You'll have had yours tiers....

[WaxOnFeckOff]

Thread 946....

No, @BBCONEANDTWO

The vaccine works by giving you immunity using a replica of the virus (roughly, I’m no scientist). So it would stop you trying it or getting it as badly but wouldn’t be used for treatment.

@WouldBeGood

No, *@BBCONEANDTWO*

The vaccine works by giving you immunity using a replica of the virus (roughly, I’m no scientist). So it would stop you trying it or getting it as badly but wouldn’t be used for treatment.

Thank you WBG.

So now that a vaccine is coming from next week. This will mean an end to lockdowns and tiers I believe 🤔

@BBCONEANDTWO a vaccine stimulates your body to produce antibodies and/or killer t -cells which give you immunity to that disease. This stimulation is achieved in several ways not just by giving you a replica of the virus eg. Sometimes a vaccine has a small part of the virus in it or in the case of smallpox you were given cowpox which cross protected against smallpox.
Along the same lines some vaccines can be given in the face of an outbreak of that disease to help you recover more rapidly from that disease which could be viewed by some people as a treatment because it is helping you recover more quickly from the disease. I think it is more pragmatic to view it as one of the things that help manage and control a disease in the population as opposed to thinking of vaccines as a treatment or not a treatment. Each vaccine is going to different and we have to rely on the manufacturer telling us how it is most effectively used. If the coronavirus can be used as a treatment I’m sure they will tell us.

Interesting

And an end to tiers and all the rest would be amazing

You know it blows my mind that it was 200 years ago that the Dr observed that milkmaids who'd been exposed to Cowpox were immune to Smallpox and he set about making the first vaccine.

How brave was he and the first vaccinated?

Jenner would have got nowhere without Lady Mary paving the way via the Ottoman Empire though. What fascinates me most about Cowpox is that it was living in close proximity with animals which was protective. These days people are very quick to accuse those living in this way as incubating disease. The jury is still out.

Even more mind blowing is that the human genome was only fully sequenced in 1999. All the virus sequencing and identification, PCR tests and new vaccine tech rests on this.

@Bikingbear it was a random wee boy ... can you imagine

Also just found out that Shetland were the first vaccinated against smallpox. Things you learn as a result of mumsnet

I know the son of the Dr.'s gardener. What a brave Dr and gardener.

Could you imagine letting someone experiment on a kid today?

I didn't know Shetland was first. But it took nearly 200 years to irradiate it.

How long do we think will it take to get to tier 0 then?

Even tier 0 isn't normality.

I know the son of the Dr.'s gardener. What a brave Dr and gardener

I read that as @Bikingbear knew the son of the gardener personally and have wasted a fair bit of my morning trying to work out how old everyone must be to make that work 😂

@StatisticallyChallenged

Even tier 0 isn't normality.

I know stats, it was a sarcastic remark about our esteemed leader. I'll wind my neck in.

It's just frustrating, they've somehow created this goal of tier 0 which is still non trivial restrictions

Suspect the tiers will all be quickly forgotten. Don't see us running into Holyrood elections still under restrictions unless something goes very wrong with the vaccine roll out.

Hopeful that filthy tier 4s will be prioritised purely because the logistics of refrigeration make it much more practical to do high concentration populations first. Also gives fastest impact.

I saw a report earlier suggesting that it will be easier for more remote community to bring the people to the vaccine rather than vice versa.

@Rae36

I know the son of the Dr.'s gardener. What a brave Dr and gardener

I read that as @Bikingbear knew the son of the gardener personally and have wasted a fair bit of my morning trying to work out how old everyone must be to make that work 😂

Me too! Mind you, the first attempts at vaccination (using the smallpox itself rather than cowpox, which is pretty harmless to humans) had a 2% fatality rate, which is still much lower than smallpox itself (about 30%) but still... you can only imagine how desperate people were to get their children vaccinated then.

I don't reckon anywhere will get to tier 0 before the regulations need to be renewed in March, and then they'll be dropped or tweaked, just in time for the elections. Or maybe if everywhere else is tier 1 or 2 some places may go to tier 0 in Feb or so. Though if anywhere in the country is still in tier 3, I don't think they will want to admit "risk" will be low enough. Especially as all of January will be suffering from the "third wave" of all our reckless Christmas bubbling . Some places are in single figure case numbers and they are still tier 1...

Sorry Rae, my poor grammar!
The son of the gardener was 9 in 1796, he'd now be around 233! I think he's probably dead🤣

Lots of discussion about this on the various News last night. Issues with bringing people to the vaccine are 1) Difficulties in transporting care home residents in large numbers, especially under current conditions and 2) The vaccine is stored in batches of iirc 1,000 and once you open the batch you need to use it within 5 days so you need a concentration of recipients.

Intuitively makes more sense for vax team in a refrigerated truck to travel to all the nursing homes etc for the first phase?

Becoming clearer why they chose to centralise the flu vax programme this year rather than roll it into chemists etc though.

Yes, I think the logistics will be a nightmare, especially for the first phase of those in care homes/ the over 80s, who aren't the most mobile of patients. Apparently their licence doesn't let the batches be split up, and the vaccine doesn't like being moved that much, (the big wuss European snowflake vaccine) so they can't really bung it in a truck and drive to different care homes...especially in remote places, where there may not be 1000 recipients in the right "class" anyway. I imagine they'll just use the first load on NHS and care workers in hubs in urban areas, and wait til the less temperamental Oxford vaccine comes to do care homes etc.

Re the vaccine, I imagine that most of us will end up with the Oxford one which is cheaper and doesn't need to be stored at such low temperature.

Do you think that they'll set up the vaccine clinic in like the SECC and just keep there until the city is done. Or do you think they'll have them more localized, using community centres and places?

I can't see anywhere getting to level 0 either. The 5 Scottish teirs are a definite, has to go a couple better than Boris.

I guessed a few weeks ago centralising the flu vaccine was a 'trial' run for the covid vaccine.
My mum seemed to think the central approach worked well, except she couldn't get through on the phone to them but I think other areas had more teething issues.

I hope they do something more localised. Maybe not individual GPs or pharmacies, but at least more than 1 or 2 places in a city. It is a bugbear of mine, but not everyone has access to private transport, either through choice, finance or illness, and forcing people onto buses to go to a single large venue does seem rather contrary to current guidance. I'd hope community centres in villages or whatever are used, and making sure each "locality" in cities have a venue, so people can walk or get a reasonably priced taxi if needed.