I think that’s exactly correct.

I hadn't thought of that, nice thinking. Barring any supply issues that means that the government has a choice to make at end of March as to whether they'll use April to give second doses to groups 1-9 or keep ploughing on with other adults and catching up on the 2nd doses at the 12-week mark. I'd be happier with the former because it then clears the way for the remainder of vaccinations to be done in a way that is in line with manufacturer recommendations going forward.

Your maths are ok, but you have to remember that from about now we also have to start giving second jabs to those very elderly that started getting their first jabs from early December as well as the first jabs for the additional groups. So it is a reasonable target.

I would much prefer that sensible and achievable (realistic) targets were set. Overpromising and underdelivering is a recipe for upset at many levels.

There was some speculation that there might be a slowdown on delivery of vaccine? That needs to be factored in as well.

I have that's the 1.6m I refer to outstanding as approx 2.1m doses were given in the first month less 500k 2nd does already done leaving the 1.6m.

It's simply due to moving from hopeless optimism and something realistic and achieveable. At the time the 15 February date was set I was of the opinion that something like 7 to 10 February was achievable, but that didn't take into account a slight slowdown in Pfizer availability, a short duration hold up on some AZ batches, a bit of slowness in Scotland and a quick start in Northern Ireland which wasn't sustainable. In the end 15 February was met reasonably comfortably.

One aspect that explains this is the "underlying health conditions" group, aged 16 to 64. More BAME, more "me, me, me", more likely to be susceptible to poisonous social media messaging, more likely to be working or have childcare, less likely to keep their NHS contact details up to date. Also we will soon find out that another half million of "underlyings" were not fully recorded in their records. Some of it is subjective too, such as "learning difficulties". If they have Downs the computer can find them, but other conditions are more difficult to pick up and yet this group is at incredible risk from Covid. So that group of around 7.5 million with "underlyings" - twice as big as any of the other nine groups - is going to be much trickier to get vaccinated than the well trained and reasonably mobile 70-74 yrs cohort.

So that target is do-able, but it's not straightforward by any means, plus we continue to be at the mercy of vaccine supply. Moderna should become available next month, however.

Thanks for the explanation. So if this thinking is correct they're expecting the run rate to reduce significantly whilst this "underlying health conditions" group, aged 16 to 64 is being done due to the difficulties of contact/mobility/persuasion. Which will be frustrating as we know we can do 3m a week, lets hope the lower groups are opened up whilst they're trying to compete this large group. Wonder how many attempts to contact they use. We have an 80 year old neighbour who was called 3 times but he refuses to have the vaccine ( we may have recently changed his mind though).

I'm pleased to hear your neighbour was nagged this often, and thank you for trying too. What was the basis of their refusal? It's a bit unusual in that age cohort

No, tney will go to the lower groups, I would imaging 60-64 will be fairly straightforward, though many of them work of course. The problem with "underlyings" is that unless they get jabbed they will push up the hospitalisation rate, which is a key metric, we need that below 10k and it's 23k at the moment. Underlyings rarely die but they can spend a month in hospital. You neighbour is unlikely to spend a month in hospital because they typically die sooner, to be brutally frank about it.

Is there any authoritative information on who qualifies for group 6? There seems to be a lot of confusion in the last couple of weeks. The "Green Book" available online still has a number of vague definitions, and the summary communication contradicts it anyway. If somebody who'd been told they were clinically vulnerable (not clinically extremely vulnerable) doesn't qualify, there's a double frustration there - at the extra wait, and also questioning whether the semi-shielding they'd done for the last several months was actually necessary!

He chose to believe the rubbish in the EU media that the AZ vaccine was ineffective in over 55's, but he misunderstood it also saying they said it was dangerous, whereas we all know it was political, so we just said Covid will mostly likely kill him whereas the vaccine won't, and as his wife had had the jab we said is he going to stay in whilst she gets back on with her life.
I thought that might explain sometimes why Saturday jabs are higher, people working, we may see this more going forward.

Indeed it was. As our Canadian immunologist, Prof. Sir John Bell pointed out, if you don't have many vaccines this is the sort of rubbish that some poorly educated people will put out. Whereas the recent WHO report will give you all the endorsement you will need for the utility of using the AZ vaccine on the elderly. In particular the hesitation was due to the careful way in which the Oxford trials started their Phase III. I volunteered for these trials but I was ruled out for being too old, which is beyond bonkers, but at that stage no other vaccine was in Phase III, hence the caution. That trial was completed as soon as the Confidence Index of cases had reached a particular point, and since younger people were skewed numerically, it ended with relatively few older people in it at the Proof of the Pudding point. But even at the time there were read-across pieces of analysis which said AZ was effective and safe for the elderly. Since they we've had the ZOE App data giving really exciting results from those already vaccinated, and in the next day or two we should get the first PHE analysis on vaccine effectiveness, based on real life results within the UK.

The Green Book is the NHS bible for this, so Chapter 14a, Table 3 is what we are going by, the current version was updated recently, it's the 12 February issue that should be used. Mental health is the one that I know is poorly defined, I would personally badger a doctor on the "if in doubt" principle. It would be terrible if someone with learning difficulties was not in scope here, since otherwise they could be waiting months if they were in their 20s. I have jabbed a lot of autistic people already, for example, but they seem to have a second problem as well such as asthma. For borderline cases, I would use whatever middle class advocacy skills you have on their behalf.

Inclidentally - those who care for groups 4 and 6 are in scope for vaccination, but doctors' records in this area are often extremely weak, so they definitely need badgering if the care is essentially domiciliary.

Thanks, CWS, much appreciated. I still find the wording a little open to interpretation (immunosuppression in particular), but I guess we will have to wait and see. We do have a friendly consultant on side, though, so that should help!

I've no idea which group I'm actually in. I'm 50 and have Asthma (or COPD as they seem to call it now) which, up until around 10 years ago wasn't at all well controlled (think blue inhaler, constantly). Then the practice nurse changed the maintenance inhaler from the old brown one (Becotide, I think) to Symbicort. Fast forward ten years and I have no idea if my Asthma is classed as severe. What I can say is I take two doses of Symbicort (bought down four a few years back) per day and go, manage a total of ten miles brisk walking, most days, and can go months without needing a reliever. Either way, it looks like the first step to giving me my wings back will be before the end of April. Just curious to know what the thinking is.

I think the government needs to aim for end of March for Groups 5 - 9 (at least 1 dose), and perhaps internally they are but are not publicizing it. We have the capacity clearly to be vaccinating at 3.5 - 4 million per week, and clearly the issue is supply. I don't know if it is the case, but surely supply from next month should increase due to Moderna coming online and hopefully pfizer and AZD fixing their capacity issues and ramping up production? My understanding is that pzifer/biontech also have a new factory in Germany? So in theory, you would hope production ramps up.

The immunosuppression part is widely open to interpretation. On the support group I am a member of (NASS) a lot of members are immunosuppressed as it is the normal treatment for AxSpa and the outcome of talk/phone call with GP is very wide: for exactly the same treatment some are put in cat 4 and some in 6. Having a shielding letter from August is not always an accepted proof. Some clarifications are necessary and a clear messaging to GP/NHS too.