capita are probably doing it for then
Vaccine roll-out: the logistics
- Thread starter teuchter
- Start date
capita are probably doing it for then
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
Mine has had hers done today at some kind of vaccine centre in Mitcham. Said it was very quick and painless, the whole process that is.mum-tat has got her appointment for next week, but is a bit concerned having seen this
Elderly people queue in the cold for Covid-19 vaccine at Forest Hill GP surgery
Elderly people have been queuing in the cold to receive the Covid-19 vaccine with wait times of up to three hours at a Lewisham GP surgery today.londonnewsonline.co.uk
I am a bit gutted though to realise that it's only probably about 50% protection* unless/until she gets the second and who knows when that will happen. I was SO relieved to think she was no longer at risk.
*This is my takeaway from some hasty skimreading around the subject.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
It's fairly well established that people are quite willing to buy drugs off dodgy people.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Quite complex actually. Many thousands of delivery points, around the country, and a requirement to keep all the vaccines cold, even the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine needs to be refrigerated, the others need to be kept extremely cold, as low as -70C.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
The level of protection from a single dose is unknown at present because not what the trials were based on. It's likely however that even if you aren't 100% protected from catching the virus the chances of getting seriously ill from it will still be much reduced.
My main concern with leaving a long gap between jabs, or skipping the second one entirely, is that the resultant immunity won't be as long-lasting as it could be.
I also worry, from a position of ignorance admittedly, that this will provide an evolutionary acceleration to the virus mutating and vaccine escape.
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felixthecat
are we there yet?
Bath Racecourse is another one that's going to be up and running soon. The Bristol vaccination centre is going to be huge
Supine
Newt Member
But you know, they manage this with the flu vaccine every winter without army help so...
(And yes, I know this will be for more people but the general mechanics are there.)
In this whole worrying and sorry shitfest, reading the message earlier that this was happening restored a bit of hope. Not that I doubted the integrity of the people on the ground but the various ways even with best intentions this could be fucked up, nice to see some solid action.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I've read this concern from a virologist as well. It's going outside the testing parameters, so it's a bit of a punt, isn't it? We can just hope they've made the right call.
I do think the general approach of getting everyone in and doing it as quickly is possible is right, though. In France, they've only just got started and initially you needed your GP's written approval to get one. It was ludicrously bureaucratic, and they're only now starting to scale up meaningfully. Massive vaccine scepticism in France as well, much worse than here.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
From what I understand, it's the Oxford one that is going to be available at the pharmacy. From next week allegedly. We'll see. This government likes making big promises it doesn't manage to deliver.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Yes, I have read that as many as 40% of the population don't want the vaccine.
An English friend living there, said that is fine, they move closer to the front of the queue!
teuchter
je suis teuchter
No, I meant which bits of the logistics are the army actually doing.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I dont do too much commenting at length about specific countries attitudes towards vaccination because it often requires a knowledge about various historical, cultural and political aspects, scares and attitudes towards medicine and authority of the country in question, and I rarely find time to explore that stuff. And when it coems to the UK I'm not sure I would have stumbled upon much on the internet about UK whooping cough vaccine scare of the 1970s and what stemmed from that as a result, if my mother hadnt tipped me off that such things happened back then. Even though I have personal memories of catching whooping cough in the late 1970s I might not have put two and two together.
So yeah, I havent had a chance to look into the historical backdrop in France in regards vaccinations properly at all. So far I've mostly only got as far as noticing that the likes of the BBC really quite enjoy talking about France when they are doing much worse than us with pace of vaccination and level of ambition. In stark contrast to various other moments in this pandemic when the likes of France and Ireland are treated in the usual way by the UK press - close neighbours, too close for establishment comfort so introduce a load of artificial distance into the reporting by having various aspects of news and life in those places firmly off our radar most of the time.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
I don't know, and I don't know what their equipment is capable of.
I imagine this cold chain people are talking about needs specialised kit.
At the height of the PPE shortages they did deliveries I believe, hospitals & care homes.
Don't know the details though.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
In France, they've had vaccine scares in the past. That might be part of it. A French friend who lives here but listens to French radio says it's been a mess there over vaccines, and is becoming something of a national scandal. Prime Minister has stepped in and vowed to deal with it. Not the first cock up - France fucked up on PPE and testing in the first wave. The UK's not the only country to have made a mess of the pandemic response.
Cid
Proper break this time
Yep, all too aware of Europe's overall failure... Have to read up on the vaccine issues some time.
Hi Ruby, I'm glad your mum got vaccinated so easily
Bolded bits though : For ages, I've been trying to follow pretty much all the vaccination-related stuff on here and in the mainstream media, but I'don't recall seeing a figure of only 50% efficacy anywhere
The 'worst' figure that I was aware of, in relation to the Oxford/AstraZeneca vacine, was 62% efficacy from the first jab, risng well above that with the second.
I'm well too knackered and beered-up right now
to do more Googling, but I hope some reassurance can be found by one of the real Urban Experts 
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weltweit
Well-Known Member
William of Walworth there was a sentence which was unclear about the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine which said that no one who had received the vaccine was later hospitalised. It wasn't clear whether this was no one who had received a single or also both jabs. Or if it only applied to people who had received both doses.
I think the governments stance is that single dose significantly reduces the chance of hospitalisation and serious disease / illness, so get as many people to have the first dose as possible.
I don't know what their plans are with respect to getting people the full protection afforded by the second dose.
I think the governments stance is that single dose significantly reduces the chance of hospitalisation and serious disease / illness, so get as many people to have the first dose as possible.
I don't know what their plans are with respect to getting people the full protection afforded by the second dose.
Supine
Newt Member
There have been a couple of ways to present efficacy data in percentage terms.
If you express efficacy % from the day of jab it is a much lower number than if you say efficacy after 10th day post jab. This is because it takes time for the vaccine to have an impact so the first days lower the efficacy rate. The results for all the covid vaccines are good so far. Which is great news
If you express efficacy % from the day of jab it is a much lower number than if you say efficacy after 10th day post jab. This is because it takes time for the vaccine to have an impact so the first days lower the efficacy rate. The results for all the covid vaccines are good so far. Which is great news
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
Psychologically and practically, there is a really big difference for the individual between "95% protected" and "probably mostly protected, we don't really know".
For a minute I thought I could tick off "mother dying of Covid" from my worry list but not quite. It's affected my life massively, particularly the worry "mother dying of Covid I have given her" which has limited my activity significantly. She is housebound so cannot go for walks with friends. The different degrees of lockdown have made zero difference to her.
One of the grounds GPs gave for opposing the "one dose" approach was the mental health impact on vulnerable patients.
Anyway, it is what it is.
For a minute I thought I could tick off "mother dying of Covid" from my worry list but not quite. It's affected my life massively, particularly the worry "mother dying of Covid I have given her" which has limited my activity significantly. She is housebound so cannot go for walks with friends. The different degrees of lockdown have made zero difference to her.
One of the grounds GPs gave for opposing the "one dose" approach was the mental health impact on vulnerable patients.
Anyway, it is what it is.
2hats
Dust.
First of all, all of these vaccines take time to provide any degree of protection (it takes time for your immune system to do the work) - up to 2 to 3 weeks to respond; the fine details of degree of protection depend on the vaccine. So one needs to continue to behave as if unvaccinated for at least that reason.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (BNT162b2) trials indicated around 52% efficacy after the first dose. Pfizer themselves state they have no data for how this might change over time in the absence of no second dose. PHE have calculated (as yet no published details of methodology) that after 3 weeks they expect efficacy to be around 89%, but the confidence intervals are very large, running from 50% to 97%. Irrespective there simply is no data on the longer term single-dose immunological effect right now. But what is important is that in those trials after one dose there were no serious episodes of disease, ie no one required hospitalisation to deal with COVID.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine (AZD1222) trials demonstrated efficacy of 73% after one dose, confidence intervals running from 49% to 86%. Again no one developed serious disease during the trials after one dose. Immune response was greatly improved where the second dose was delivered at 12 weeks.
Summarising: Some fraction, less than half, of single dose vaccine recipients will still develop symptoms but they will almost all (perhaps all) be less serious than they would have been otherwise and should not require medical attention. All vaccine recipients should continue to mask and practice social distancing (changes in transmission and longer term immunity arising from vaccination are yet to be established).
Useful reference: Covid-19 vaccination: What’s the evidence for extending the dosing interval?, BMJ, 372 (2021), DOI: 10.1136/bmj.n18
(Development of vaccine escape mutations is, of course, an entirely different matter).
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