Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Big Fifer]

8 minutes ago, Ron Aldo said:

I would hope for a well coordinated vaccine program which would allow some level of normality by spring or summer at the latest.

I think the devolved nations will take different approaches and will each make a c**t of it in different ways. For example, England don't actually bother tracking how many people have been vaccinated and are therefore unable to make an informed decision on whether restrictions can be lifted. In Scotland I think we'll fare better but I still fear we'll go with an overly cautious approach in terms of restrictions. Even at the moment there are a few areas which really should be in tier 0 but aren't.

I would also hope that less emphasis is put on cases and more focus is given to how many people have been vaccinated and how many people are admitted to hospital/ICU. It's obviously still early days but once the vulnerable have been vaccinated then pressure on the NHS should start to ease. There might still be 1000+ people a day getting the virus but if none of those people are being admitted to hospital there really should be no need for restrictions beyond making people self-isolate.

This, for me, is the important part. The overly cautious Scottish government need to realise, pretty quickly, that the conversation we've had for the past 9 months is not the same conversation as we have been having now. We have a vaccine, get a road map out for how we return to normality pronto. "Keeping cases below X" to be in Tier 1, 2, 3 etc needs to be binned by March, frankly. 

[renton]

1 minute ago, ICTChris said:

500.  We've been injecting people with tonic water, banking on the placebo effect.

If good vibes is what it takes to beat the virus, then we are all fucked.

[Paco]

How many actual doses is there in the UK? I know we have 4 million reserved but I guess we don't actually have that many. Is Pfizer currently cranking doses out now?

800,000 from the initial delivery. More are ‘expected’ this week but I think they’re being deliberately vague about how many and when.

Pfizer essentially lied about their capacity for delivering the vaccine. We were supposed to have 10 million in the UK by the end of the year but will presumably be lucky to have two. They halved their delivery schedule to the US too.

There should still be plenty of doses available though. Scotland, if the numbers quoted this morning are right, have used about half of their supply. England about a quarter.

[vikingTON]

14 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

ETA, why is d-h-i-m starred out?

Rhyming couplet with a word that Celtic fans got banned from the site, as part of an Old Firm tit-for-tat since the f-bomb and Atilla references got banned for being 'equally offensive'. With NilbyMouth's laughable interpretations holding the ring for this tragic contest.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

9 minutes ago, Mallo_Madrid said:

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine will be a game changer when it is regulated and rolled out. Its the breaking news I'm certainly waiting for above all others.

Get that fired into folks via Nerf Guns at on a massive scale of and we can start easing these awful restrictions.

That's not the rolls Royce one tho is it?  what happened to the talk of the J&J vaccine actualy stopping you from catching it and spreading it,  if there is a vaccine that lets you go round the covid ward kissing all the patients but still stops you catching it then that needs to have the highest priority , life has more or less ground to a halt and needs to get moving again before we enter a fucking 20 year great depression

[renton]

4 minutes ago, Paco said:

800,000 from the initial delivery. More are ‘expected’ this week but I think they’re being deliberately vague about how many and when.

Pfizer essentially lied about their capacity for delivering the vaccine. We were supposed to have 10 million in the UK by the end of the year but will presumably be lucky to have two. They halved their delivery schedule to the US too.

There should still be plenty of doses available though. Scotland, if the numbers quoted this morning are right, have used about half of their supply. England about a quarter.

Puts more onus on getting the AZ one rolled out...

[welshbairn]

5 minutes ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

That's not the rolls Royce one tho is it?  what happened to the talk of the J&J vaccine actualy stopping you from catching it and spreading it,  if there is a vaccine that lets you go round the covid ward kissing all the patients but still stops you catching it then that needs to have the highest priority , life has more or less ground to a halt and needs to get moving again before we enter a fucking 20 year great depression

J&J one supposed to be ready in February. It's possible that all or none of the various vaccines might prevent transmission, too early to tell.

Edited December 16, 2020 by welshbairn

[Todd_is_God]

7 minutes ago, Big Fifer said:

This, for me, is the important part. The overly cautious Scottish government need to realise, pretty quickly, that the conversation we've had for the past 9 months is not the same conversation as we have been having now. We have a vaccine, get a road map out for how we return to normality pronto. "Keeping cases below X" to be in Tier 1, 2, 3 etc needs to be binned by March, frankly. 

I agree, but they are also saying this:

They seem to be missing the point that providing the vaccine reduces the chance of serious illness by around 90% it doesn't really matter whether or not it reduces transmission, or by how much.

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

The editor from The Lancet was on Sky News this morning saying that the Oxford/Astra vaccine approval is likely within the next few weeks.

January and February are probably going to be bleak once the disaster of relaxing restrictions for Christmas realises itself.

I'd be more optimistic of restrictions easing sooner if it wasn't that useless c**t Hancock in charge of the vaccine rollout.

[welshbairn]

7 minutes ago, throbber said:

This is another pretty awful attempt at a put down from you but pretty much what we’ve come to expect in recent times. Truly the Rudy Giuliani of the forum.

It's ok, he's vaccinated.

 

 

[renton]

So, back of fag packet calculation: assume you need to give a vaccine to 60% of the adult (over 16) population of Scotland to get to your basic herd immunity level. Assume a 90% success rate for the vaccine, then imagine you want that rolled out by the end of March.

I think that means you need to be doing about 187k vaccinations/week.

[Arthur Orton]

14 minutes ago, throbber said:

This is another pretty awful attempt at a put down from you but pretty much what we’ve come to expect in recent times. Truly the Rudy Giuliani of the forum.

[Blootoon87]

So, back of fag packet calculation: assume you need to give a vaccine to 60% of the adult (over 16) population of Scotland to get to your basic herd immunity level. Assume a 90% success rate for the vaccine, then imagine you want that rolled out by the end of March.
I think that means you need to be doing about 187k vaccinations/week.

I'd hope that after vaccinating 10-20% of the population you could start easing restrictions as they would be the most vulnerable people.

[renton]

2 minutes ago, Blootoon87 said:

 

 

I'd hope that after vaccinating 10-20% of the population you could start easing restrictions as they would be the most vulnerable people.

 

Yeah, you'd hope so though at 20% your still looking at 62k/week, more if you assume a lower success rate we might expect from the AZ guy.

[RiG]

24 minutes ago, renton said:

So, back of fag packet calculation: assume you need to give a vaccine to 60% of the adult (over 16) population of Scotland to get to your basic herd immunity level. Assume a 90% success rate for the vaccine, then imagine you want that rolled out by the end of March.

I think that means you need to be doing about 187k vaccinations/week.

From one paper I had read you need around 70% of the population needs to attain immunity for herd immunity.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0141076820945282

So maybe closer to (or more than) 200,000 vaccinations a week?

Edited December 16, 2020 by RiG

[Louis Litt]

12 hours ago, madwullie said:

Wife telling me tonight that there's a mad scramble in her hospital from people trying to get themselves / their (nhs employed) mates etc. booked in for vaccines when they don't actually work in red zones which is meant to be the criteria for qualifying to get one - meaning actual staff who work in these zones and are facing critical patients every day are unable to get booking slots / having to wait days to get vaccinated. 

She says it's being managed like a release of Glastonbury tickets. 

This is the experience I had at Ninewells. We had an email sent around with a link to book a slot with the woman that sent it practically begging to 'please not share it with any other colleagues or departments'. 

It doesn't ask in any detail what your job is or even where you actually work - it looked like basically anyone could book which is obviously the case with what's happening. 

The Glastonbury thing is pretty accurate, it was literally a case of refreshing and crossing your fingers. 

[renton]

Just now, RiG said:

From one paper I had read you need around 70% of the population needs to attain immunity for herd immunity.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0141076820945282

So maybe closer (or more than) 200,000 vaccinations a week?

The effective level for herd immunity is dependent on R effective, so in some sense you can achieve it at a much lower percentage if you leave some restrictions in place. Of course if you then open up, your R effective goes up and so does your threshold for herd immunity. Though it does mean that once you had your herd immunity level with restrictions, you could drive viral levels low and continue your vaccination programme in a more open way afterwards.

That also assumes that the virus spreads evenly. It seems like 80% of infected people don't actually pass it on.  Thus herd immunity is actually a lower number since you really only need to stop transmission through a lower fraction of the population. Assuming the vaccine stops transmission at all.

Blootoon is right though, once you get the most vulnerable people vaccinated you won't be able to keep a lid on restrictions anyway, and the government needs to be prepared for that. Still though, vaccinating 16% of the population gets you all the 65s and over, 20% gets you that and critical workers I'd guess and that is still 62k/week  by end of March.

 

[Michael W]

My GP surgery has been allocated as one of the local centres for roll out. The local Facebook pages were full of angry people yesterday because the road was blocked with cars parked everywhere as people had been called in to get their vaccine. 

I've already received my ticket from my GP for my vaccination, although I will be waiting a while yet until they contact me to make my appointment as I'm low risk. At least 1 party in the chain is organised. 

[RiG]

Listening to the latest Private Eye podcast (which features "MD" discussing the COVID-19 vaccine) and completely forgot that the UK has lost its measles free status!

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/eyeplayer/play-379?fbclid=IwAR34X3TyAMWZGTS1sXu059v6wXH_IQYDFkRK8y5Q5pl57lFMYH0wTu6MytY

[stuart87]

I have dreamt of watching Scotland at a major tournament since I was 10 in 1998. Having managed to get tickets for the Hampden games at the Euros, I fear I am going to be left disappointed as the games are played behind closed doors or in a different country that we can’t go to. Someone give me some hope.