Will UK govt covid strategy stop another wave?

[CarrieAntoinette]

According to the last Warwick University modelling I've seen, numbers are due to start ticking upwards soon. (Graph below)

Do you think the current government covid strategy will prevent another wave like the last two?

And if so, how?

(My view is that there'll be a honeymoon period where it all looks ok for a bit, and then it will kick off again, much like it has before.)

@Watapalava

so we are talking mid march before anyone in the priority groups got immunity

Don't forget the numbers vaccinated in dec and early jan were very low compared to now

Speed picked up on about January 15th.

About two thirds of the first four groups/ 21% were done by the end of the month.

Fair enough @ChloeCrocodile

nope

and both gov sit and ons site and every news reports at that times proves they didn't do that

That was the plan to offer it but that's not the reality

Right now we are offering to the 38+ age group but people will tell you they can't get booking for early 40s in some areas

By mid feb it was groups 1 & 2 mainly who were done and the rest were being called for but it varied massively regionally. By mid feb they'd done 15 million (which i agree is a lot) but it was only 9 million at end of jan.

So most people wouldn't have been immune until march when lockdown started to lift gradually with schools back (so after peak deaths). Thus deaths were nothing to do with vaccines. They were either too soon for benefit or prior to vaccines

@Watapalava

nope

and both gov sit and ons site and every news reports at that times proves they didn't do that

That was the plan to offer it but that's not the reality

Right now we are offering to the 38+ age group but people will tell you they can't get booking for early 40s in some areas

By mid feb it was groups 1 & 2 mainly who were done and the rest were being called for but it varied massively regionally. By mid feb they'd done 15 million (which i agree is a lot) but it was only 9 million at end of jan.

So most people wouldn't have been immune until march when lockdown started to lift gradually with schools back (so after peak deaths). Thus deaths were nothing to do with vaccines. They were either too soon for benefit or prior to vaccines

Well it looks to me as if The Guardian think they hit their target of the first 4 groups by February 15th.

And all my oldest relatives got the call or text and booked for the next few days. I had to rearrange a few things to take a couple of them in January.

Maybe that's biased me,

Maybe not all areas were like the 8 or so I'm familiar with.

I remember my friend's dad getting really annoyed that he hadn't been called yet when all his mates had, then he got the text on Friday and booked for Monday February 1st. He's 70.

PrincessNutNuts your graphs only consider the % of the population, not whether those vaccinated were within the top categories. We could easily vaccinate 21% of the population but not jab a single person in the top 9 categories.

There were particular logistical issues with vaccinating the elderly population as they are less likely to be mobile. Early days vaccination (Dec and much of Jan) was all about Pfizer so storage and transportation made it very difficult those who were housebound / in care homes / non-drivers.

I think anecdotally lots were offered but many had bookings for slots 3-4 weeks later.

I know my dad (76) was booked in 3 weeks in advance so it may have been something like that were people were able to book but they hadn't actually been done

My mum and dad both only got theirs end of feb and they're 76/74 and they were desperate so would have got first slot (in north west and we were 'ahead' according to mumsnet comments at the time)

@ChloeCrocodile

PrincessNutNuts your graphs only consider the % of the population, not whether those vaccinated were within the top categories. We could easily vaccinate 21% of the population but not jab a single person in the top 9 categories.

There were particular logistical issues with vaccinating the elderly population as they are less likely to be mobile. Early days vaccination (Dec and much of Jan) was all about Pfizer so storage and transportation made it very difficult those who were housebound / in care homes / non-drivers.

That would rather make a mockery of the JCVI 9 priority groups though, wouldn't it?

And make the government into liars for declaring it done, February 15th target met.

@Watapalava

I think anecdotally lots were offered but many had bookings for slots 3-4 weeks later.

I know my dad (76) was booked in 3 weeks in advance so it may have been something like that were people were able to book but they hadn't actually been done

My mum and dad both only got theirs end of feb and they're 76/74 and they were desperate so would have got first slot (in north west and we were 'ahead' according to mumsnet comments at the time)

That is pretty late.

Maybe not all areas were like the 8 or so I'm familiar with.

Regional variation is well known. There are threads going back months on MN which discuss / record the ability of posters from different areas to book vaccines at different ages. Pages and pages filled up with “SE London, dad still waiting (83)” and “Lancashire, just booked for mum (75)”. Plus the info I linked earlier which showed that less than 80% of over 80s were jabbed by 25th Feb.

I am a hospital doctor in Kent. The vaccine has saved lives. By Febuary very few admissions were over 80. In december the vast majority. That's when deaths started falling as well. One dose prevents hospitalisation and death- undoubtedly.

That would rather make a mockery of the JCVI 9 priority groups though, wouldn't it?

Sort of. Each vaccination centre (GP led or community based) within each NHS area offered booking using the priority group order. But due to a range of reasons the distribution of vaccines didn’t allow each area / centre reached their milestones at the same time. So rather than shifting vaccines between areas / centres (causing a delay) they each worked through their own list.

This uneven distribution is still going on btw, princess. I’ve booked my vaccine for next week because by GP text me to say they had slots. But the online booking system is still stuck at those 3 years older than me because some areas are fully booked with older people.

Well this is fun.

We've got posters saying over 80s weren't vaccinated by February and another poster saying very few hospital admissions were aged over 80 by February because of the vaccines.

@ChloeCrocodile

This uneven distribution is still going on btw, princess. I’ve booked my vaccine for next week because by GP text me to say they had slots. But the online booking system is still stuck at those 3 years older than me because some areas are fully booked with older people.

I'm aware.

But if they had offered it to all of the first 4 groups between December 8th and February 15th then I'm still ok with my assumption that most of the people in the first three groups were done in the first eight weeks out of ten.

People seem unable to grasp the rather simple concept that when they say vaccines are 95% effective at doing x, that means for 5% they don't work.

5% of a very large number is a large number.

Worst case scenario planning puts 150k dead in a UK third wave.

We don't know yet whether vaccination is ANY protection against long covid.

A third wave is most definitely bad news.

And to the OP - no I don't think the government's strategy will work to stop it - they've left intervention too late and there won't be the political will to make the level of intervention required now to stop the Indian variant taking off. As time goes on, the situation will worsen and the required intervention will be more severe.

It's an unholy mess.

Ok, even if we accept that, then you need to factor in both the time it takes for immunity to build and the time between an individual being infected with covid and dying from it.

Which worse case plan for which scenario @bookworm1632 because there are an awful lot of models

It depends on the scale of the third wave - because we were I think always going to get some form of third wave

And whereas I agree you cannot simplify it to the point that if vaccines don’t work those 5% are in trouble because then other factors come into play.

I think people are very able to grasp it.

The measles vaccine is 95% effective, why aren't thousands of people dying of measles? Because the vaccine keeps the numbers down sufficiently that there are very few cases about so the vast majority never come into contact tact with measles. The reduction in transmission is pretty key.

@Sunshinegirl82

Ok, even if we accept that, then you need to factor in both the time it takes for immunity to build and the time between an individual being infected with covid and dying from it.

Well one day perhaps the government will release the data that enables us to to work all that out.

If it was supportive of their policy I think they already would have.

@Sunshinegirl82

I think people are very able to grasp it.

The measles vaccine is 95% effective, why aren't thousands of people dying of measles? Because the vaccine keeps the numbers down sufficiently that there are very few cases about so the vast majority never come into contact tact with measles. The reduction in transmission is pretty key.

The reduction in transmission is totally key, which is why the Indian variant is such a problem, because it's looking like we have nothing like the same reduction in transmission with it.

I would LOVE for time to prove me wrong on this, but the fact that the Indian variant is growing VERY quickly while the other variants are shrinking is suggestive sadly that I'm not.

But if they had offered it to all of the first 4 groups between December 8th and February 15th then I'm still ok with my assumption that most of the people in the first three groups were done in the first eight weeks out of ten.

Where are you getting that the first four groups were offered it by 15th Feb? I don’t remember that at all, and can’t find anywhere that says it happened. It may have been their plan, but that doesn’t mean it actually happened.

Plus, this is the government who counted each glove as a separate piece of PPE. If I let all 16yo book a vaccine for next September then technically they fall in to the “been offered” category but we can’t take that piece of info and assume that all over 18s have now been jabbed.

@Sunshinegirl82

I think people are very able to grasp it.

The measles vaccine is 95% effective, why aren't thousands of people dying of measles? Because the vaccine keeps the numbers down sufficiently that there are very few cases about so the vast majority never come into contact tact with measles. The reduction in transmission is pretty key.

Because a new even more transmissible than the last more transmissible variant of Measles hasn't wandered into our country and been allowed to set up shop, spread and flourish in fifty-odd locations across the country.

Because we don't allow Measles to spread we don't get new variants of Measles very often.

We eliminated Measles in the U.K. but then let it come back. We're stupid. We should stop being stupid.

We know that, we know it takes 3 weeks for immunity to build. We know covid has an average incubation period of 5 days (although could be up to 14 days). We know that people usually take a turn for the worse in the second week of symptomatic illness.

So a person could die 6 weeks or more after they have been vaccinated (if they were exposed towards the end of the three week period after vaccination) because the vaccine wouldn't have had an opportunity to provide maximum immunity.

I'm still ok with my assumption that most of the people in the first three groups were done in the first eight weeks out of ten.

Lots of information is publicly available. 60% of over 80s were vaccinated by the 18th Feb. That rose to just under 80% within a week. That trend would indicate that only a small minority of that group were done by the end of Jan. Unless you have other data?!

Do you know what the R value of measles is? 15. Measles is ridiculously infectious, no covid variant is likely to come close.