it needs to be purified, stabilised etc. It is very very specialised. It is very technical. It requires specialised facilities and specialised trained workforce. Lots of stuff can go wrong along the way. Relatively few pharmaceutical companies make vaccines because of this. Almost all of these are developing their own covid vaccines. And we need them to so we can have sufficient world wide supply. It would take 2 plus years to set up a new facility to increase capacity
Once you have the bulk vaccine it then needs dispensing into vials or syringes. This is the bit they call fill/finish. This is done under sterile conditions. Again specialised facilities and highly trained staff. It isn’t like filling say tablets into a bottle. It needs specialised equipment to screen for impurities, specialised air filtration. The vials it is filled into are typically irradiated- only certain suppliers can irradiate vials as this is obviously done in specialised facilities too.
All these facilities ( both bulk and fill finish) need to carry out laboratory testing throughout the processing steps, and undertake quality control and batch approval. Again that requires highly skilled workforce in specialised areas and equipment.

The vaccine manufacturers have always used some contract manufacturing facilities to be able to “flex” their capacity. But there are a limited number of of companies that are available to fill/finish vaccines. It is expensive to invest in as a contract operation.
Also, becuase pharmaceuticals are heavily regulated, all facilities and processes used to make the vaccines are registered as part of the approval by the national regulatory authorities. That means if you want to switch to another facility or change the process even slightly you have to submit a new variation in your li sense with EVERY individual countries regulatory authority you sell your product to. That take time, regulatory authorities take between 4-18 months to do this typically (depending on the country). It can be done and will be done for covid but it isn’t quick.

I read a government paper on line a couple of days ago that was the vaccine strategy. It was very interesting and did talk about how the government has stumped up cask upfront to secure additional capacity for fill finish lines with contract companies for the Astra Zeneca supply cha8n. It actually looked like they had worked proactively to try to build that capacity. The issue is that if you invest all that cash and the vacccine did not get approved or failed clinical trials then all that money would be wasted.
Each vaccine has its own production processes. Even fill finish lines have little flexibility to switch from one vaccine to another for 2 different companies - vial size or types might be different, filling environmental conditions differ etc etc. You can’t just switch around at the last minute

Does that help?

Cash not cask- and sorry for other typos- fat fingers

@Billie18

Well, OP, here's a slight blip which could end up with plans being altered:
www.thesun.co.uk/news/13718543/nurse-tests-covid-positive-month-after-first-dose-vaccine/

If more cases come up then they may have to change the amount of weeks between doses which could change how long it takes to roll it out to the vulnerable groups.

[quote Calmandmeasured1]**@Billie18

Well, OP, here's a slight blip which could end up with plans being altered:
www.thesun.co.uk/news/13718543/nurse-tests-covid-positive-month-after-first-dose-vaccine/

If more cases come up then they may have to change the amount of weeks between doses which could change how long it takes to roll it out to the vulnerable groups.[/quote]
It is not a blip...the vaccines are well publicised as being 75% or 95% effective (depending on which one). After both doses
The regulatory authorities gave approval based on this.
At least 3 in 100 people will get covid even after vaccination.
No surprises. No blips. No vaccine is 100% effective.

Reading this thread explains why the virus is out of control again. There are some very dim people around.

It beggers belief that there are people like the OP who think that Mummy and Daddy government just aren't telling them the answer.

OP you have been given dates in various briefings, but they are subject to change. The reason for this is that we are trying to do everything as fast and as safely as we can. If you don't care about it being over quickly then I am sure someone can formulate a plan for you. It will probably be something like June 2025.

Fortunately everyone is doing everything they can to try to bring it in more quickly than that and therefore, as per government briefings, we can probably start moving back down the tiers within the next couple of months.

You however are welcome to stay in lockdown until your hard-won confirmed definitive date of June 2025.

(disclaimer for anyone feeling stressed - June 2025 was pure hyperbole to illustrate the fact that a "confirmed date" would by necessity be far longer than the current approach of "as quickly as we safely can")

@DuchessofHastings1

Billie18

If that's the case, the date could potentially have been months ago.
80,0000 deaths with Covid, not necessarily because of Covid. 9 in 10 Covid deaths are people with underlying health conditions. Who knows how many actually have died because of Covid, not because they tested positive for it.

If we actually had clear reliable statistics, the actual Covid deaths could be a lot less than being reported.
Coupled with the deaths from people who are unable to get cancer treatments, serious operations or GP appointments so serious conditions can't be identified, suicides...it could be very likely that more people dying through the adverse effects of the lockdowns rather than Covid itself.

Statistical analysis published today for deaths in 2020. Highest number of deaths since 1918 and end of war and Spanish flu. You need to look at excess deaths last year. Even if deaths rates are looked at per 100,000 population last year was only beaten by 1918 and 1940 something in middle of war and another pandemic. Or something similar. Point is there are massive excess deaths in 2020 It actually doesn’t make a difference whether folks died of covid or with covid. We have excess deaths massively because of covid. If someone does not receive treatment for cancer and dies because the hospitals are full with covid, they might die of cancer but they potentially died prematurely because of covid. We will all die. It is the premature and excess deaths you need to think about. That is living years lost. Opportunities and experiences lost.

If the vulnerable have no immunity to a new variant then we're going to back to shielding and a new vaccine roll out etc.

It's not just the vulnerable though; nobody may have immunity when the next new strain arrives, and while they'd tweak the vaccines the time frame needed - and the spread which could happen in the meantime - could involve yet more lockdowns (rinse and repeat)

All of which is why the utter faith being placed in the vaccines may have to give way to a more realistic plan for simply living with this thing

I worked in vaccine production. They are difficult to make and supply chains can be unreliable.
A common comment is with vaccines “ you’ll never get what you ordered, you’ll never get it when you ordered it and sometimes you won’t get anything at all”
Boris said last week “ with a fair wind” we’ll have the over 80’s vaccinated by February. “Fair wind”to describe a vaccine roll out schedule is not a viable plan. It is their estimated, guesstimated, hope.
It is probably accurate at the time, but it will change probably each week due to unexpected events in the supply chain.

In that small part they have my sympathy in that having all your hopes on vaccine delivery is not a comfortable situation to be in. For The rest they do not have my sympathy at all .

@Puzzledandpissedoff

If the vulnerable have no immunity to a new variant then we're going to back to shielding and a new vaccine roll out etc.

It's not just the vulnerable though; nobody may have immunity when the next new strain arrives, and while they'd tweak the vaccines the time frame needed - and the spread which could happen in the meantime - could involve yet more lockdowns (rinse and repeat)

All of which is why the utter faith being placed in the vaccines may have to give way to a more realistic plan for simply living with this thing

The new strains are being tested against the vaccine developed. All those approved have confirmed that there is no reason they’ll not work, except some bigger questions on S Africa strain. That’s why Gov has clamped down on travel. The new technology used for the Pfizer type vaccine mean they can be adapted much much quicker than historical vaccines for new stains. Scientist are sampling and analysing the new strains all the time to stay one step ahead -that’s how the new uk variant was found...becuase they are tracking mutations. So, new strains may mean a variation in vaccine need to be developed- but not starting right from scratch again. To say this is why vaccine are limited is incorrect and ill informed

That's very interesting, @Imaginetoday. Thank you for sharing.

Out of interest, what is the approximate success rate for the MMR? I naively believed it was close to 100%.

BlueSky90

I have close ties with scientists working on vaccines also with those administering vaccines and they have mooted 2023 as a realistic timescale taking into account the time taken for all those resisting vaccine to be receptive to it.

The uk has ordered bugger all Pfizer and meoderna vaccines both with effectiveness rates of over 90. We are getting the oxford vaccine with closer to 50% effectiveness...this won't be over for the U.K. any time soon.

OP sounds like one of those plandemic types. Probably does her research on YouTube.

wixked

This is not true, I had the Pfizer vaccine several weeks ago.

@LookWhatLaCatDraggedIn everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows someone. 2023 is you just fear mongering.

@wixked and you!

@LookWhatLaCatDraggedIn the pandemic would be over by 2023 with no vaccine at all in all likelihood

I have close ties with epidemiologists and that's what they are mooting.

See, anyone can say anything!

Here’s the link to the latest ONS analysis on 2020 mortality

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-how-mortality-rates-in-2020-compare-with-past-decades-and-centuries-12185275

How could there be an "end date"

Jesus

namechangereq

That is not my intention at all to scaremonger. I've seen high level reports through my work. Believe me, I wish it would be sooner.

We have Pfizer being given to people right now and moderna on order. Oxford AstraZeneca is logistically easier to get out into the community and trials showed it preventing hospitalisations.

UK is not looking shabby when it comes to vaccination.

Plus there are other vaccines coming through which UK has orders for.

[quote namechangereq]@LookWhatLaCatDraggedIn the pandemic would be over by 2023 with no vaccine at all in all likelihood

I have close ties with epidemiologists and that's what they are mooting.

See, anyone can say anything![/quote]
And how many lives would be lost? Did they tell you that? The bubonic plague and Ebola plagues all fizzled out after a few years. Why? Because so many people died that it was harder to transmit and those that survived had immunity that made it harder to transmit. Sure, it’s a tactic called herd immunity but I think 1 person dieting every 2 minutes currently is unacceptable.

Dying not dieting

wixked

The uk has ordered bugger all Pfizer and meoderna vaccines both with effectiveness rates of over 90.
Reports state the UK Govt has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-vaccine/more-than-600000-people-in-uk-get-first-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-dose-idUKKBN28Y1XA?edition-redirect=uk

As of 29 November 2020, the UK Govt have ordered 7 million doses of the Moderna vaccine:
www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-secures-additional-2-million-doses-of-moderna-covid-19-vaccine