With multiple vaccines now releasing results, I thought it could be useful to have a place to discuss their approval, deployment, and effects on society. Here's a section from the BBC's article to set the tone I was thinking of:
More details are surfacing about the rollout plan; apparently, the NHS is hoping to give out a million doses a week. That would mean over a year for a full-population vaccination programme; and starts to raise questions about when we should begin to lift restrictions.
Covid-19: Oxford University vaccine is highly effective
The vaccine is cheaper than other options and easier to distribute around the world.
www.bbc.co.uk
In the UK there are four million doses ready to go, with another 96 million to be delivered.
But nothing can happen until the vaccine has been approved by regulators who will assess the vaccine's safety, effectiveness, and that it is manufactured to high standard. This process will happen in the coming weeks.
However, the UK is ready to press the go button on an unprecedented mass immunisation campaign that dwarfs either the annual flu or childhood vaccination programmes.
Care home residents and staff will be first in the queue, followed by healthcare workers and the over-80s. The plan is to then to work down through the age groups.
More details are surfacing about the rollout plan; apparently, the NHS is hoping to give out a million doses a week. That would mean over a year for a full-population vaccination programme; and starts to raise questions about when we should begin to lift restrictions.
NHS Covid drive aims to vaccinate up to 5,000 people daily at each mass centre
Thousands of hospital staff to be deployed in inoculation network with jabs also done by GPs at smaller community sites
www.theguardian.com
Thousands of hospital staff will join the drive to vaccinate all adults in England against coronavirus and will be deployed at mass vaccination centres, each of them aiming to give the jab to up to 5,000 people a day, NHSofficials involved in the plans said.
The NHS intends to use football stadiums, town halls and conference buildings in England to inoculate at least 2,000 people per centre each day. In urban areas, there will be a network of these centres.
The new facilities will be additional to the 1,560 community-based vaccination centres run by GPs, which will each dispense 200 to 500 jabs a day. Other forms of vaccination are also planned, including mobile vans and visits to homes and prisons. All the venues will do temperature checks on people before entry allowing space for social distancing and a 15-minute recovery time.
Neither NHS England nor the government has so far published an overall projection for how many vaccinations all these venues and methods of delivery will carry out daily in total. NHS England is expected to publish its “deployment plan”, outlining the rollout, next week.
However, seconding personnel from already under-staffed hospitals to aid the vaccine rollout could lead to patients having to wait longer for care. The NHS is already facing a massive backlog of cases due to its decision to suspend most non-Covid care provision in the spring.
NHS England has asked health service heads across England to be ready to vaccinate many numbers of people at large sites not in use because of the pandemic.
The details emerged as government figures showed the UK’s Covid-19 death toll has surpassed 50,000, adding to the pressure to roll out a comprehensive vaccination programme as soon as possible.
The centres are also expected to play a key role in immunising the general public in a second phase of the vaccination programme, following the dispensing of two doses each to the estimated 22 million, including carehome residents, NHS staff and those aged 50 or over, considered a priority.
A Whitehall official explained the centres’ key role, saying: “We are looking to vaccinate as many people as is humanly possible as quickly as possible. We want to get the country back to normal as soon as possible, which would allow us to open up the economy.”
Staff from every hospital will be seconded to the vaccination campaign, which ministers see as vital to achieving their aim of reviving the economy and normalising life.
The staff, however, could be absent from their normal duties for several months, which could affect hospital services. But many NHS workers are thought to be keen to play their part in combating the virus.
Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, said on Wednesday that he would happily give up his free time to help administer the vaccine. “This is one of the most important, if not the most important, vaccination programme we’ve done for decades,” he said. “If I can help with this in some evenings and weekends, doing some extra vaccinations sessions myself, then I’m going to.”
District nurses, health visitors and other health professionals who do not work in hospitals will also be drafted in to help, amid concerns that, while GPs are playing the lead role in the immunisation effort, there are too few of them to deliver the NHS target of vaccinating a million people a week.
Last edited: