Vaccine roll-out – Where & how many?
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What’s happening in Wales ? Just heard by the end of next week they expect to start on the over 70’s in England… there doesn’t seem to be many over 80’s done in Wales :(
Now MP1963 don’t be so impatient. You know very well that this isn’t a sprint. (tongue in cheek)
A week ago on 10th January, Wales Online reported that Wales had received 275,000 doses of vaccine. 250,000 Pfizer & 25,000 of the Oxford AstraZeneca which was only approved on New Years Eve. Today PH Wales show that 126,375 total doses have been administered with 129 receiving a second dose. I can understand holding an equal amount of Pfizer back for the second dose but what is happening with the rest. Surely it shouldn’t be stockpiled.
Zinger, I thought that the First Minister gave a totally reasonable explanation for ‘holding back’.
As he stated, there is not to be another delivery of vaccine until the end of the month, so it makes sense to use the available in a constant flow rather than all at once.
If no vaccine is available, the vaccination centres would become idle for a period of time and would require basically starting up again when vaccines did become available.
As an aside, I am sick of hearing various groups demanding they should receive priority in the programmed schedule. The system in play has been accepted U.K. wide and should be adhered to rigidly.
I am quite happy to wait my turn, safe in the knowledge that those most in need are being catered for e.g. the elderly who account for the majority of serious illnesses or in many instances, death.
Benjamin you may well think it acceptable. That is your prerogative.
I am of the opinion that in this instance, waiting is leaving a number of people without at least some protection. It does not make any sense.
It doesn’t make sense to stockpile apart from keeping anough vaccine back for second doses as the call for vaccine across the world might make it difficult to obtain the Pfizer vaccine.
I agree with your comment about various groups wanting to queue jump and I understand that in many cases office workers have been vaccinated. Hardly front line.
An almost 90 year old relative with numerous underlying health problems has still not been notified.
What office staff are being vaccinated? Is it those who have to do admin work in hospitals? In which case this would make sense, otherwise the majority of non essential office work can be done remotely and from home.
Not only hospital admin staff but I am only repeating second hand anecdotal evidence from people in the workplace which I am not.
You do realise I hope, that is how false information is promulgated and conspiracy theories start?
We all know of a friend of a friend who knows someone with inside knowledge. Best to keep it to yourself until officially confirmed or otherwise.I agree that we should not have ‘queue-jumping’ when it comes to allocating priority. Sure, strong cases can be made for many groups of profession. For example:
Public transport drivers – we need these, after all they oil the wheels of economic recovery
Retail staff – we need these to keep us supplied with our essential items for our very survival
Police officers – we need these, after all law and order is the fabric of a civilised society
Teachers – we need these to nurture the development of our future generations
Politicians – we need these to make important moral decisions on all our behalf and to bring purpose, stability and equilibrium to our societyOkay apologies, the last one was intended as a moment of levity, but a case could be made for all the others, and I do not doubt that many other worthy groups could be added to any list. The above examples are included purely for illustrative purposes only, not intended to imply any order of merit, or insult to any not included. The point is that you can’t make special cases for groups of profession (apart from healthcare staff who provide care dedicated to the most vulnerable and to Covid-infected patients) because, whilst they are all meritorious, to separate any out would be too controversial and too divisive. It is better to strictly adhere to the agreed list of clinical risk priority grouping and concentrate on setting up the vaccine roll-out to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
I am more comfortable that allocation is being driven by the health profession rather than by politicians. But the WG needs to set up the roll-out infrastructure quicker – more mass vaccination hubs, a co-ordinated approach using all qualified professionals to assist in rural locations, 24/7 operations, etc. The current thinking in all four nations is to vaccinate as many people as possible as soon as the Oxford vaccines arrive. I understand there are concerns over the Pfizer vaccines. There are concerns that if they give out all the vaccines they have as a first dose, they may not have a supply available for the second dose – and you can’t give someone a different type of vaccine for their second dose. If they are guaranteed supplies (and I don’t know) then they should vaccinate everyone with what is available now. It is better to give as many people as possible some protection rather than hold back vaccines to give people their second dose three weeks later. Not all will agree with this, but you can see the logic. It’s not perfect, but it will save more lives and reduce serious illness (and hospitalisation).
My biggest concern is that we (Wales) are ‘allocated’ our vaccine batches by the UK Government and then the WG and, for some reason, we are rolling out the vaccine percentage to population slower than the other 3 nations – Scotland has just mobilised the Army. Why is this, is it because we are being allocated fewer vaccines per population ratio than elsewhere, or are we slower at getting an efficient vaccine programme organised, or perhaps a combination of the two? At the risk of being accused of following England’s lead, perhaps a dedicated WG Vaccine Minister needs to be appointed to drive the roll-out procedure at full-speed. Apparently, we may have some spare resources available in the form of vaccinators standing around. They have said that this is not a race, but that is exactly what it is: a race to save lives. As I have said before, I am not a special group and I am happy to wait my turn later in the year, but there is not enough urgency about mass vaccination for me, and I don’t see a will to turn that around. Too many elderly people in Wales still haven’t heard anything.
Surely though, they are getting vaccines into arms when they are available and as soon as physically possible? It’s not like we are incapable of doing mass vaccinations – winter flu seasonal jabs should at least provide some level of expertise in the logistical challenges of carrying it out.
That is aside from the obvious special issues mentioned previously regarding Pfizer vaccines going to waste if people don’t turn up due to storage issues AND whether it’s medically sound to only have 1 shot rather than 2 against the company’s recommendations.
It’s quite simply the case that people are just getting restless and impatient. There’s lots of people to go through, we’re all in a queue and we’ll all get our vaccinations in due time.
Lots of people just huffing and puffing and saying WELL MY ELDERLY RELATIVE HASN’T HEARD ANYTHING is leading to people thinking nothing is being done. Most of these people are probably in good health and in their 70s and not due to be done yet. Thousands of examples of anecdotal evidence all building up to a misleading picture.
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