Have you factored in to those numbers the 469,000 odd lucky people who've had their second vaccine already? (Most of them seem to have got it in second week of Jan according to the gov figures.)lpm wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:14 amETA: the other key stat is the number first dosed as at 3 Jan 2021, which was 1.1 million. These will start coming in for second jabs during March - but not such a large figure that will materially change the above basic maths. There's another 1.3 million first doses in the week beginning 4 Jan 2021 which is when the proper program started up. So there's around a week's worth of second doses that will need to be done by 31 March at the current 2.6m pace.
Someone has to make the decision. That's what we elect leaders are for. Or in this case, the JVCI.Millennie Al said: Lives saved or years saved? What if different people disagree? Is it ethical to impose our ethics on others?
UK strategy is initially based on reducing deaths/hospitalisations and thus strain on the NHS. According to the UK plan (here), dosing strategy for Phase 1 is protecting the greatest number of at-risk people in the shortest possible time; for
Phase 2 it's achieving protection of the whole UK population from COVID-19.
Phase 1 is all the vulnerable and everybody over 50. Phase 2 is all other adults, and:
So they are thinking of prioritising essential workers. I think the sort of vaccinating Millennie Al is talking about, vaccinating a firebreak around case, isn't going to work because you really need to know where cases are to do that sort of thing. Even if the sheer munbers of cases we've got wasn't making tracking& trace too difficult for that, there's the problem that - and afaik this hasn't changed since the beginning, someone correct me if it has - testing misses about a 1/3 of positives. Whether that's asymptomatic cases or false negatives, I'm not sure.Phase 2 of the roll-out may include further reduction in hospitalisation and targeted vaccination of those at high risk of exposure and/or those delivering key public services.
The plan also says this about second doses during Phase 1:
... for every 1,000 people boosted with a second dose of COVID-19 vaccine (who will as a result gain marginally on protection from severe disease), 1,000 new people do not benefit from substantial initial protection which is in most cases likely to raise them from 0% protected to at least 70% protected. These unvaccinated people are far more likely to end up severely ill, hospitalised or in some cases dying without vaccine. Halving the number vaccinated over the next 2 to 3 months because of giving 2 vaccines in quick succession rather than with a delay of 12 weeks does not provide optimal public health impact. Operationally this means that second doses of both vaccines will be administered towards the end of the JCVI recommended vaccine dosing schedule of 12 weeks. This will maximise the number of people getting the vaccine and therefore receiving protection within the next 12 weeks.