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The vaccine minister now on TV saying the same as Johnson. 13.9m vaccinations by mid Feb and all 9 at risk categories by Spring.
Lets see. Hope its not another operation moonshot.
I don’t think this should be generally rolled out. Community pharmacists have been well involved in the annual flu vaccination campaigns for years and do a great job. The flu jab is relatively straightforward as it comes as a ready prepared pre- loaded syringe. The Oxford jab which is the one that can be kept in a fridge comes as a 10 dose multi use vial. The pharmacist has to draw up doses from the vial using aseptic technique and once a dose has been used from the vial the other nine doses must be used within 6 hours and anything not used in this time must be binned.
I’m not sure busy high street pharmacies are the place for this type of vaccine.
Reading that more people died of Covid yesterday in the UK than have died from it in Australia since the beginning of the pandemic.
On the same programme notice how he waffled when asked when front line NHS staff would get the vaccine. I am in the 70 -75 age bracket but am effectively in self-imposed permanent lockdown anyway so would be happy to forego my vaccine for a month or two if it meant that a front line NHS nurse or medic could receive it instead. Maybe others in my situation should consider doing the same? Probably a logistical/administrative nightmare though.
According to their spokesman, community pharmacists are supposedly all keen to be part of the vaccination programme. If all 11,000 pharmacies did take part a tremendous number of people could be vaccinated quickly. However, speaking as a retired industrial pharmacist who spent some time in retail, I don't know how they would find the time! As for the worry about aseptic technique, I hardly think there is much difference in working conditions between the consulting room in a pharmacy and a leisure centre. Pharmacists should be well aware of aseptic procedures?
Of greater concern to me is the availability of components like vials and stoppers. There are not that many manufacturers of pharmaceutical quality glass vials or stoppers, so the availability of these could well turn out to be the rate limiting step.
I agree with your comments about supply chain issues like glass vials, could turn out to be the weakest link in the supply chain, not so much for the Pfizer product as product is finished in house and production planning would account for, but maybe for third party fill and finish of the Oxford jab.
I'm not so sure about community pharmacists being engaged en masse at this point in time. Boots are setting up a few hubs at large pharmacies to vaccinate 1000 a week, but your average community pharmacy couldn't do anything like that, and when you consider a 6 hour shell life once a dose has been extracted from a vial, and the fact that the SKU is 10 vials, community pharmacists could remove one heck of a lot of stock from an already friable supply chain, and potentially waste stock too.
Additionally, unlike the flu jab where appointments can be made for anyone, or even walk in service, the Covid jab will need to be given in priority order, and how is it all monitored? Pharmacy IT systems do not link to NHS patient data. Finally, according to the PIL patients have to be given a date for their 2nd jab at the time of the first, yet another administrative issue as the pharmacist will need to be sure he has stock available for these.
All in all I think pharmacy involvement would be best at a time when vaccination is open to the general population.
For those who think the UK is doing badly, our vaccination programme is doing rather well by comparison with the EU:
Vaccine doses given out by EU countries
Germany - 316,962
Italy - 182,442
Spain - 139,339
Poland - 92,220
Denmark - 51,512
Romania - 41,609
Portugal - 32,000
Greece - 16,233
Hungary - 15,000
Croatia - 13,798
Czech Republic - 13,000
Slovakia - 7,201
Austria - 6,000
Slovenia - 5,934
Finland - 5,445
France - 5,000
Bulgaria - 4,739
Ireland - 4,000
Estonia - 3,188
Latvia - 2,923
Lithuania - 2,270
Malta - 1,400
Luxembourg - 1,200
Belgium - 700
Started today: Netherlands
No data: Cyprus, Sweden
Source: Our World In Data
I have a few vulnerable family members, so I really hope that The Government pulls this off.
However, I'm going to predict that in a couple of weeks they will be saying that comparing the numbers of vaccines administered in different countries isn't a valid means of judging The Government's performance.
Just a hunch!
It fascinates me that it seems a rarity for people to try and have an global overview of current events and it's often as if Blighty exists in a bubble - and it can be very difficult to judge some complex matters at the best of times if we aren't political dogmatists.
However, and at the risk of stating the obvious, it seems that the UK has been dire in respect to the virus in general but ahead of many comparable countries in sourcing and delivering the vaccines.
Hardly shocking news, I know.
You are right it shouldn't really be an us or them but I do seem to recall the Government being criticised in the summer for not joining the EU vaccination program which it could have done. The same was true of the Europe wide PPE and ventilator programs.
As far as I can tell not joining those programs hasn't mattered one bit. In fact in the case of the vaccine it seems to have been an advantage ( up to now, could change of course) as we could start our vaccinations before Europe did.
Here's a recent link from the BBC which provides some information. mainly on the vaccine but there is some limited information on progress on the other schemes at the end.
Not just Johnston who makes it political (not disagreeing at all that he does)
1.3 million vaccines in the UK as a whole so far.
Another update due today.
Daily updates from next Monday (11th)
According to ITV.Com
Isn't this a metaphor for Brexit*? The UK can now act more quickly than a massive trading block but ended up paying more for the vaccines.
New Zealand is donating (not sure if correct word but gives accurate enough impression) vaccines to neighbouring islands. The UK can vaccine everyone it wants to but can't escape the risk that if insufficient vaccines go to those who have been slower/less able to resource them then the virus mutates beyond the coverage of the existing vaccine and comes back here.
*drink
Scientific contribution (developing a vaccine and identifying drugs to be used as part of treatments) will definitely be seen as positive part of UK response though with good amount of credit going to Boris etc.
Sorry forgot the BBC link about the EU Vaccine scheme in my earlier post
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52380823