That’s included in the Bill Gates contribution. Although that is information that is not to be shared widely. Only those giving the vaccinations get to know about it it is written in the contract they are not to tell anyone about it

Oops

Has anyone seen anything reported about timescales for people in the bottom tier (ie the rest of the population).

I'm in this group. I do want to get vaccinated, but at this stage I think I'll be lucky to be vaccinated before December 2021. Does that sound too pessimistic?

Listening to a piece on Newsnight yesterday, they were saying that although the vaccine will prevent you getting ill, they dont believe that it will prevent those people continuing to spread the virus, although, they are still researching this aspect.

I think in a couple of months we'll have a resurrection of the whole herd immunity, get em back to the offices debate.

The argument will be - we're vaccinating the vulnerable, but rather than wait for the under 50s with no underlying health conditions to get vaccinated, they should go back to life as normal as the death rate is low for them anyway. The virus will then circulate rapidly among them but it will build immunity hopefully without the hospitalisations and deaths that will overwhelm the NHS.

The problem with this argument will be the people who get long covid symptoms and become long term users of the NHS and are compromised in terms of being able to work. Employers will likely be pushing people to get back to the office but then if they get long covid symptoms and have time off sick we will start hearing about 'UK workers taking too much sick time" (no doubt with provocative Daily Mail comments about this being the new 'middle class excuse disease') and employers will show them little sympathy and kick them on to the benefits system.

Also given what a cock up they made of test and trace I wouldn't be surprised if this vaccine roll out ends up riddled with delays especially once a private contractor gets involved with the distribution and it all gets screwed up. The UK now is starting to resemble a developing country where you get a plan for some logistics or health project like building water systems or rolling out a vaccination programme, aid money comes in and development agencies are on the ground ready to deliver it, but they have to deal with the domestic government and the money gets siphoned off to some contractor with contacts in the relevant Ministry, who is more interested in benefiting personally, and the underlying project gets screwed over.

I can see the headlines, 6 months down the line, as we enter our 5th national lockdown.

"It all looked so promising in December"

As you say, they don't know that yet and are still working on it. It's very difficult to determine that in a short time, usually this stuff takes years and years to work out. I would be surprised if any vaccine didn't significantly reduce the chances of a vaccinated individual to transmit the virus. The vaccine will reduce viral load and that should (in theory) reduce the chances of it spreading from that individual to another.

Thought Fauci was being a bit of a dick yesterday. The FDA is not the "gold standard" for regulatory approval, what they are is the gatekeeper to the largest drug market in the world - so surprise, surprise, everyone develops product to fit their model. In fact they made fools of themselves early on in the pandemic by giving out EUA's to every pile of crap test that came along including giving an EUA to Hydroxychloroquine back in March which they then had to revoke in June. So they will spend an extra week looking at the Pfizer data before approval - big deal. I suppose anything to give the American Moderna vaccine a chance to "catch up".

They have a different way of validating their vaccines.
Apparently, "we" have taken the data on "trust" but, the Americans will do their own trials before just accepting the date from Pfizer.
In fairness, this seems the right thing to do although I'm happy to accept that this stuff is beyond my pay grade

The Americans are always having to guard against legal recriminations so, theres really no driver to be first past the post. Mid table anonominity is a much safer place.

I work for the Department of Health & Social Care but for these purposes I presume that I don't work IN Health & Social Care. So could be 2nd on the list or 11th.

Quote wrencat1873="wrencat1873"They have a different way of validating their vaccines. Apparently, "we" have taken the data on "trust" but, the Americans will do their own trials before just accepting the date from Pfizer. In fairness, this seems the right thing to do although I'm happy to accept that this stuff is beyond my pay grade '" What they actually said was that they will review the data a little longer - about 10 days. The "trials" have already been done. Data has been shared from the start of work on safety and efficacy for the purpose of speeding up the approvals process. The issue they have is the massive anti-vax movement in the US which dwarfs what we have here. I may have been a bit harsh on Fauci, he was pushed by an over the top Sky reporter bragging about the UK being first. He's got a much tougher (stupider) audience in the US to satisfy. They are totally invested in the Pfizer vaccine and have been for months. https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/explain ... index.html

Quote wrencat1873="wrencat1873"They have a different way of validating their vaccines. Apparently, "we" have taken the data on "trust" but, the Americans will do their own trials before just accepting the date from Pfizer. In fairness, this seems the right thing to do although I'm happy to accept that this stuff is beyond my pay grade '" What they actually said was that they will review the data a little longer - about 10 days. The "trials" have already been done. Data has been shared from the start of work on safety and efficacy for the purpose of speeding up the approvals process. The issue they have is the massive anti-vax movement in the US which dwarfs what we have here. I may have been a bit harsh on Fauci, he was pushed by an over the top Sky reporter bragging about the UK being first. He's got a much tougher (stupider) audience in the US to satisfy. They are totally invested in the Pfizer vaccine and have been for months. https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/explain ... index.html

European governments are underwriting vaccine companies for such eventualities.