Vaccine slowdown with second jabs

[Florabella]

It's really encouraging how quickly the jabs are happening. But surely in mid to end March hardly anyone new will be getting jabs as all the priority groups will be getting their second. Do you think we will see capacity ramped up further, so will be be waiting another 3 months before anyone else gets vaccinated?

The Moderna vaccine will arrive in a month or two. This will help speed up vaccinations.

There was a question about this at one of the press conferences (last week, or prperhas just before)

Yes, the limiting factor will be the number of jabs that can be delivered. Capacity has ramped up enormously, and it's not clear gphiw much further it will grow.

But no-one is expecting it to double, so yes there will be a diminution n in the rate of first shots once second ones start falling due

Hopefully supply will increase (perhaps with the J&J one dose vaccine approved) around Easter- that will help to get the under 50s going if they can also increase capacity for vaccinating. If J&J is approved and we get the supply on time I suspect most under 50s will get this due it being a one dose.

About 75% of the first dose vaccinations in cohort 1-4 have been provided by Gp hubs. Hospital hubs have done about 15% of the rest as part of the Health and care staff offer.

From March they will be doing the 2nd dose.

From now till then the big vaccination sites ramp up their capacity to take on the lower cohorts who more mobile and open to using national booking systems. They will be augmented by the opening of more pharmacies sites and some capacity in GP practices.

Supply should increase, and the lower vulnerability groups are generally more able to get to vaccination centres rather than needing home visits so that should help too.

I work at a central London hub (I won't give more details because I could get in trouble.) Frustratingly, we're only having about 50% of our slots filled most days, so at this rate will definitely have capacity to do 2nd doses and initial at the same time in April. Also, lots of new vaccinators are being trained daily and we have additional space available.

@TheVeryHungryTortoise do you think that’s because those in group 5 are not yet allowed to book on the national booking system?

DH had his jab at one of the big hubs, it was a 45 minute drive but we quite enjoyed that and thought it was good to leave local appointments for people who couldn't travel. They had a set up for a number of queues and vaccination stations, I was wondering why only half were open and then thought maybe they are set up for numbers doubling when 2nd vaccinations start. Don't know if it is true but it seemed a logical explanation and they certainly had room for twice as many people. I suppose then it would depend on staffing and vaccine being available.

@pinkhappy

The Moderna vaccine will arrive in a month or two. This will help speed up vaccinations.

Week commencing 04/04/2021 but the quantities will be very small, both in actual numbers and as a percentage of the total. The quantities will then treble from week commencing 02/05/21, but still very small numbers relative to AZ and Pfizer. All helps of course, but Moderna is not going to be a significant part of the initial rollout.

Where it may play a much bigger role is in the second group (under 50's) and perhaps even more so as a booster jab in late summer/early Autumn. The mRNA vaccines can be modified fairly quickly and are already being modified in the lab for variants of concern. Modified mRNA vaccines could be 'ready' as early as May, but real world use would depend on what additional trials and regulatory approvals may be required.

@Lemons1571 Yes, I do think so. Initially we had higher uptake, but I think now that GPS are starting to catch up older and more vulnerable patients would rather stay as local as possible. We've started to do 65+ this week, but it does take a little while for that effect to hit us in the hubs. Hopefully it's just temporary, we are bracing ourselves for a busy few weeks ahead. Speaking on behalf of my team, we're ready and excited to welcome as many patients through the doors as possible. I'm really proud of how efficient the whole vaccination process is, it's just getting people booked in that seems to be delaying us personally.

If they're going to speed up the programme they need to get their recruitment process. I applied for an admin support role for the Covid programme around 6 weeks ago now. They have contacted me on 4 occasions since asking for various things (one was just a tick box to say whether I was CEV or not and this came a week after another questionnaire asking about any medication i took, whether i was comfortable wearing PPE etc). Yesterday they sent me a link to their online training programme. I queried it because it seemed to be for vaccinators not admin support and they said Yes, it was the wrong link and asked me to send an email to the address they gave me. I did that and got a reply that said someone would 'try' to get back to me within 5 days !

@TheVeryHungryTortoise

I work at a central London hub (I won't give more details because I could get in trouble.) Frustratingly, we're only having about 50% of our slots filled most days, so at this rate will definitely have capacity to do 2nd doses and initial at the same time in April. Also, lots of new vaccinators are being trained daily and we have additional space available.

Although the flip side of that would suggest that there will be a lower DNA rate for second jab appointments I would have thought.

Although that’s pretty much what you said @TheVeryHungryTortoise - my comprehension skills are the best with dd(5)’s motormouth running at full capacity

Week commencing 04/04/2021 but the quantities will be very small, both in actual numbers and as a percentage of the total. The quantities will then treble from week commencing 02/05/21

Where do you get this info?

Where do you get this info?

Scottish government published it but then withdrew it, but a few journalists then also published it on twitter, along with the AZ and Pfizer delivery schedule numbers and extrapolated numbers for the whole of the UK. Second part comes from a scientist who works for Moderna.

Moderna vaccines will comprise under 1.5% of doses for initial (first dose) vaccination of priority groups (1 to 9) if all of those groups receive their first dose by the target date (beginning of May).

Moderna vaccines will comprise under 1.5% of doses for initial (first dose) vaccination of priority groups (1 to 9) if all of those groups receive their first dose by the target date (beginning of May).

It will be very interesting to see! In principle we have order 17 millions doses.