How on earth will the vaccine schedule work in the medium term?

[Lifeaintalwaysempty]

Sorry if this has been covered before, but I don’t understand how the vaccine shedule will work on an ongoing basis?
The vaccine provides circa 6 months immunity, so possibly the entire population bar children under 16 will need to be vaccinated twice a year?
And what happens if the vaccine needs tweaking because of mutant strains- and you only just had yours, you have to wait six months to get protection again the new strains?
And what about resistant strains? You manage to get the entire adult population vaccinated but No one has any resistance against a new strain?
Any ideas? I can’t see how this will work and it feels like we will have at least 12-18 months of all this push and pull before they will be able to have a credible medium term plan in place as they’ll need at least 1-2 vaccine cycles done to see how this will really work.

It's a "novel" virus

That pretty much sums it up. Trial and error, unfortunately.

The vaccine provides circa 6 months immunity

It might provide a year's immunity. Or more. They don't know yet, because nobody was given it a year ago.

I reckon it gives more than 6 months immunity

Anecdotally, natural immunity from having had the virus itself is lasting longer than that

Ok fair enough let’s say it’s annual like flu. So what happens about mutant strains, if you’ve just had will you have to wait a year? Or then an extra vaccine cycle be introduced?
What if resistant strains take hold are we back to square one?
It feels like with all these questions to figure out it will take us a long time to get to heed immunity?

It will be like the flu vaccine which is tweaked every year

We will have a rough couple of years while we play catch up to the "novel" nature of this virus then things will settle down

Yeh that’s what I think 1-2 years to get this under control realistically.
Except it’s a lot more dangerous that flu so it will be a bumpy road in the meantime. That’s my worry.

I know

Regarding the strains, dont forget there's such a thing as partial protection, same as with flu. So if you have had flu, or a certain type of flu vaccine, it may not stop you catching a similar-but-not-identical strain but it can make it less severe. Same will go for coronavirus.

It will be trial and error for a while unfortunately.

However, just lessening disease severity would be a big win in the shorter term.

"The vaccine provides circa 6 months immunity,"

You meant ONLY 6 months, as in it completely expires (self-destructs) at precisely 6m.

Source for that (more clearly stated) claim?

I meant circa six months which is exactly what I said.
All the reports so far say six months, but as PP rightly points out, not enough time has lapsed to know how much longer it will last.

However the general consensus for a long time has been that we are likely need a booster at least annually.

Moderna have said at least a year for theirs. Could be longer though. Recent study suggesting immunity may last several years or even decades, although other scientists have said maybe 1 to 2 years on average with a wide range around that.
mobile.twitter.com/apoorva_nyc/status/1328751557719040001

Viruses mutate as they spread. With an entire population, hopefully most of the world, vaccinated, the virus won't be able to mutate several times a year as this one has as it won't be able to spread as much.

It's likely to behave much like the flu virus which mutates a little bit each year, and Australia, conveniently for us, tends to get the first new mutation so they tweak the vaccine to fit.

Thereafter annual covid jabs, same time as flu jabs. Probably to the same group of people given the flu jab has been given to half the UK population this year.

In the interim there will probably be some decent research about effective treatments for the newly infected that:
may keep them out of hospital; and
mostly reduce the illness to very mild in the acute phase; with
limited sequelae and perhaps reduced incidence of Long Covid.

RECOVERY trials have (sensibly) focused on treatments to:
reduce mortality;
reduce the numbers who need invasive ventilation;
keep people out of ICU; or
reduce the number of days in ICU.

It's possible that research effort will increasingly shift to treating Covid in the community. If so, there won't only be reduced chances of contracting Covid (herd immunity) but better treatment for it at an earlier stage.

It'll be a bit like when swine flu emerged and spread rapidly off-season and it took a few months to make the vaccine, and then another season to put it in to the normal annual shot.

I expect something like that wouid happen if a new variant emerged that completely escaped the vaccine

Which might mean a bumpy few weeks or months (and probably greater willingness to shut down long distance travel to buy time for new vaccine to be safely produced)

Whitty said today it likely confers five months’ benefit. We are potentially looking at a rolling programme of massive vaccinations with everyone needing four jabs a year. It will be expensive.

It will be expensive.

Not as expensive as lockdowns

Hopefully they’ll manage the logistics

What is the source for the 6 months immunity only? The 5 month figure I believe comes from the recent study about antibodies in people who've had the virus itself (not the vaccine) - and they're only saying 5 months because the study has lasted for 5 months so far and they obviously can't predict the future.

Most vaccines don't even need annual boosters. The flu vaccine is annual because the flu virus mutates quickly so they need to tweak it a bit each time to hopefully make it the most effective it can be that particular year.

Patrick Valance specifically said even if the current covid vaccines are not as effective for new variants down the line, they are likely to still give some protection compared to not having been vaccinated at all as they create such a strong antibody response.

Most likely it will become an annual vaccination programme like we have for flu - free for the eligible groups and probably available privately from pharmacies for others.

The UK has a good infrastructure for annual flu vaccines. I think 15 million people had one in 19/20 via a variety of channels (school, GP, pharmacy etc.). Of all the things I worry about, the logistics of an annual jab ain’t one.

@EmbarrassingAdmissions

In the interim there will probably be some decent research about effective treatments for the newly infected

Let's hope so

I also want to believe that immunity either from the vaccine or natural infection will last longer than 6 months. Indeed vaccinating all the vulnerable every 6 months does not appear to be a viable solution at the moment

It looks as if PRINCIPLE trial will shortly start trials in treatments for people at home.

Researchers at Oxford University are planning the first, large high-quality trial of a cheap drug that has been credited with dramatically reducing Covid-19 deaths in the developing world.

The Principle trial is hunting for treatments that could be used at home soon after symptoms appear. The aim is to find a medicine that makes an impact during the earliest stages of disease, preventing severe illness.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trial-for-covid-wonder-drug-that-could-save-thousands-of-lives-99jc07v2s

I’m worried they won’t get to the younger age groups this year, as will have to go back to revaccinating the older age groups in July / august