Vaccination plans for Scotland

[trumpisaflump]

I'm posting here as I can't find any great online about this. Can anyone point me towards plans for Scotland's COVID vaccination for primary care? I'm frontline NHS and received my first dose mid December but to be honest I'm more concerned about when my 78 year old DM and 79 year old in laws will get their vaccine. On Twitter I see multiple tweets from English GPs stating they have vaccinated all the over 80s in their area and are on to overt 70s now.
I just don't seem to be getting the same feelings of impatience in Scotland re the rollout compared with England.

Nhs lanarkshire started their vaccinations yesterday I think

@TheDuchessOfAquitaine

So following up on my prior post, my 85 year old dad got a call yesterday telling him to come in tomorrow for his vaccination. Was the first communication he had. At his local GP. Edinburgh West. I’m relieved!

Also, a friends uncle (late 70s) in a care home was vaccinated late December. He tested positive for Covid 2 days ago

Do you know what kind of test he had and whether he had any symptoms?

The rate limiting step is vaccine supply. There's been tons of work done to secure and prepare mass vaccination sites. Thousands of vaccinators been trained up. Security, volunteers, admin/IT are in place or will be ready to go when larger amounts of the vaccine are available.

According to travelling tabby, Scotland has vaccinated a higher proportion of the population than England or Wales. NI is slightly ahead.

@ICouldHaveCheckedFirst

According to travelling tabby, Scotland has vaccinated a higher proportion of the population than England or Wales. NI is slightly ahead.

That figure is only up to 3rd January and we are now on the 12th so not sure if it reflects the current situation or not. Plus there didn't seem to be any info from England on the stats yesterday for other metrics.

@ICouldHaveCheckedFirst that information is out of date. The numbers for first dose administered as of yesterday are as below.

England: 1,959,151
Scotland: 163,377
Wales: 86,039
Northern Ireland: 78,005

As a proportion of population, that puts England at 3.5% and Scotland at 3% (NI is the highest and Wales the lowest I think), which, as a few papers have picked up this morning, means we're falling behind. England has caught up and passed us now because they seem to have done of setting up mass vaccinations. I believe Tabby said he was going to update the vaccination charts to show the new daily figures, so any trends should become obvious.

@newhousestress we are not short of vaccine - we have had over half a million doses delivered from the UK government, but have only used 163k, with about 400k sitting in storage. Papers also have this story this morning.

trumpisaflump I've signed up for training for vaccinations too, which modules have you been sent? Which one is 16 hours long? I'm trying to read over everything, worried I'm missing stuff!

@TotalEclipseOfTheHeartAndSoul
Where did you get the link to be a vaccinator. I am a retired doc and my dh is a retired GP and has given hundreds of vaccinations. We both wanted to volunteer to help but we couldn’t find any links. I emailed a scotgov site but got no reply .

RunnerDown have sent you a private message as not sure if I'm allowed to put email addresses on here!

Op my relatives in England are still waiting to hear.

It is GP dependent. They are not getting done at the local surgery but at a pooled one. I think this is where the delay has come in.

Some GP practices seem more agile and had suitable premises etc etc.

Do you know what kind of test he had and whether he had any symptoms?

I didn’t really want to probe to be honest but I suspect being in a care home they would be tested regularly. He is not being hospitalised (currently anyway) and still able to talk on the phone, so best case he is asymptomatic or reduced severity. I think key though is that you can still catch it (and therefore pass it on) even with the vaccination.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us my practice is getting 100 doses today for our over 80's. Similar amounts being distributed to other practices this week across the country. You would not set up mass vaccination centres until you had much greater volumes available, in the 1000's per day. If there are 400K doses 'sitting around' at any point I very much doubt they are still there and I would take anything that paper wrote with a massive pinch of salt.

@newhousestress According to NS today, we now have 175,942 vaccinated with a first dose, which by my reckoning is well short of the half a million doses provided by the UK. Seems they are still there....

They were holding back doses for second doses that have now been cancelled. Those are now going into arms. People were cancelled for second doses from Tuesday last week, appointments were rearranged as soon as was practical.

Apparently an email has been sent to Edinburgh GPs warning of possible delayed supplies

.

@TotalEclipseOfTheHeartAndSoul the 16 hour module is from NES-
Promoting Effective Immunisation Practice available on Turas.

After I complete this there is also a knowledge self appraisal tool to be done.

I've also had to complete the following training available mostly in Learnpro-

Fire Safety Awareness
Moving and Handling (patient module)
Management of Aggression
Infection Control
Safe Information Handling
IT Security
Adult Support and Protection
Child Support and Protection
Safe Management and Handling of Sharps
Pfizer BioNTech Vaccine Preparation
Vaccine Against Covid 19 Pfizer
Anaphylaxis Training
Basic Life Support
Read PGD guidance
Read Green Book chapter 14a
Read all leaflets to be distributed with vaccine.
This is all to be done sometime while working in covid ICU (not going to happen) or while home schooling children.
I'm completely exhausted with it but I'm nearly there.

trumpisaflump thank you very much. Oh dear I need to get a move on, thought I'd read loads already!

trumpisaflump well done on all your hard work.

I'm in Dunlop in East Ayrshire. All the over-80s in the village seem to be getting their first jag this Saturday, in Stewarton.

They were given their appointment details by telephone, so that'll be fun when its my parents' turn as my DF has dementia and can answer the phone and speak to whoever's calling, but promptly forgets the phone rang at all, and my DM is deaf and can't hear the phone!

It's important to remember that whatever vaccine you get, getting the first shot is next to nothing. The first shot does not provide much immunity at all. It's the second shot that gives you immunity. After the first one, you are not even supposed to be considered vaccinated! And, remember, there is no prospect of getting the second shot for months now! I've spoken to a few medical professionals recently, and they all said the same thing - "we got the first shot, but were told the second one will be in 3-4 months instead of the stipulated 3-4 weeks"... Until then you are not protected.
So, advice to grandparents - don't go hugging people after the first shot. It will end badly.

@EAparent that's the wrong information you're giving out. The first dose of the Pfizer vaccine from around day 15 provides around 90% efficacy. The second dose gives longer lasting immunity and efficacy rises to around 94% at this stage. link to JCVI statement

@EAparent

It's important to remember that whatever vaccine you get, getting the first shot is next to nothing. The first shot does not provide much immunity at all. It's the second shot that gives you immunity. After the first one, you are not even supposed to be considered vaccinated! And, remember, there is no prospect of getting the second shot for months now! I've spoken to a few medical professionals recently, and they all said the same thing - "we got the first shot, but were told the second one will be in 3-4 months instead of the stipulated 3-4 weeks"... Until then you are not protected. So, advice to grandparents - don't go hugging people after the first shot. It will end badly.

That's not what I heard AT ALL.

www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-qa-why-are-we-delaying-second-dose-of-covid-vaccine

Yes you will need a second booster at some point. But if all vulnerable groups are given the initial vaccine dose, death numbers decrease hugely.

What's better - give all vulnerable people something like 80% immunity, or give 50% of vulnerable people 95% immunity? It's a numbers game.

But saying getting the first "shot" is next to nothing is hugely irresponsible and the epitome of fake news.

Let's stop reading government advice or news.
Lets go back to the source aka medical research:
www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4826

I quote: "Covid-19: Pfizer vaccine efficacy was 52% after first dose and 95% after second dose, paper shows"

So, yeah, only about 50% efficacy after the first shot. Sure, that's better than nothing. But not by much.

@EAparent the 52% is an average efficacy. So on day 1 after vaccination the efficacy is only around 1-2% and increases every day. Over the course of 21 days the efficacy rises every day and is 90% by day 15. So on average yes it's 50% but around day 15 it's like a switch being flicked then shoots up to 90%.
See quote from link I posted.

Using data for those cases observed between day 15 and 21, efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 was estimated at 89% (95% CI 52 to 97%).

Please get your facts correct before you post complete rubbish.