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Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 5:30 pm
by shpalman

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 5:39 pm
by mediocrity511
shpalman wrote: Tue Dec 08, 2020 5:10 pm The rollout strategy is obviously based more on whoever is already in the hospital (or who will visit as an out-patient) where the vaccines are. But it might be reasonable to assume that someone who is in hospital, or visiting as an out-patient, is at more risk (both of contracting covid, and of suffering complications) than someone who is at home shielding.
This is just the initial strategy though until they get the GP manned centres up and running I thought?

Whilst I think inpatient probably is a good proxy for risk. I think outpatient it's a bit more complicated, given that lots of chronic conditions are assessed every 3-6 months. It would be luck of the draw as to where on that cycle patients are, not clinical priority. Also this group are heavily prioritised for phone based appointments wherever humanly possible, because of the risk to them.

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 6:02 pm
by sTeamTraen

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 6:03 pm
by shpalman
For the moment I'm only talking about who the first 400,000 people to get the first set of 800,000 doses will be. As has been noted, that number is similar to the size of the care-home population.

It's not completely clear to me how many more doses will arrive and when.

Hospitals will begin by immunising care home staff, and hospital inpatients and outpatients aged over 80. Care home residents, who are in the highest priority category, pose a more difficult logistical challenge. At one point NHS staff were mooted to be the first to receive the vaccine but the letter states: “All healthcare workers would agree that the principal aim of the initial vaccination programme should be to protect the most vulnerable and those at highest risk of mortality.”

Now it seems that some NHS staff have indeed been vaccinated today.

... they are either over 80, live or work in a care home, or are an NHS worker with poor underlying health or whose work puts them at higher risk.

But there are about 2.9 million over 80 so it's clear this whole group can't all be vaccinated with the vaccines which have arrived already.

Although the UK was planning to have 10 million doses of the Pfizer jab before the end of the year, it is likely to receive just four million - enough for two million people.

So even that wouldn't quite stretch to do everyone over 80, and I don't quite know what happened to the other 6 million (was there a manufacturing issue?) or when they're due.

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 6:04 pm
by shpalman

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 6:38 pm
by Herainestold
shpalman wrote: Tue Dec 08, 2020 6:03 pm

Although the UK was planning to have 10 million doses of the Pfizer jab before the end of the year, it is likely to receive just four million - enough for two million people.

So even that wouldn't quite stretch to do everyone over 80, and I don't quite know what happened to the other 6 million (was there a manufacturing issue?) or when they're due.
Pfizer is having supply chain issues. Expect more of these kind of issues.
Pfizer and Germany-based partner BioNTech SE had hoped to roll out 100 million vaccines world-wide by the end of this year, a plan that was reduced to 50 million on Nov. 9
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pfizer-sla ... 1607027787

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:03 pm
by shpalman
Someone in Bristol has had it now too

How many are we up to?

They should track this and add it to https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... irus-cases

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:03 pm
by discovolante
I'm so glad the interviewer took the time to set out very clearly the vaccination process and time periods. Responsible reporting!

Alright maybe it's a rule or something but still.

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:06 pm
by Brightonian
That's the iPhone 12 Max.

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 8:11 pm
by shpalman

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 8:39 pm
by Woodchopper
Two posts moved to the Long Covid thread
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1404&p=59948#p59941

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 10:12 pm
by sTeamTraen
cf. Chabris and Simons, "The Invisible Gorilla".

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:45 am
by shpalman
GPs to start getting round to look at thinking about booking appointments within some finite number of days

Letters from the GP in Lincoln were arriving for my dad after he'd already died (postponing one of his appointments) so we'll see how that actually works.
Details of the next stage of the staggered rollout emerged as Prof Chris Whitty said social distancing restrictions could start being lifted once 20 million vulnerable Brits have been vaccinated.

The comments made by England’s Chief Medical Officer in evidence before MPs offered hope of a return to normality before Spring
Lol at the idea that 40 million doses of the vaccine will arrive and have been administered in the next three months. Most of them will have to be the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine since there's only going to be 4 million Pfizer doses on the way, with maybe less than half arriving before the end of the year.

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2020 3:21 pm
by headshot
My 40-something friend who works in the NHS has just had her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

She was drafted onto the Covid wards in the first wave.

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2020 3:31 pm
by Herainestold
Not just the UK. There is going to be a world wide shortage of vaccine for the next six months. Once some of the other vaccine candidates are approved and scale up production, there will be lots of vaccine. Its going to take a while, so the best policy would be enhanced lockdown for the winter, until we start to see more vaccine.

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2020 3:49 pm
by lpm
headshot wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 3:21 pm My 40-something friend who works in the NHS has just had her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

She was drafted onto the Covid wards in the first wave.
I've got a friend of similar age getting it next week: NHS but not Covid front line - psychiatry.

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2020 5:31 pm
by shpalman
Ok it was fun doing the whole look-the-first-person-has-been-vaccinated look-the-second-person-has-a-name-like-someone-from-before look-at-the-gentleman-with-the-characteristic-way-of-speaking-on-the-news thing and then the oh-noes-two-people-were-allergic was a nice twist but where are the "20,000 already vaccinated in the first few days of the programme" headlines?

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:09 pm
by sTeamTraen
shpalman wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 5:31 pm Ok it was fun doing the whole look-the-first-person-has-been-vaccinated look-the-second-person-has-a-name-like-someone-from-before look-at-the-gentleman-with-the-characteristic-way-of-speaking-on-the-news thing and then the oh-noes-two-people-were-allergic was a nice twist but where are the "20,000 already vaccinated in the first few days of the programme" headlines?
Perhaps Worldometer can add a column?

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:10 am
by shpalman
sTeamTraen wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:09 pm
shpalman wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 5:31 pm Ok it was fun doing the whole look-the-first-person-has-been-vaccinated look-the-second-person-has-a-name-like-someone-from-before look-at-the-gentleman-with-the-characteristic-way-of-speaking-on-the-news thing and then the oh-noes-two-people-were-allergic was a nice twist but where are the "20,000 already vaccinated in the first few days of the programme" headlines?
Perhaps Worldometer can add a column?
Perhaps they could. But they would need to get some numbers to put in it from somewhere.
Millennie Al wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 1:12 am
shpalman wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 11:42 am seems like a couple of NHS staff with enough of a history of anaphylaxis to need to carry EpiPens* with them had bad reactions

* - other brands of adrenaline autoinjectors are available

Does it mean they already finished all the old and vulnerable people yesterday, that they've already moved on to staff?
According to https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... et-to-you/ the last step in preparation leaves you with vaccine which must be used within six hours, so I expect that there are old and vulnerable people scheduled to appear, and any left over is then used on whoever is available. You wouldn't want an old/vulnerable person to make the visit and not get the vaccine, so there are probably not quite enough scheduled to use the amount planned to be prepared (to allow for some loss during the day, e.g. if someone drops a vial) with a list of backup candidates to use up any left over. We'll probably get a better idea once there are stories appearing saying how many have been vaccinated so far.
I'm sure that in a hospital you'd always find someone willing to take the day's last few spare doses of vaccine. At least, I hope so.

Just goes to show how all that fiddling about with the priority list was irrelevant to real world conditions.

Still waiting for those stories about how many have been vaccinated though.

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:08 pm
by shpalman

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2020 6:25 pm
by shpalman

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2020 7:52 pm
by Trinucleus
shpalman wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:08 pm GPs are busy enough already
A 'hub' surgery near us (Sheffield) is vaccinating the week up to Christmas. It says they will be covering patients from 10 local surgeries

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:04 pm
by bob sterman
shpalman wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:08 pm GPs are busy enough already
If GPs were NHS employees instead of independent contractors - then perhaps it would be easier to coordinate this sort of thing. NHS could simply decide which practices will run vaccine clinics.

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:23 pm
by border_reiver
My 88 yr old mother has been given an appointment for next Friday. From the GP surgery. I think it's 'assuming we receive our expected allocation' so we'll see what actually happens.

Re: Vaccine rollout in the UK

Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2020 11:16 am
by Grumble
My sister’s surgery is going to vaccinate people. They’ve had to cancel all family planning clinics for the foreseeable. Expect a rise in pregnancies and abortions.