WHO urges Britain to pause covid jabs after treating the vulnerable

[Jay2020]

Link

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/30/who-urges-britain-to-pause-covid-jabs-after-treating-vulnerable

I am beyond broken if this means we can't get to any kind of normality.

Why do you think it means we won't go back to normal? The aim was always to vaccinate the vulnerable to allow restrictions to be lifted. It's not such a deadly disease to those who aren't vulnerable.

It sounds fair to me, tbh. It's not very palatable to think that people who are least at risk might get vaccinated whilst another country's CEV population can't get any vaccination.

My wife has witnessed enough under 45s with no underlying health conditions die in the last few weeks!

I'm 28 I want my vaccine, asking as there is a risk I want it

I think we should just carry on as we are. I'll be annoyed if we don't. So I agree with you.

Where is the line drawn? 65? 60? 70?

I've seen this and was also annoyed by it. Same World Health Organisation who praised China and advocated NOT blocking any flights until end of February.
I hope we continue to vaccinate our population and contribute to Novavax as planned.

What if you're 49, work in a school and have underlying health conditions but none of the ones officially identified, so you'll just miss qualifying for the vaccination? There's a lot of 40+ in hospital...

Just Britain? Rest of the world can just crack on?

Also, the vulnerable in the UK have only had one dose, so we are nowhere near having vaccinated them all.

Also, who is vulnerable? Who is not?!

We have the worst death rate in the world. We are far worst hit and therefore at risk than most of the developing world. It’s not like we are vaccinating against malaria which badly affects others and hardly affects us.

Finally, in my head, it makes sense for us, and other countries, to crack on with getting everyone vaccinated ASAP whilst everything is set up and going at pace rather than stop start. We could, however, provide a percentage of vaccines (50%?) to Covax at the same time.

I wouldn’t worry op, we don’t have a habit of slavishly following WHO advice.

I am glad that UK is one of the biggest contributors to COVAX (I read somewhere that if all countries gave proportionately) as much as UK and Australia, the programme wouid be fully funded

The UNICEF vaccine fundraiser should be better publicised

www.unicef.org.uk/donate/coronavirus/

And yes, UK has ordered more doses that we need (because we invested before we even knew they would work) and absolutely yes out excess should go to those countries who could not afford to pre-order

Just Britain? Rest of the world can just crack on?

Not, the WHO did not single out Britain - it was talking about all the countries which are making fast progress

But surely this line indicates that the UK is helping other countries? And is WHO taking into account the fact that the UK has the highest death rate in the world? I’m quite confused by this.

“ It was revealed this month that the UK has helped raise more than £730m for the Covax advance market commitment, including £548m in UK aid, to help distribute 1.3bn doses of coronavirus vaccines to 92 developing countries this year.”

I have a friend who is working in a hospital in South Africa. He has no faith in the government rolling out the vaccine anytime soon. There is a suggestion that those who can afford it will be charged three or four times what it should to subsidise other members of the population. This is supposedly the richest country in Africa.

Even the EU can't sort themselves out and are blaming us.

The mind boggles.

@Jay2020

Where is the line drawn? 65? 60? 70?

The line should be drawn once everybody in the UK that wants the vaccine is vaccinated!

Then we can look at helping the rest of the world!

It’s also self-interested on our part. The longer the pandemic goes on the more likely it is that the virus will mutate in ways that mean the vaccines we do have are less effective. And ultimately no amount of border controls can stop them spreading for ever. So our best long term hope is a proper global vaccination programme. Vaccinating vulnerable people is helpful because it protects people most at risk but it should also suppress infection rates massively. The top 9 groups in the UK is over 50% of the adult population. So it’s not just a moral stance (that it’s better to prioritise the most vulnerable worldwide rather than healthy adults in richer nations) but it’s in our interest to cut transmission overall. This would do both.

At @hmmph I agree with this.
Suddenly donating our vaccines would pose the question of were the non priority groups ever at risk anyway and if they are permanent social distancing.

Its not quite as simple as that though is it - the biggest risk we have at the moment is a variant coming along and causing the vaccines we have/have given already to no longer work. The most obvious places for that to happen are those that have not yet started vaccinating.

Vaccinating Britain wont give us complete normality - it may give us New Zealand but they are not living in complete normal.

We need to do both - continue vaccinating whilst supporting COVAX. The Novovax and J&J vaccines will help with that as well

@meditrina

Just Britain? Rest of the world can just crack on?

Not, the WHO did not single out Britain - it was talking about all the countries which are making fast progress

Ah ok. General extortion to work collaboratively. Fair enough.

I feel like the best thing we can do for global public health is get the numbers in the uk under control to hopefully reduce the likelihood of another shitty varient emerging.

For me, the fact we are doing so well at vaccinating just shows how selfish we are. We need to think of ourselves as a global community so I absolutely think that WHO are right, after the vulnerable are vaccinated the priority should be to vaccinate the vulnerable elsewhere.

Exhortation not extortion!! Serves me right for trying to use fancy words 😁

I think we need to carry on. Our gov have been useless. We have been at risk every day we go to school etc. we have put up with more cases than almost anywhere else despite also lockdowns.

And the gov wont recommend masks in schools or i think offices ?
Plus it is us and our children who will pay for the cost of treating long covid or not and it's disability payments not the WHO.
Did they say this to israel who are vaxxing the teenagers?

Also it makes the gps mates getting vaxes and the wfh other people who have had it even worse.
There have been several 40yo in new dying recently and personally im more concerned with the working age population getting it seriously as many have young dependent kids

It maybe what the WHO wants but dont expect the Government to oblige We have ordered enough vaccine for all adults and I think this is exactly what will happen.

@Perfect28 you continue on feeling selfish then. Lots of us have given up a year of our lives and more here.