Telegraph live feed: The advice at the moment is vaccines are not going to do the heavy lifting for us at the moment, anywhere near it

[bathsh3ba]

From the Telegraph live feed at www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-covid-news-vaccine-uk-lockdown-deaths-cases-scotland/

'Hopes of restrictions being lifted soon are fading too. Asked if the lockdown would be kept in place if infection figures dropped, Sir Patrick said: "The advice at the moment is vaccines are not going to do the heavy lifting for us at the moment, anywhere near it.

"This is about, I'm afraid, the restrictive measures which we're all living under and carrying on with those...This is a really difficult, dangerous situation we're in, and we need to get the numbers down, so I don't see a release of these measures as being a sensible thing to do in the short term."'

And Patrick Vallance saying:

'"As (chief medical officer) Chris Whitty has said as well, I don't think that we can assume that there won't be anything needed next winter.

"Now, it's more likely to be making sure that we wear masks in certain places, making sure that we keep up with hand washing, making sure that we're sensible about the way in which we interact with people in indoor environments - that's the sort of thing that you might anticipate.'

If vaccines are not 'the way out', and even with vaccines we are going to have to mask and distance as part of everyday life for another year - what is the actual point of all this energy going into vaccination? It doesn't look like it's going to make much of a difference, from what has been said.

That’s not what that says at all though. Vaccinations aren’t going to release lockdown in the very short term. As for restrictions next winter if they are talking about wearing masks and social distancing in shops etc I don’t think that is too much of a hardship if it means there isn’t another winter lockdown.

They are not doing the heavy lifting at the moment

.....and even with vaccines we are going to have to mask and distance as part of everyday life for another year - what is the actual point of all this energy going into vaccination
Because it’s (maybe) a year instead of forever.

Sounds about right.

Yes, it's great for morale that we have so many people getting first jabs. But they won't be fully protected until 2 weeks after their second jab.

So getting the pool of fully vaccinated most vulnerable (which will make a huge difference) is still taking as long as it would do if people were being done at 3weekly interval. The only difference is that more people have a modicum of earlier protection.

Someone getting their jab this week would get their second around 8 April, and be protected from 22 April

The only difference is that more people have a modicum of earlier protection

Well, and the general lack of dying after one jab, there's that small thing too.

Take a deep breath. That all sounds like doom and gloom but is really just stating the reality, trying to manage expectations.

It can't be easy for them. We have a vaccine, more than one, and because of the ridiculous over simplification and/or general misinformation that proliferates, they have to repeatedly tell us sour news. They can't be overly optimistic... there will be some journalist happy to misinterpret what they say, again and again and again!

All it really means is that no vaccine works immediately or gives 100% coverage. So we can't relax and go back to normal as that would make things much worse. We have to wait until enough people have had the vaccine.

Next year we may, some or all of us, need a booster, repeat vaccine to maintain herd immunity levels.

Think of it like the regular flu vaccine programme. Some need it every year, others don't.

Yes, I know that's all oversimplified, but it is the gist of what is happening.

Well, there's a world of difference between having to wear a mask in the shops and remember basic hand hygiene to having business and schools closed, with the economic, educational and social implications of the current situation, so that feels like quite a bit of 'heavy lifting' even if it's not 100% back to how things were?

The Telegraph, like most newspapers, loves to sensationalise.

I listened to Patrick Vallance and he was not that gloomy, just cautious. As you'd expect. The vaccines aren't going to work overnight, but they will work. It will just take time. Yes, they may need to be tweaked and/or repeated but that's not such a big deal.

@SexTrainGlue

Sounds about right.

Yes, it's great for morale that we have so many people getting first jabs. But they won't be fully protected until 2 weeks after their second jab.

So getting the pool of fully vaccinated most vulnerable (which will make a huge difference) is still taking as long as it would do if people were being done at 3weekly interval. The only difference is that more people have a modicum of earlier protection.

Someone getting their jab this week would get their second around 8 April, and be protected from 22 April

It means that the most vulnerable won't be protected very much for several months.

It means that the most vulnerable won't be protected very much for several months

It means double the number of vulnerable people are protected from death and the worst of the illness.

I'm baffled that anyone could read 'vaccines work but the benefits won't kick in until x' (which we knew all along anyway, nobody has ever said vaccines work from the moment they enter your body) and hear 'there's no point in vaccines because they don't work'.

However it is still great that we have not one but several vaccines and that there is hope for us to come out of this.

It means double the number of the vulnerable are protected

That depends a bit on just how effective the one dose is in the most vulnerable at preventing death and hospitalisation.

With the Pfizer one, the research was not done with just the one injection, so we don't know for sure how well the proposed plan of eking out doses will work.

There are possible pitfalls, although there are also arguments in favour of eking out the doses among more people. I would reasonably hope that there has been careful thought and scientific argument about this, although in the absence of research data, we may just have to suck it and see, and be very careful till a huge number have had the jab.