The COVID-19 Vaccination Progress Thread

[Third rate Leszno]

My mate's parents are in a care home on the Wirral, and when the place got vaccinated en masse they had a handful of Pfizer doses left over that were going to spoil. After a bit of pondering, they rang the local fire station and got the crew to come round to be vaccinated. I like the common sense in that.

[Hot Orange]

My mum (74) had the Pfizer juice jab on Tuesday and has had no ill effects. She has a theory that the age brackets are calculated purely on year of birth rather than actual date so, having been born in June 1946, she made it into the 75s and over category. If that is the case, I will cheat my way into the over 50s.

My dad was also invited in, but he was unable to attend, having passed away on New Year's Day (not from Covid).

[Nocturnal Submission]

Belated condolences, HO. Sorry to hear about your loss.

[Greenlander]

My mate's parents are in a care home on the Wirral, and when the place got vaccinated en masse they had a handful of Pfizer doses left over that were going to spoil. After a bit of pondering, they rang the local fire station and got the crew to come round to be vaccinated. I like the common sense in that.

I've heard similar stories from around here too.

I'd like to think that no vaccines will go to waste even if it's as basic as shouting out the window to anyone passing.

[Greenlander]

My oppo at work has jumped all the hurdles and will now be part of the vaccination team at Home Park a couple of days a week. He tells me it hasn't been easy and had various tasks to pass for the last few evenings. Some of the test marking sounded quite severe and he had to hit 85%.

He'll be doing the 15-minute aftercare at which he'll be really good. He's got a way with the words.

[Antepli Ejderha]

My deepest sympathies HO.

[ad hoc]

Condolences HO

[Capybara]

Sorry to hear that news HO. Deepest sympathies.

[Hot Orange]

Thanks, everyone. He hadn't been well for a while and had had enough, I think. I don't want to detail the thread, it was just weird him getting the vaccine invitation a month after his death - although of course I understand it takes time for all authorities to be informed, particularly when there is so much death about.

[Hot Pepsi]

I’m sorry to hear that.

[hobbes]

Mother had the Pfizer last week. Sister had the AZ at the same place this afternoon. They must be going quickly In Pumpkinland as my mum only turned 75 today and my sister is mid 50s but with extenuating conditions.
Father in law (72 next week) at the other end of the country is booked in for next week.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Ah sorry to hear that HO.

I was talking to Mrs Garcia yesterday, and she was telling me that the impact on the medical system of the vaccine is huge. Firstly you are massively less worried about giving covid to your patients, which seems to take precedence over worrying about yourself. But the main practical impact is that the number of absentees due to illness, or isolating when showing even one symptom, has fallen to nearly zero, so you don't go in every morning wondering how you are going to get through the day with whoever has been able to turn up. Now people can have their days off, or go home at the end of their shift, and the scale of the emergency has come down substantially. She was the only one of the doctors in her department that didn't get covid, and 70% of the nurses were out with it, and at one point she was "on-call" for over a week. Christ knows how she was able to function. Doctors are as hard as fucking nails.

[Balderdasha]

According to this page: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
We have already vaccinated over 119 million people worldwide, which is more than 1.5% of the world's population. It's almost all in "rich" countries, though not all are traditionally considered "first world" e.g. China and India have carried out millions of vaccinations.

Is this the world's fastest ever vaccination programme? I mean, I know it's the fastest developed vaccine ever, but are we rolling it out faster than ever before?

[sw2borshch]

Our mam, 73, had her first shot today in Middlesbrough.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Is this the world's fastest ever vaccination programme? I mean, I know it's the fastest developed vaccine ever, but are we rolling it out faster than ever before?

I'd would guess so for the most part. Though the "rolling out part" is by no means universal. Canada is almost out of the relatively small supply of vaccine available. We probably won't get any more until the beginning of April.* This is because the contracts that the government signed last year don't kick-in until then, and there's no manufacturing capability here.

*It was assumed, back then, that this would be the earliest vaccines would become available.

[Janik]

According to this page: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
We have already vaccinated over 119 million people worldwide, which is more than 1.5% of the world's population. It's almost all in "rich" countries, though not all are traditionally considered "first world" e.g. China and India have carried out millions of vaccinations.

Is this the world's fastest ever vaccination programme? I mean, I know it's the fastest developed vaccine ever, but are we rolling it out faster than ever before?

Whilst I don't actually know by any evidence, I would be utterly amazed if it wasn't. Nothing at all springs to mind that could be even close to this, at least not something entirely new. In part because there is an inherent risk attached to going so widespread so quickly with entirely novel jabs. Lots of factors to do with pressing need and something suitable being suddenly developed would need to combine in ways they just haven't previously.

[Balderdasha]

We're up to nearly 127 million people having received at least one dose of the vaccination worldwide today.

[hobbes]

In part because there is an inherent risk attached to going so widespread so quickly with entirely novel jabs.

Although technically, the AZ one and other Adenovirus-based ones are the same technology as the annual flu vaccine, just with a different payload. So it's not a lot different from the aforementioned flu jab updates which get rolled out every winter with multiple payloads. In theory, as the delivery system is approved, any update to the payload should be box ticking. I'm a bit surprised they made AZ\Novavax do such extensive testing, to be honest.

[Gangster Octopus]

Got appointment for first jab on Thursday.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Got appointment for first jab on Thursday.

Excellent!

You're early-60s, yes? NW London must be really on their game.

[Gangster Octopus]

63 and a half.

[Balderdasha]

Mother-in-law (mid seventies, Hertfordshire) had her first jab this morning. They need to hurry up with her second one as she's recently been diagnosed with Crohn's disease and needs to take some immune-suppressing steroids to deal with that, but the doctors want to get her immunised before she starts taking those drugs.

[Mr Delicieux]

I've been seeing this do the rounds today, and sharing is caring.

[Gangster Octopus]

Jab #1 done. Open the pubs, restaurants, football grounds and dancehalls!

[Capybara]

Jab #1 done. Open the pubs, restaurants, football grounds and dancehalls!

This is great news. They are saying on the telly that London is behind the rest of the country. It seems there's a lower take-up in London and there's one place where they are practically dragging people in off the street so as not to waste their supply. A friend of mine who's only 61 had hers today.