I believe that the Sunday press was unduly celebratory over the press release issued by PHE on Saturday: efficacies of only 33% after one dose and 60% after two against the Indian variant don't, to me, seem particularly reassuring, particularly when we are leaving long periods between doses and the variant is spreading rapidly. A worrying news story was spun as a good news story, and the press went along with it.

The later releases by PHE, late on Saturday evening, are more sobering. There was this technical briefing on variants, focusing on the India one; this variant data update; and this risk assessment. Following on from these, Professor Christina Pagel, head of the clinical operational research unit at University College London, has concluded in a long Twitter thread (well worth reading) that it is too risky for England to move to step 4 of lockdown easing on 21 June.

Is is remotely possible the UK would resist moving to lockdown easing on June 21st because of what some college professor at some city college says?? :eek:

No.

But the prime minister has always insisted that he will be driven by data, not dates, and she argues convincingly that the data does not support a further loosening of restrictions just yet.

I fear that the precedent has been set and tested well (in many western countries) so that we can expect similar responses to the next cold or flu virus strain which will undoubtedly come around some time soon...

Apparently a lot of scientists said as much the w/c May 10 re : step 3 :)

It's still fair to say we don't know the whole story, but the figures quoted are likely to be under estimates due to the timing involved, plus the known factor that AZ's immunity appears to have a slow start and then runs higher for longer. We're too soon in to see that effect on the UK side due to where we are in the cycle, though data from India seems to be showing higher figures.. Moreover it's just one aspect of the vaccine's efficiency. Some caution is needed on the next lot of figures, since it's early days, but so far 4,000 cases of the variant first identified in India have now been identified in the UK, leading so far to 1 death, that's total over about 3 weeks. Back in January there were roughly 30,000 daily cases of the variant first identified in Kent, leading to a daily death rate of around 1,500, so a 5% fatality rate. Bolton only has about 30 people in its 4 hospitals at the moment, just 6 in intensive care, and not all of them have the variant in question - but these patients are mainly unvaccinated when 65-70% of the adults in Bolton have had at least one vaccine. Again this isn't like for like due to the different stages of the virus, and there is uncertainty, but the real world data is tending support the idea that while we may see some cases rise, the impact will hopefully not be too severe due to the multiple barriers now in place. Again very early data this, but case numbers in Bolton have fallen in the last day or two, 102 cases on Saturday, compared to 283 on Tuesday.

But the key message was and is, if you're over 50 years old and not had your second dose, you need to think about getting that arranged.

Tomorrow will be 8 weeks for me, so I should hopefully get an SMS from Nimbus inviting me for my second! If not it says I have to contact the helpdesk after Saturday.

I just don't know what to do about my UK trip scheduled to arrive on 24 June for a week. I don't want to go there and be called twice a day and hoping by then I will be greenlighted to avoid the quarantine. I can move back my trip if needed AA said no worries but logistically with my schedule that initial time frame is the only one that works this summer. Ugh.

Some more data to digest. This is the booking for day 2/8 tests and hotel quarantine hotels. The predates green lists, so it is the total number of passengers arriving into the UK that need to quarantine.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ee9bba488a.png
From the most recent data, I reckon that would be about 5 full flights per day into a dedicated red list terminal. And that assumes they all come into LHR. At least there will not be much queueing!

Heard nothing from the GP, 1st AZ on 12 March, 50+.

The letter system in Scotland seems to be faltering amongst younger age groups. Yesterday my friend who lives in a student flat got his blue vaccine envelope - plus that of 5 previous tenants, who now don't know they have an appt booked for them.

Indeed, news today that half the appts at the main Glasgow centre have gone missed at the weekend. Does England see figures as bad? Especially concerning when we don't have walk ins happening in Scotland as far as I know.

Poor figures elsewhere too: "Last week we revealed that at least 78,000 Scots had failed to turn up for their scheduled vaccine appointments. This included 35,450 in NHS Lothian areas, 26,874 in NHS Grampian and 10,463 in NHS Forth Valley."

Yes, we are sometimes having 25% no-shows but that may not be entirely bad news. Some of this will be people having got the second vaccine from another location - or even us - before their slot was rebooked. Some of it will be forgotten or overlooked slots - some people didn't realise that both appointments were made at the same time as the first appointment and didn't spot the reminder. They get chased up and rebooked. Then some people were given slots that could not be met (e.g. they were working) and there wasn't an easy route for them to cancel the offered slot. And then there is a lot of mis-communication errors - people being sent to us by GPs on the wrong day for example. It's somewhat annoying but mostly these people will get their second jabs one way or the other. Someone not turning up is someone else's opportunity for an early jab, and given that people may want to travel there seems no increase in hesitancy. I handle my centre's questions on vaccine passport and every day people young and old want to learn how to get their certificates. My route home often takes me past a pharmacy on the national scheme and there is always a queue of people, young men mainly for some reason, hoping to get the end of vial jabs. Even if it's pouring with rain.

One of the things I love about this country the common sense of most of the population when it comes to health issues like this. There isn't a big anti-vax movement and the General feeling among people I talk to and the data I see is, people want things to return to normal and getting a Jab is the way to do it. I feel nothing but gratitude to the people who developed, manufactured, purchased, distributed and then injected these vaccines, and I think most brits feel the same way.

Are they sending out appointments without people asking for them in Scotland? If that is the case, it does not seem right to me. It is too close to the government saying you must do it. Give everyone the choice and as we have seen in England we will be queueing round the corner in the rain to get jabbed.

my local gp led clinic mainly handles bookings by sending a link to mobiles for people to book themselves in approx a week in advance. They also phone those without a mobile registered with their GP. Our no shows have never reached 5%. We also normally get a crowd of about 30 people waiting for end of vial jabs, though for AZ where we won’t give to under 40s at end of day, we are now struggling to find people looking for spares.