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 "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 "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.

Rupert Murdoch, health tourist, has got his jab on the NHS just as his top Fox News man, Tucker Carlson, is sowing doubt around the coronavirus vaccines.

What a time to be alive.

Does it work on this new strain?

No reason to think it won't. There are already several strains, 9 I think, the original L strain is pretty much extinct now.

Can't help but think that it's going to take far longer to vaccinate than is being put about by the government. All this "back to some sort of normality by Easter" stuff is very optimistic indeed. We've heard this sort of thing before.

The Oxford/AZ vaccine should be approved very soon - my guess is by end of month. There are huge stocks of this and it's really easy to transport and store, and will be almost immediately ready for mass roll out. Also, you don't have to be somewhere that can deal with massive allergic reactions when they give you it. I strongly suspect that the military have been planning for a mass vaccination program and are being (or have been trained already) to give it.

If I was to guess at the conversations going on between scientists and government they might be along the lines of imposing a severe shutdown (Tier 4) because mass vaccine roll out is very close. It would make sense to take a short term hit on freedoms etc. to cut cases, to mitigate that the vaccine roll out should open things up considerably by Easter.

UK population is currently around 66 million. Even if we vaccinated a million a week it would take 66 weeks to vaccinate everyone.

Anyone know what the total figure was in the first week of vaccinations? About 138k. It would take just over 9 years to vaccinate everyone at that rate. You've got to think they'll get up to some decent speed, but all this talk of it being over by Easter is pie in the sky stuff. Maybe Easter 2023.

Don't we all need two doses - so does that double the time needed?

Two doses are required, about 4 weeks apart, I think. There's no way everyone will be getting them by Easter 2021.

Was there ever any plans for everybody to get vaccine ?
I was under the impression they weren't bothering with under 16s(don't think its even licensed for them),you would also need to remove people that don't want it ?
Sure i read the nine priority groups represent about 25% of population,but these nine groups account for over 90% of the deaths.
So i would think we need to get approx 16m - 17m vaccinated before we can get back to some normality.