A colleague tried the Islington Business Design Centre earlier this week and was told that they no longer give out spare doses. Seems a bit odd to me though.

They won't be saying that when they start goosestepping, asking for papers, and trying to put everything in order all the time. Don't tell him your name Pike! :)

Daily data:

Cases 2,829 (2,193 last Friday)
Deaths 9 (17)
Patients admitted 101 (104 on the 10th)
Patients in hospital 913 (1,060 on the 12th)
Patients on ventilator 123 (129 on the 13th)
People vaccinated up to and including 20 May 2021:
First dose: 37,518,614
Second dose: 21,659,783

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now up 6.1% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 40.0%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is now down to 6.0. Daily deaths for the UK has been in single figures everyday for the last week.

Could be a number of things - differences between vector and mRNA vaccines, difference in "off-label" attitudes in more vs less commercial healthcare environments, the interesting relationship between the UK government, Oxford and AZ surrounding the vaccine...

Two changes for Scotland https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2021/211/made

As of tomorrow Moray is moved from level 3 to level 2. Therefore the movement restrictions for Moray also cease.

Glasgow remains at level 3, and for those living in Glasgow you should not leave the area or remain outside except for a reasonable excuse. And for those living outside they should not enter or remain in a level 3 area except for a reasonable excuse and to travel through to reach an area outside.

Another change taking effect from Monday, a change to movement restrictions in to and out of Scotland. Within the UK there is generally free movement. However from Monday you cannot leave Scotland for the purpose of entering the following areas in the UK, and if you live in these area in the UK you cannot enter Scotland. The areas are:

Not quite sure how they expect to enforce that one.

It could be because of the recent rule changes which allows them to keep the Pfizer vaccine for longer at lower temperatures thus the need to "use them up" is much less.

Islington business centre is Moderna. There may not be many spares, but I thought they must be an opened vial that needs finishing. Maybe they have enough staff to take their spares for now.

When Pfizer and Moderna released their vaccines, *their* recommendations was the 3 week period. I'm guessing that probably tracked with how they did their trials, which undoubtedly had the shorter period between the shots (otherwise the approvals would have been that much longer - think where we'd have been with vaccinations if the companies had had to wait another 2-3 months before approval). Because of supply constraints, (from what I can tell as a non UK person), the UK decided to go against the advice of the drug companies and instead try to get more people injected with their first dose and spread the limited supply of doses and hope to get as many people with at least some protection. And ultimately, especially after longer term studies, that seems to have been a pretty reasonable choice to do. But I do suspect a lot of the advice from the drug companies came simply because they'd had to use the shorter period of time to study in order to get things approved in a timely manner, and if they'd had more time to do the initial studies, they'd probably have advised the longer time between.

It might have been interesting to see if things might have been different here in the US if we'd gone that way. Obviously it's tough to tell. We had pretty good ramp-up of supplies for the vaccines, to the point where we've been such that just about anyone who qualifies can get it right now. And that's with a population 5x the size of the UK. Course, we've also had a much lower percentage of people that are willing to get the vaccines (on *both* sides of the political spectrum), so we may have only distributed 2-3x as many vaccine doses. I'd be curious though if the UK approach would have made a difference here in Michigan where despite some of the tighter lock downs compared to a lot of the US, we had that spike in the spring. Course, I also wonder if we'd have been a lot lower if our spring weather hadn't sucked and more people had spent more time outside, where there's little evidence that covid is spreading.

I agree with a lot of the statements made above, but there is one important point that needs to be underlined: from a basic immunology point of view this approach was not a risk at all, spreading out the doses is what works in every other context with B and T cell conversion. The reason for 3 and 4 weeks was all about getting 30,000 Phase 3 participants over a 50% effectiveness hurdle to get MHRA / FDA / EMA / WHO endorsement. Had it been 8 weeks then vaccine rollout could have been delayed by actually a lot more than 5 weeks, given the iterative way testing works. So going for 3 or 4 weeks is utterly sensible for Phase 3. Going for 8 to 16 weeks for rollout is even more sensible, it's just how the immune system works.

A number of real world studies has endorsed the UK's approach in terms of the "delaying" the second dose (I don't even buy into that language). This was combined with a Lockdown. an age focused vaccine rollout, and putting emphasis on getting at least 85% coverage in the over 50 age group. We are actually on 96% coverage so beyond our wildest dreams, given that at one point 22% of the UK said they would be reluctant to get a vaccine. Swiss Cheese Model again: having 60% coverage is one huge gaping hole, you have to get a higher percentage of older people jabbed up than that.

Remember at the start of the rollout - the UK had a higher death rate than the USA and a similar infection rate. Both countries started vaccines at the same stage, with the USA having a supply advantage but a big public health disadvantage in terms of fragmentation. At the moment you are 12 times more likely to die of COVID in the USA compared to UK or Israel. And the USA approach is much more expensive in the long run too.

Just to underline the significance of this: the death rate is now the lowest since 15 March 2020, right at the start of the pandemic. Lower than at any point in the summer of last year. The infection rate is not at the lowest point, indeed rising a little of late, we've gone slightly about 25 per 100k per 7 days, but this is the difference the vaccines are making - turning COVID-19 into a non-lethal disease.

so will we open fully on June 21?
also what’s the opinion at HMG for so many ppl flying to amber, will this pressure them to speed up green ? (E.g. Spain now allows anyone from UK in without any test or quarantine, while on the way back you need 3 tests and quarantine !)

Whereas Germany now lists the UK as a variant county almost effectively banning travel between the two countries.

Sounds like politics to me. It’s hilarious how Spain says come UK with Zero restrictions while Germany is treating us like we are criminals. It’s literally two complete opposites by 2 major EU countries.

I think we will know definitely in the next 2-3 weeks if the link between case rates and hospitalisations deaths has been broken. Only if i) this is proven and ii) the long, slow motion car crash of news doesn’t deliver another super scary variant of brown underpants, can we be confident that restrictions will be eased as planned.

Got refused at Reading today - they were doing Moderna / AZ today. The person at the entrance was super helpful, mentioned a few local pharmacies that might oblige.