COVID Vaccine !

[Smokin Joe]

From the Guardian -

https://www.theguardian.com/society...ow-the-uk-got-ahead-in-the-covid-vaccine-race

The EU badly screwed up on this and have only themselves to blame.

 

[srw]

I can't see why you would say 'curiously rose tinted' when we have managed (to 28th Jan) to administer 8 369 438 doses (inc' first and second) which I think is good going especially when comparing against other nations.

You were focussing on a single day. Have a look at the total picture. It's good, but it's beginning to fall short of the government's highly ambitious target, it's not improving as it needs to - and single countries having a success is totally pointless.

 

[srw]

From the Guardian -

https://www.theguardian.com/society...ow-the-uk-got-ahead-in-the-covid-vaccine-race

The EU badly screwed up on this and have only themselves to blame.

Also from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...m-must-answer-on-his-handling-of-covid-crisis

The UK badly screwed up on every other aspect of dealing with the pandemic and have only themselves to blame.

 

[Smokin Joe]

Also from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...m-must-answer-on-his-handling-of-covid-crisis

The UK badly screwed up on every other aspect of dealing with the pandemic and have only themselves to blame.

I wasn't claiming they hadn't, my post was about this specific issue.

 

[mjr]

From the Guardian -

https://www.theguardian.com/society...ow-the-uk-got-ahead-in-the-covid-vaccine-race

The EU badly screwed up on this and have only themselves to blame.

Not only themselves. AZ do seem to have oversold the UK production by listing it as capacity for the EU too.

The EU seem to have made two big errors though: offering the UK participation terms in the vaccine procurement plan that included no vote which was never going to wash, and investing less in factories than the UK and way way less than the USA.

But how many times has the UK farked up on everything else? So best not to throw stones out of this glass house.

And the real heroes in that story are the Oxford Uni team who realised what was unfolding and started the hard work a good six weeks before gov.uk started taking it seriously. We would be in deeper shoot without them.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Have a look at the total picture. It's good, but it's beginning to fall short of the government's highly ambitious target, it's not improving as it needs to - and single countries having a success is totally pointless.

Target = Offer everyone in Groups 1 - 4 a first vaccination by 15 Feb "the government's highly ambitious target"
Number estimates seem to vary but say total 15M. Reduce that by 20% refusals = 12M. Add a million for 'bias' = 13M
Data below from: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations
As at 29 Jan total first doses: 8,378,940 (in arms, not 'offered')
Daily = 365,656 (7-day average) (first doses, in arms, not 'offered')
Number of days till 15 Feb = 15 (say, could be 16 or even 17)
Reasonable estimate of next fortnight capability - 5,484,840
Reasonable estimate of numbers of first doses administered = 13.8M
The vaccination rate doesn't need to "improve" (though that'd be excellent) to actually overstep its target.
Edit: All those involved in procurement, distribution, storage (at the various levels across the nation), management and delivery (into arms) deserve massive plaudits. This is not a short race though; but by the end of spring the UK should be close to herd immunity (which is of course the overarching aim). Internal transmission will diminish and infections brought in from abroad will not gain a foothold and should be much easier to control, with minimal loss of life or serious illness.

Don't know what you mean by 'single countries' - is this Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? If so they seem to be reasonably on track to play their part in the United Kingdom's effort/programme.
If you're saying that the UK (a "single country") getting its act together (for once) "is totally pointless" then allow me to disagree. The UK efforts to help find/develop, initial manufacture, trial, manufacture at scale, an effective, inexpensive vaccine will save hundreds of thousands of lives across the world, not just in UK.
What do you suggest UK changes in its immediate future plans, or should have done differently with regard to vaccine development, procurement (selection), authorisation and roll out?

 

[Buck]

I still maintain that if you are sent two appointments a person is going to pick any criteria they want to decide which appointment to keep. If both appointments are equally convenient, why wouldn‘t you use what you have read about the different vaccines to differentiate? As long as they cancel the appointment they are not going to keep, it’s not wasting anything - the spare appointment is just given to the next on the list.
Sorting out an inefficient system that sends out two appointments in the first place is what needs sorting and is not down to the individual.

You’re right Julia.

General Practice is asked to contact/book in patients in the defined cohorts (we are now working on the 70-74 and CEV groups as well as chasing those in the earlier cohorts who have no vaccine recorded or have not declined.

The problem is that when we come to book them in, a significant number of patients have now booked via the national booking system (NBS) to which GP land has been excluded which means a lot of patients have accepted these offers, many of which mean travelling some way for their appointment at a mass vaccine centre.

The feedback from patients is that they accepted the invitation from the MVC because they thought that was their only way to get the vaccine. I don’t blame them at all for this as the invites don’t mention that Their local GP will contact them as well!

This doesn’t waste appointments* but does cause a lot of extra work to get the appointments filled and is stretching the limited capacity we have to contact and book in thousands of patients at such short notice.

* we made the decision to not write out with appointments for this exact eventuality and go with a telephone and on line booking offer.

 

[Rusty Nails]

You were focussing on a single day. Have a look at the total picture. It's good, but it's beginning to fall short of the government's highly ambitious target, it's not improving as it needs to - and single countries having a success is totally pointless.

Not totally pointless as it will reduce infections and slow the spread down in that country. It will not be pointless at all if other countries also manage to improve their vaccination performance.

The rest of our UK pandemic performance has been piss-poor, but it seems to hurt some people to even acknowledge the occasional belated success without adding a "but".

 

[lane]

You know what I'm glad I live in a country that's doing well on vacations. Sure we need to help make sure all 6 billion or so in the world are vaccinated. But I have no issue getting a fair proportion of the UKs 60 million don't first.

 

[Unkraut]

But what do you think the UK's PM trustworthiness has to do with the control of the movement of vaccines from their production in an EU country to one outside the EU?

Assuming I have understood it correctly, the EU is within its rights to prevent vaccines being diverted to third countries who are willing to pay more. The UK is now a third country, but with the unique problem of the Irish border. I don't think with Johnson's record on the border including a willingness to break international law the fear of misusing it to divert vaccines from the EU is unjustified. The border problem is that the EU do no want the UK keeping in the single market by the backdoor. I do think the EU might have been wiser to have kept quiet until and unless there was evidence this was actually occurring.

Some of von der Leyen's jumping up and down about this may be to cover up shortcomings in the EU's procurement policy. On the other hand, it's also wrong to say the EU completely messed up on this. The long-term solidarity might pay off despite a short-term problem in supply at the beginning. Looking at Portugal you can see why it was necessary to make sure bigger countries didn't hog all the supplies.

It's agonising to see here how the infrastructure was set up to vaccinate 400 000 people a day under the authority of the states/Länder, yet just over a month after starting it's only running at just over 25% capacity due a lack of vaccine, which was the responsibility of the central government.

The country is so close to getting this back under control in the incidence and infection rates, but the mutated versions of the virus that spread quicker are increasingly in evidence and might yet derail this, with far too few of the vulnerable vaccinated.

With new capacity being built, the situation will eventually correct itself. New BioNTech works in Marburg, Curevac negotiating with Bayer to produce their vaccine once authorised. The government intends everyone who wants vaccination should have received it by 21 September. It might be possible to bring this forward, but they are wise not to promise this.

I hope the EU's actions will be fully investigated once this is over, but now is not the time.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Latest news for Friday 29 Jan:

487 756 first doses + 2178 second doses. Second best day so far I think.

8 859 372 total doses to date is a very good result.

And again - a really good effort by all the agencies involved.

Tbh I'm not concerned whether we hit the stretching target or not - at this rate we will end up (barring more weather issues or batch release issues) with a very creditable figure imo. And if we do it will be something that we all ought to be proud of.

 

[Unkraut]

A quick look at Spiegel this morning concluded that von der Leyen is probably right from a legal point of view, but so what if the underlying problem is shortages caused by the policy over the summer.

I have some misgivings over the rapidity of the development of the vaccines, but wonder if the authorisation has taken too long - contradictory I know. An inevitable trade off between safety and the need to deploy the stuff.

I fear that von der Leyen is the EU's Boris Johnson. A better and more robust approach minus worrying about costs might have prevented what seems to me to be unnecessary delays in supply. This delay might cost lives.

I really don't like von der Leyen at all - there is something of Thatcher about her at the end of Thatcher's reign. More than capable of triggering a negative reaction! Add to this dodgy goings on with 'advisors' when she was defence minister and oops! her mobile phone data got deleted despite an enquiry that forbade this. Not good.

OK, feel better for that!

 

[mjr]

Assuming I have understood it correctly, the EU is within its rights to prevent vaccines being diverted to third countries who are willing to pay more.

The UK currently prohibits over 100 drugs being exported to the EU without permission, including many covid treatments. There is a strong stench of hypocrisy coming from gov.uk ministers.

 

[Craig the cyclist]

As always, more nuance helps.

If tens, or hundreds of thousands are dying on the continent while we vaccinate 20 year olds at near zero risk, is that in the national interest? And is it ethical?

'Near zero'. I assume you don't have a 20 year old? I mean you could say that 80 year olds in care homes are at near zero risk if they are all tested, and the negatives all put in together and not allowed to see anyone else. Or all asthmatics are at near zero risk if they simply test negative then have all their food posted through a hatch in their door.

Yes, it is in our national interests to vaccinate everyone first.

 

[Craig the cyclist]

The UK currently prohibits over 100 drugs being exported to the EU without permission, including many covid treatments. There is a strong stench of hypocrisy coming from gov.uk ministers.

Really, name 20 of them for us.