There are may others that may be getting it too. My wife and her colleague as the pre-school she works at have all been asked if they want to go on a short notice list where they could be called in with only a hour notice to use surplus vaccine so it doesn't go to waste.

It's sad that we've become so quickly inured to large number of people infected, sick and dying: sad that a transitory drop to 20,000+ falling sick each day with an unpredictable, virulent, highly infective, and rapidly evolving disease could generate anything tinted with pleasure.

I don't know when new cases in the region of 12,500 a day became the key to unlocking restrictions. Evidence suggests that premature lifting of barriers to infection risks yo-yoing back into crisis. So I hope decisions are made in a manner more nuanced than punditry.

Yes I am pleased cases are not still running at 68,000 a day as then this awful lockdown we're all in would feel utterly pointless and have no end in sight, and deaths would never reduce.

I didn't say the NHS has been overwhelmed, I made the point that staff are tired, and there has been significant redeployment of staff from other clinical areas to deal with COVID. They are working long shifts, working hours directive ignored, and many are on their knees. The impact on the NHS over the past month exceeds anything seen last year. Once the admissions start to fall, staff will need time to recover, and many other clinical areas for elective/routine outpatient services have been scaled back in many areas. The point I was making is that NHS will not be at normal capacity for quite some while, but they will do their best but equally need to be given space.

Looking at the relevant chapter of the Green Book, they would be OK to be vaccinated, either as Group 2 (front line social care, for any sort of residential care) or as Group 6 (Clinical risk groups under 65 years old). To quote from the latter category: "Those who are in receipt of a carer’s allowance, or those who are the main carer of an elderly or disabled person whose welfare may be at risk if the carer falls ill". There is a second group that may apply, namely residential care homes for younger adults, all residents should be vaccinated (and resident doesn't exactly mean someone who resides there). Those with learning difficulties are such high risk that doctors are allowed to consider off-label / unlicensed vaccination of under 16 year olds on a balance of risk basis. So they look to me to be firmly in the frame for this stage of vaccination.

This is a key point. Many who have a surgery booked has had it cancelled; I've heard of people with cancer having had their time-sensitive surgery axed, I've got a colleague who has resorted to fly overseas and go private for a knee surgery following an injury in March last year. Cancer tests aren't being done. There is much to say about how much subsequent governments have slashed the NHS (there used to be 100k more beds in the 1990s) but right here and now this issue is causing avoidable deaths and it's something we should all be trying to avoid.

if there are some left at the end of a day that need to be used up, it makes sense to vaccinate anyone rather than discarding. Our local hub had a few left after heavy snow on Sunday evening, with no way to contact GP surgeries that were shut, they went to anyone over 50 that could be contacted who could make it to the clinic in a short time.

I don't disagree, I was referring to people that have applied and been offered shots a week in advance (don't blame them for taking them)

I wonder if the snow is the reason for 500k -> 200k + 297k first doses delivered the last couple of days?

Inbound Quarantine looks like it will initially be for 22 countries... BBC News live feed

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...26c6919a73.jpg

Lockdown to continue until March 8, plan for lifting lockdown to be published by Feb 22.

They do seem to be running somewhat ahead of what they are publicly saying and, I presume, this is quite intentional. As long as the EU doesn't succeed in cutting off our vaccine supply, it now looks as though they will get to me (Tier 7 out of 9) by early March rather than mid-March.

Personally I think they should use the spare capacity now to speed up the second jabs as, according to the limited results from Israel, that's pretty important in keeping down the risks - and far more important than HMG is acknowledging.

Luckily all of the UK's AstraZeneca allotment is made locally so the EU can't stop that. UK doesn't seem too worried about it, but it would affect Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson as they are both made in EU.

That's good news!

Agreed, although I fear the goverment will succumb to media pressure and expand first doses to teachers and other public sector workers.

Lockdown will finish and we'll all be in a new Tier 5, which is lockdown except for kids back at school :D

*I am joking... I think!