Speculation: According to the Graun AZ has said it's meeting it's 2m dose a week commitment. "Global AZ issue" was cited by govt. Conclusion: AZ was planning to spring more supplies from India, but that's proved not possible, perhaps because the Indian govt has stopped it.
As I say, speculation.
Five million doses had been delivered a few weeks ago to the UK and we will try to supply more later, based on the current situation and the requirement for the government immunisation programme in India.
So Pfizer and AZ have both stated there is no disruption to their agreed supply to the UK. Which we have to take as good news. Perhaps the NHS memo was a red herring and incorrect? if that is the case it may explain Hancock's apparent inability to answer it fully. Fingers crossed that is the case.
Speculation: According to the Graun AZ has said it's meeting it's 2m dose a week commitment. "Global AZ issue" was cited by govt. Conclusion: AZ was planning to spring more supplies from India, but that's proved not possible, perhaps because the Indian govt has stopped it.
As I say, speculation.
I also thought the Indian vax production was geared for poorer countries, but I could be wrong.
I still won’t be surprised to find that we miraculously find an increase in supply from an avenue over the next few weeks, allowing the government to receive some additional plaudits.Me too, but it was recently reported the MHRA were inspecting the Serum institute to allow UK approval. And this week's acceleration is down to Indian supplies.
Looks like the Indians may have taken umbrage.
It's probably because a handful of British people having to go to hospital in Spain or Greece or wherever is an acceptable result of opening up travel, whereas shedloads of people needing to be hospitalised abroad wouldn't be acceptable.
An interesting thread on why the AZ use has been suspended in parts of eu and elsewhere, at least temporarily. It is almost exactly what @roubaixtuesday has been commenting on regarding the situation, and there being a genuine reason to investigate medically as opposed to any politicking taking place.
There are rarely absolutes in medicine, but it absolutely does reduce the risk of you catching it - by 60% with one shot according to those figures.
Evidence is growing that transmission is reduced significantly too - though it's very difficult to estimate exactly by how much. It's likely that the viral load of vaccinated people is lower so they're less infectious even if they have it.
And of course hospitalisation and death is reduced too.
So vaccine passports (without commenting on whether they're a good idea or not overall) for travel should:
- reduce the risk of transmission to others
- reduce the risk of healthcare burden in the country you're travelling to.
If that evidence comes to fruition then I see the benefit, otherwise it’s pointless. A negative test should be all that’s needed.
I can see arguments both ways. Don't have a strong view.
I'd much rather take my 80yo father to a full Etihad where everyone was vaccinated. But whether passports is a good way to maximise vaccination, or a proportionate response, I think is complex.
What is confusing me somewhat is the delay in the UK approving new vaccines such as J&J and Novavax. The MHRA has been conducting rolling reviews of vaccine trials in order to approve them quickly once final results are in but this doesn't seem to be the case with these two. J&J has been approved by the EU already and the data for Novavax is out and Chris Whitty amongst others has been tweeting about how good it has been.
Novavax seems to be an ideal vaccine to approve as it will be manufactured in Teeside and you'd assume they are producing already in anticipation of approval (covered by the government I reckon).
Does anyone have more information on this issue?
Well after yesterday's grenade from Hancock despite what they say i'll be amazed if the roadmap dates are not changed.
Very poor press conference yesterday, burst all the good news balloon for me.
Wow.There is literally no conceivable political reason that makes any sense at all to anyone but the most rabid Eurosceptic why any government would pause the rollout of AZ for non-scientific reasons. It would achieve nothing but shitting on an Anglo-Swedish company and killing their own citizens for point scoring. There had to be a scientific reason, and although it seems to be a huge overreaction because of the consequent risk (or should I say certainty) of additional unnecessary loss of life, this explanation is far more plausible than any others I've seen. If we weren't in the middle of a pandemic it would make sense to pause it to investigate concerns and that would probably go unnoticed, but the decision makers don't seem to have taken the risk of pausing into proper account.
The bit I’m struggling to comprehend are the vaccine passports and what they are looking to achieve? The vaccine doesn’t stop you catching it or presumably passing it on, so what benefit does only allowing vaccinated people travel etc. when the only risk that is mitigated is that they are less likely to die or end up in hospital?
??Wow.
Must be nice.
To be honest I was looking forward to getting my 1st jab in April, fuck knows when it will be now.try not to worry too much - if you think that March 29th (in people's gardens, outdoor sport) and April 12th (outside pubs, self contained accommodation and other stuff) probably does not have a specific uptake of 1st doses required, then they should be unaffected. they are too soon to be impacted at all by the april shortfall so the only possible spanner is a case surge, which could happen regardless of yesterday's announcement.
May 12th is where it may get trickier, but again we may not be that far behind come mid-May so it might not be effected at all. IIRC, the vaccination surge news came after the roadmap (?) so we might just be back to square 1, if the vaccination rate is even considered at all.