We’re averaging 440k a day now and that’s increasing every day.

Surely supply will only increase as time goes on. We have shown we can do 600k in a day, and we seem to be adding more vaccination sites frequently, so it wouldn’t suprise me if that average goes up quite a bit in the coming weeks.

Further to the comments above, I don’t really consider “distancing” to be back to normal, yet they’re talking about that (and masks) being around for a long time. I guess they figure low infection numbers means less variants

I think the real challenge will come from the number of 2nd doses which will take the 'shine' off the rate of the number of people "getting the vaccine" where the media focus is the first dose.
So although the rate of new people getting vaccinated for their first dose may start to drop, the rate of needles going still into arms will be high.

I think distancing and masks sticking around till the end of 2021 is understandable - even though I hate masks, I know they are needed. Keeping distancing/masks around till the whole population is vaccinated I get, but once we are all vaccinated - surely it's back to normality? If the vaccines are as effective as they are in preventing severe symptoms and transmission as well, we should be back to complete normality.

All I'm interested in is getting a beer in a pub. And a meal in a restaurant*. Then hopefully a holiday or two later in the year.

*Good job my missus is such a good cook, I'd have been out on the street stoking up a revolution if not!

Yes I agree sick of the sight of our kitchen.

It's 83% (though when I calculated it, I made it 81.5%). The point being it takes 3 weeks after vaccination for the immunological memory to get to the right level, and in the elderly it may take another week or so. At that point those vaccinated should avoid hospitalisation and / or death. However! If someone was in scope for mortality, this typically takes 5 weeks from the point of infection, it's actually got longer by about 6 days since the start of the pandemic due to better therapeutic pathways. So that means the death rate will take about another month before we should hopefully see some good reductions, so the first week of March You will note the possible school return date "coincidentally" is 8 March . As a hint: a bad patch of influenza, which could lead to hospitals having Major Incidents and schools closing, would be 200 deaths a day. UK wide. Today's Covid mortality is 985 on a 7 day average (it peaked at 1401), or 1148 on a 14 day average, and the 14 day average is coming down quite strongly now. [And yes, influenza has barely had an impact on the NHS this year, thanks to social distancing and more vaccinations].

One factor that is overlooked is that a big chunk of those vaccinated aren't actually in the frame for death or hospitalisation - namely frontline workers and carers. There are very good other reasons for injecting them, of course, but they don't have the statistical impact.

When we get to those under 70, so those due for vaccination after 15 February, their impact is more on hospitalisation rather than mortality, plus, frankly, they are bigger spreaders than the less mobile older cohort. But it's all good, There is an element of under promising, but increasing numbers of second vaccines need to be delivered too, so it's still a tough challenge, numbers wise, but confidence is increasing.

I've been involved in the vaccination process and it takes my breath away how much collective effort is being harnessed here. Volunteers, professionals, recently retired, retrained and seconded staff. Then the old dears all turn up, ridiculously early, some in their Sunday finest (not always practical for vaccination, but I dare not say that). Over 98% of those contacted turn up. I genuinely think this is going the right way, as do the most cyncial and hard-bitten Geordie medics that I'm working with. We've had to get through the last year with huge impositions for all of us, but it's not too far off now.

I call it The Four Walls Resort (in Argate).

Very helpful (and positive) as always. Do you have any take on the disconnect between a current rate that would suggest the over 50s would be done by end of March (and certain leaks suggesting a first dose for everyone before the May 6 vs. the government statements in the last 36 hours with a less aggressive “by May” for over 50s?m. Is this under promising and over delivering? Or are their supply issues which suggest the rate wouldn’t increase from the current ~500k/day meaning that second does will push down first doses in the coming weeks?

I'd be keen to know if there is anyway to increase the supply locally with AZ/Oxford. Clearly the capacity is there for probably 700k to 1 million per day - so if we had supply, then I would imagine we could hit that target.

In the US, they are using the defense production act now to increase production - here in the UK is there anything similar?

At a rate of 5-6 million per week, we would have the whole population having had a first dose by late April and fully vaccinated by June/July. We would then have as close to normal a summer as possible, at least here in the UK.

I am sure that vaccines are being produced as quickly as possible within the limits of what is safe, and scaling an operation as complicated as drug manufacturing for a new product without compromising on safety and quality is not as easy as scaling other industrial processes. As I understand it, a particular constraint within the UK is the capacity for finishing the vaccine - packaging the bulk product vaccine into vials for final distribution, although I am sure this is being worked on.

It's not like a food item where you could possibly give it the smell test to verify that it's ok to eat, we have to be able to have 100% confidence in the purity and quality of what is being injected.

Government core messaging - unlike almost everything else - is largely Downing Street driven and the PM's well known chronic optimism now appears to be firmly reined in. So the current message is under 50s by end of April, that seems realistic. Various other people (SPADs) have done the maths and can see a route by which 80% of adults can be done by early May. First injections, this would be. That seems unrealistic to me

That said, when the 15 February date was set it didn't seem that ambitious, however it seems to have been realistic given all the complexities. The target will be met and perhaps beaten by a few days, but not by much. We will meet it in the Newcastle area by about next Thursday evening or so but we have a lot of factors in our favour, such as centralised vaccination centres (one of them opposite the Brritish Airways contact centre in Newcastle, for example), a traditionally high vaccine uptake, good NHS record-keeping, small BAME community which is in any case well integrated. I suspect other areas will go closer to 15 February.

The rest of Phase I is about 18 million, compared to 15 million for Groups 1 to 4, and for Phase II, the under 50s, is 21 million, round terms. Some people will fall through the net, some younger people aren't registered at GPs and I still don't know what is going to be done about that, and the larger group with poor quality NHS records. We also move into age groups with more commitments, jobs, chilldcare responsibilities, higher BAME proportion, So a whole heap of unknowns. At the moment we ring someone up, they answer the phone on the first attempt, and we ask "can you be a Newcastle Racecouse 3pm on Tuesday?" and you get an immediate "yes please". So life is going to get more complicated. Consequently I think end of April should be a reasonable target for over 50s, but by that stage we should have also dealt with a chunk of the under 50s too. If I had to predict "all adults to at least 80%", I would think mid June is more realistic. Obviously I'd like it to be faster, maybe that will become possible.

That is really informative. So if I’m reading between the lines correctly, once they get to the point of the population where the unvaccinated folks in groups 5-9 are harder to pull in (eg you can’t readily rely on a half million a day showing up as requested), group 10 will be invited in? And that could happen at some point in late March or April?

Very helpful as always CWS and thanks for your efforts as a volunteer. One thing would be useful to know please do you know how many vaccines were given in the first month 8th December to 8th January so we can get an idea of how many 2nd doses are due in March less the 500k already given? Unless you know accurately how many are due in March April and May estimated that would be helpful. If the uptake falls to say 80% unfortunately the 18m in the rest of Phase 1 that makes a significant difference to falling to 14.4m meaning we can move to the younger groups more quickly.

There isn't a Group 10, Groups 1 to 9 are all deemed priority groups. The largest being Group 6, which is 7.3 million alone, and that group is the "Under 65 who are At Risk", Group 7 being 60 - 64 and only 1.8 million. Once you get to the end of Priority Group 9 (50 to 54) then all priority cases are done, which is Phase I. Phase II will be announced I guess in a couple of weeks. JCVI hasn't yet released the Phase II prioritisation, but they did hint in their 30 December statement that it may be occupation led, so teachers, police, supermarket workers may well be done before those who are WFH.

Having said that, the point of your question was whether the prioritisation is rigid, and the answer is no. So we are today vaccinating some people in Group 5 (65 to 69 years) in order to use up the rotas and use up the vaccines, so I was say it would be inevitable that in April at least some people below 50 years and not at specific risk would start being vaccinated. In coming up with the target of 15 February, HMG will meet that target by getting to 15 million, but that's not the same as saying Groups 1 to 4 are 100% vaccinated. I imagine the percentage will actually be quite high, way into the 90s, but the 15 million will be met by at least some Group 5s being in the total.

I am not a volunteer, I was volunteered! And I'm being paid, so I don't get a medal for this. But Phase I to and including 8 January was 2,148,059, and 505,993 have already had their second vaccines, leaving 1.6 million outstanding.