It seems like the U.K. may have a better Covid strategy after all

[Warhertisuff]

... at least since the emergence of Delta. I generally supported the restrictions before last summer, but thought that opening up in July was sensible. It's too early to tell
for sure, but at the moment it looks like the right call.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59378849

Far too early to tell. There are so many variables that it's like choosing no score draws on the football pools. What is clear to me though is that Boris has to steer a path between medical and economic desirables which involves acceptance of health consequences (illness, death and long term disability rates and NHS overload) and business consequences (profits, jobs, tax, etc.). I doubt there is any yardstick by which we could make a simple future judgment of his performance.

Patrick yes. It seems even when we create the only low cost vaccine for easier travel to poorer countries, as stated in Oxford vision, we are criticised heavily plus also doing wrong by not vaccinating as many as o/s in age groups. Plus the reasons you mention which are key.

Ancient vaccine waste is awful.

Bumbley yes I’m more pro booster than younger but I have seen many posts re hoarding plus why are other countries doing younger - which are at odds with each other

@ancientgran Agree that vaccine waste is awful. But there a lot of reasons for this:

1. There was quite a lot of waste early on when Pfizer was still being stored at the ultra, ultra low temperatures - any increase in temperature for a small amount of time meant the batch had to be binned.
2. Some countries (eg South Africa) threw out a lot because the vaccine delivered didn't pass the safety check when it arrived.
3. A lot of African countries (eg Sudan, Malawi, Namibia etc) threw out AZ because no one wanted it (because it was so trashed by the EU and not helped by countries like Denmark and France shipping their AZ off to poorer countries giving clear message it wasn't good enough for their citizens but fine for poorer nations).
4. Some countries initially wouldn't extend the gap between doses (remember how critical the EU was about the UK's massive gamble in extending the gap) and had to through out batches.
5. According to The Guardian, the US threw out 15 million doses between March and September - which is a lot but when apportioned to the various states it is actually quite a small percentage of doses given (although still horrible to think about).
6. Yes, some countries just have too much.

@bumbleymummy

Young, healthy people who are at incredibly low risk from the virus. Vulnerable people and frontline healthcare workers in other countries should be prioritised.

There is a strong rationale for encouraging vaccination of 12+.

The issue is not the UK including younger age groups in it's programme - the numbers a drop in the ocean. We need to be doing far more to help other countries develop the infrastructure to produce & roll out vaccines.

[quote Patrickthefox]@ancientgran Agree that vaccine waste is awful. But there a lot of reasons for this:

1. There was quite a lot of waste early on when Pfizer was still being stored at the ultra, ultra low temperatures - any increase in temperature for a small amount of time meant the batch had to be binned.
2. Some countries (eg South Africa) threw out a lot because the vaccine delivered didn't pass the safety check when it arrived.
3. A lot of African countries (eg Sudan, Malawi, Namibia etc) threw out AZ because no one wanted it (because it was so trashed by the EU and not helped by countries like Denmark and France shipping their AZ off to poorer countries giving clear message it wasn't good enough for their citizens but fine for poorer nations).
4. Some countries initially wouldn't extend the gap between doses (remember how critical the EU was about the UK's massive gamble in extending the gap) and had to through out batches.
5. According to The Guardian, the US threw out 15 million doses between March and September - which is a lot but when apportioned to the various states it is actually quite a small percentage of doses given (although still horrible to think about).
6. Yes, some countries just have too much.[/quote]

Yes to all of this!

Countries need more support in rolling out huge vaccination programmes as otherwise the donated doses end up being binned.

Public awareness campaigns, advertisting, infrastructure in place to roll out doses etc

I remember people complaining on here because friends and relatives of GPs had got early vaccination through doses that would otherwise have gone to waste because of the storage rules.

There is a strong rationale for encouraging vaccination of 12+.

I guess the JCVI experts must have missed it when they spent months deliberating it and decided not to recommend it.

@Ohsofedupwiththis

I do if we will move the goalposts on 6 months soon for boosters.

I am due my booster around Christmas time. In fact I am delaying it a week or so precisely because of the time of year.

A fair number of over 40s will be in the same boat as me and may also chose to delay it. That's not brilliant for Xmas mixing.

Many over 40s are like me with school age kids. We haven't actually had Covid in house yet so waning immunity is a concern. Although thankfully the oldies are all boosted.

I'm booked in Christmas week.

When I was booking it was either then or wait another 3 weeks as they shut on the 23rd until the 7th January.

I wasn't keen on that. I worry that if we do have a big rise in cases it will be most problematic post rather than pre-Christmas.

Too many 'oldies' aren't getting their boosters in the UK and thats where I think problems may yet lie. (Its a massive Comms issue).

I can't say I'm thrilled at the prospect of my booster that week as I've been really quite ill after both my previous two, but I thought it better than waiting and then being concerned about when the kids return to school having been god knows where (lots of parents likely to go abroad for Christmas here).

Its January / February in the UK that concerns me. Not December.

@bumbleymummy

There is a strong rationale for encouraging vaccination of 12+.

I guess the JCVI experts must have missed it when they spent months deliberating it and decided not to recommend it.

They passed the decision onto CMOs saying there may be other factors they would want to consider. CMOs included other non-direct benefits to teens and decided it was in their best interests. Pretty sure has been discussed on other threads?

You also seem to be entirely against JCVI when it comes to vaccinating healthy adults so strange to pick and choose when to back them?

@herecomesthsun

The German idea of wearing high grade medical masks, especially in enclosed crowded spaces, remains a good one - alongside vaccines and boosters, of course.

It would be great if we could do some more of that - as someone who is vulnerable it is good that there is another way to protect myself a bit while getting on with life.

I agree (I'm also vulnerable). I really don't get why we don't all continue to wear masks indoors. Along with the vax, they do reduce transmission.

Great post @Patrickthefox. It’s sad to see so much waste and that a fair chunk of it was caused by AZ being discredited.

I don’t think we’ll see much reduction in cases and deaths now until spring, but hopefully we won’t see huge increases either. Fingers crossed the booster roll out keeps on rolling.

I spoke to a paediatric consultant at a city hospital this morning. There are a lot of children in with respiratory illnesses, but barely any with covid. She seems to think this is echoed in the adult wards in her hospital. While that’s a good sign on the virus front, it does mean beds are already taken up with typical winter ailments… we can’t afford for a surge in covid cases on top.

Yes, they did. So the ‘rationale’ mustn’t have been that ‘strong’ if they were handing off to CMOs to find ‘other factors to consider’ in order to recommend it.

I think other countries should have their vulnerable and front line workers prioritised for vaccination over healthy people in the U.K., yes. Does that mean I’m ‘against’ the JCVI in that respect? Ok.

Too many 'oldies' aren't getting their boosters in the UK and thats where I think problems may yet lie. (Its a massive Comms issue).

Should have been clearer there - the ones that are important to me!

Thread from Paul Mainwood on the massive effect of boosters.
Boosters don't just restore your protection against COVID. They make it better than it ever was with two doses.Result: we boost less than half of 80+s in the UK, and the observations nearly break my graph

mobile.twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1461374208060149760

Someone up thread I think said it's time this was officially a three dose vaccine.

I think we definitely need to be rolling out the boosters as quickly as possible to the most vulnerable groups. We can see the impact they are having on hospital admissions in older groups already BUT I think it will be a few months before we can see how long protection lasts after this third dose. Remember, there was a big increase in protection after the second dose too but it did wane over time.

@bumbleymummy

Yes, they did. So the ‘rationale’ mustn’t have been that ‘strong’ if they were handing off to CMOs to find ‘other factors to consider’ in order to recommend it.

I think other countries should have their vulnerable and front line workers prioritised for vaccination over healthy people in the U.K., yes. Does that mean I’m ‘against’ the JCVI in that respect? Ok.

What do you mean?

The JCVI always stated they were only considering direct medical benefits to children, but there may be other factors to consider, not sure why all the quotation marks

The non-direct medical & other factors were considered to tilt the decision in favour of offering it to these age groups, hence why it was offered.

I think other countries should have their vulnerable and front line workers prioritised for vaccination over healthy people in the U.K., yes. Does that mean I’m ‘against’ the JCVI in that respect? Ok.
Urm this seems like a bit of a curveball. You say you agree with the JCVI when it comes to refusing vaccination of teens, but simultaneously disagree when it comes to offering vaccination to non-vulnerable adults.

I’m quoting the words you used. You said there was ‘strong rationale’ for vaccinating over 12s. If it was that strong surely it would have been enough for the JCVI to rule in its favour on their own?

I don’t tend to think of things as simple black/white agree/disagree issues. I don’t think it’s as simple as that :)

[quote Patrickthefox]@ancientgran Agree that vaccine waste is awful. But there a lot of reasons for this:

1. There was quite a lot of waste early on when Pfizer was still being stored at the ultra, ultra low temperatures - any increase in temperature for a small amount of time meant the batch had to be binned.
2. Some countries (eg South Africa) threw out a lot because the vaccine delivered didn't pass the safety check when it arrived.
3. A lot of African countries (eg Sudan, Malawi, Namibia etc) threw out AZ because no one wanted it (because it was so trashed by the EU and not helped by countries like Denmark and France shipping their AZ off to poorer countries giving clear message it wasn't good enough for their citizens but fine for poorer nations).
4. Some countries initially wouldn't extend the gap between doses (remember how critical the EU was about the UK's massive gamble in extending the gap) and had to through out batches.
5. According to The Guardian, the US threw out 15 million doses between March and September - which is a lot but when apportioned to the various states it is actually quite a small percentage of doses given (although still horrible to think about).
6. Yes, some countries just have too much.[/quote]
7. The 600,000 doses were AZ not Pfizer.
8. UK threw them out not SA.
9. Again UK threw them out, not Sudan, Malawi, Namibia etc.
10. Again UK threw them out, not EU countries
11. Again UK threw them, out not US
12. And far too many don't have enough.

I say again the UK throwing away 600,000 doses is a disgrace. Unless they have evidence that those doses were offered to countries with a shortage and they were rejected then it was a disgrace.

Yes it’s a disgrace, but sadly we’re not alone. The EU doesn’t keep track of discarded vaccines. African nations threw away almost half a million doses earlier this year. The US has destroyed a mind numbing 15 MILLION.

The constant UK bashing in this thread / forum is dreadful.

@ancientgran I don't understand what you mean. I KNOW that the UK has not thrown away vaccines belonging to other countries. I AGREE that any waste is shameful. I don't know the circumstances of the UK throwing away 600,000 (assuming they did). But I do know that the press is sometimes reporting stuff like "Country X wastes covid vaccine" but when you dig deeper there is a reason which is perfectly valid (eg it failed a safety test like it did in SA). I don't think the 600,000 doses you are referring to is the cause of a new variant in Botswana.

@bumbleymummy

I’m quoting the words you used. You said there was ‘strong rationale’ for vaccinating over 12s. If it was that strong surely it would have been enough for the JCVI to rule in its favour on their own?

I don’t tend to think of things as simple black/white agree/disagree issues. I don’t think it’s as simple as that :)

Not the pp, this is twisting a tad.

As stated, the JCVI made their decison on direct medical benefits. This is not the only relevant factor - there are also non-direct benefits (both medical and otherwise), hence the "strong rationale".

These are what the CMOs considered.

@ancientgran I've just found the reports on the 600,000 doses of AZ you are referring to. What happened was that the vaccine task force planned that they needed x number of doses for the next stage of the rollout during the time that AZ was being given to all age groups and the government's plan was to use all of it. Then the regulator and the JCVI responded to concerns about use of AZ in younger age groups and the decision was made to stop using it for younger people. Meaning they had too much AZ. The vaccine task force then liaised with WHO to see if it could be donated and it was decided that although the vaccines hadn't expired, it would expire by the time they got to another country who needed it.

Can you imagine the scandal if the government had decided "Nah, don't care that the medics and experts say, we'll just crack on and use the spare 600,000 doses and fingers crossed no one gets a blood clot and we get some bad publicity". Is that what you think should have happened?

Of course the newspaper which gave this the most publicity was The Guardian (surprise, surprise) - bit of lazy journalism really. I think the whole episode reflects rather well on the UK.

@julieca also many people died after 29l8 days so are in the statistics.

[quote Patrickthefox]@ancientgran I've just found the reports on the 600,000 doses of AZ you are referring to. What happened was that the vaccine task force planned that they needed x number of doses for the next stage of the rollout during the time that AZ was being given to all age groups and the government's plan was to use all of it. Then the regulator and the JCVI responded to concerns about use of AZ in younger age groups and the decision was made to stop using it for younger people. Meaning they had too much AZ. The vaccine task force then liaised with WHO to see if it could be donated and it was decided that although the vaccines hadn't expired, it would expire by the time they got to another country who needed it.

Can you imagine the scandal if the government had decided "Nah, don't care that the medics and experts say, we'll just crack on and use the spare 600,000 doses and fingers crossed no one gets a blood clot and we get some bad publicity". Is that what you think should have happened?

Of course the newspaper which gave this the most publicity was The Guardian (surprise, surprise) - bit of lazy journalism really. I think the whole episode reflects rather well on the UK.[/quote]
If it wasn't out of date why not offer it to other countries, let them make the decision if they can get it used in time.

Don't know why you are trying so hard to justify it.

Are other countries short of vaccine? Might those 600,000 have been useful to another country.

Well if wasting vaccine reflects well on us maybe we should dump a load more. We might get an award.