If a city is quicker at vaccinating, can they vaccinate further down the list?

[doireallyneedaname]

Just that.

If as an example my city has a small population of elderly and vulnerable and vaccination is completely within a month, would they move on down the list to vaccinate everyone else? Or will there be a pause?

Would it also not depend how many refuse the vaccine, which may be difficult to know on a national level? On the radio it was mentioned quite a few from BAME community in my area were refusing it.

Yes, definitely.

My mum in semi rural SW has hers next week. She's 74. Her surgery was down to under 77s last week. I am surprised as reasonably old demographic for her town so a sizeable elderly population.

Nothing confusing about it really. Why would I have it before the priority groups? I’m asking if I’m my city the priority groups are completed; would they immediately start the other groups or not.

@doireallyneedaname

You see, I received a text last night telling me where my mass vaccination centre is and that I’d be contacted within the coming weeks to book.

In my area everyone registered with our local GP received a generalised text, partly to stop so many people calling with enquiries regarding the vaccine.

OP at 32 you are right at the bottom of the list unfortunately, and unless you are clinically vulnerable you won't get a look in until over 50s have been vaccinated country wide.

You need to manage your expectations!

Supply is the limiting factor, due to manufacturing constraints and the time taken for the control sample from each batch to be quality tested. It's just not possible atm to make enough vaccine to motor through all the groups.

I don’t quite understand it. Our program has been delayed and is now starting next Saturday with the over 80s due to supply issues. So why are some areas cracking in with over 70s when we haven’t received enough supply to even start with the over 80s?

My friend has just been called up for hers and she's only 72. My surgery hasn't yet started, I think.

Yep here in our part of Kent we’ve had 2 local MPs working to try and get our vaccination program started. Fuck knows why it’s delayed this long. Was supposed to start this week but the latest update said they have IT issues. I’m supposed to be vaccinated by mid February as CEV and under 75. I doubt it some how!!

I thought I read somewhere that they would be slowing down the areas that were going faster by re-allocating the supply of vaccines to other areas that were able to speed up but for supply issues.

And that they wouldn't be starting on groups 5-9 until more of the whole country was done from groups 1-4 (i.e., waiting til most places were at least to group 4 before some places starting on groups 5-9).

But I don't know whether that was truth or speculation! I'd like to know too. I'm group 9, but in a place with fewer elderly people I think, though probably in the whole county there are a lot more elderly, just in the main city the population is skewed younger. So I was curious too when they might start to move down the groups. It'll still be a while before they get to group 9, though!

In my city, some GP practices seem to be setting up a consortium to work together to distribute AZ vaccines, and others are a different consortium and sending people to a central location for the Pfizer ones. They say on their website which group they're in. I don't know if the speed of the two groups will vary as well, and/or whether the choice of vaccine might change as it goes through the groups, depending again on supply.

They've obviously run out round here as the big vaccination centre across the road from us has been closed since Tuesday.

My opinion - it shouldn't be an exact science at the expense of getting the vaccinations to as many people as possible, but on the other hand, it should be close enough to the priority list to avoid a 'postcode lottery' situation.

Hopefully as the process progresses they will be able to learn from experience to allocate the resources logically.

My borough and the borough next door to me are both now doing the over 75’s as the other 80’s have (or all should have) been vaccinated.

My borough are saying the overs 70’s will be beginning the end of next week.

Thing is if they paused certain areas they’d have vaccination centres standing around doing nothing. That’s a massive waste of time and money too. Plus Government are wanting to be able to report maximum numbers being vaccinated, and rightly so. So I reckon they will just keep ploughing through, and I think that’s a good thing. Support the areas struggling to get quicker rather than wasting resources in the ones who are speeding ahead. My area is already doing the 70-75s

@user1471530109

I live in an area with a high proportion of elderly. They only started vaccinating over 80s just over a week ago. I'm group 6. So from what I've read on here, I could be waiting a lot longer than other areas of the country? Is that really fair? Should it not be that areas lagging behind (I'm assuming logistics caused us to be behind. We aren't near a large city) that more vaccine and personnel are deployed to support rather than we all just get pushed further behind?

No it's not "fair" but nothing about this is. It's not "fair" that clothes shop owners go out of business while food shop owners can continue trading. It's not "fair" that some children missed weeks of school to self isolate whereas others were in uninterrupted from September to December. It's not "fair" that some people die from the virus while others are asymptomatic.

The government want to vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, and that's what they're doing.

@user1471530109 - if you have a high proportion of elderly on your area, then when it gets to your group you'll be seen really quickly.

I just wonder if my area are saying they can’t even start until next weekend due to lack of supply how do other areas have so much supply that they can get on with the next groups? Our vaccination centre is there ready to go, supposed it be last week but we’ve had a two week delay.

I don’t quite understand but it’s good that lots of people in other areas are being done.

I also read they were trying to prevent it happening and the vaccine being a postcode lottery, so theoretically yes it can happen but they are attempting to manage supply so it doesn’t happen significantly
.

I'm in an area with a high proportion of elderly, so could also be waiting ages but will see what happens in stage 2. I work with the public though, so I'm just hoping that the Welsh government decides to make us priority.

I’ve just read we are 3-4 weeks behind our neighbouring counties. So for some reason it is a bit of a postcode lottery.

In areas of low populaiton density they will get ahead just because of the minimum number of vaccines to dispatch - our local surgery has completed all groups and is on to second doses again now - partly because the minimum number in a batch more than covers the population of the area.

The Telegraph has an article saying that some areas have had their supplies delayed to allow other areas that started later to catch up: www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/01/12/gps-leading-way-covid-vaccine-rollout-forced-slow/.

Pfizer suggesting it's logistics in the whole process seems odd. Potentially it's still the time to test batches, because it won't be the time for the army to take them to centres. I'd love to see a flow chart that says how many doses are at which stage of the process, and how long each stage takes right now.

There was a piece about this on R4 this morning- Glossop and Tameside doing amazingly well (women in charge of vaccine roll out, been planning since May to have drive through vaccination sites and practiced this with flu jab). They said they were either going to keep on down the list or offer themselves out to other local areas to get them up to speed. Was absolutely amazing.

@Delatron

I don’t quite understand it. Our program has been delayed and is now starting next Saturday with the over 80s due to supply issues. So why are some areas cracking in with over 70s when we haven’t received enough supply to even start with the over 80s?

They are not. The national position is only to do the first two cohorts but allows flexibility to call in over 75’s if these are complete. This is managed very well in most places. Not so well in others.

They've not even started on the over 80s in our village, and I live in an area with a very high percentage of older people.

They must be able to as MIL is 75y with no additional risk categories and had her first vaccine last week.
Friend's mum is in her 80s in the next city across and has not had her first vaccine yet.

I suspect some areas will have much large numbers of older people. For example, where I live there are many many elderly people, including two large set so far houses for older people. Compared to other areas in the city there will be a much greater demand in those first priority groups. I'm category 6 but where I live I can't see it coming any time soon!