RE: Moderna Vaccine3 Dec 2020 08:06
think its a logistical issue now, how to inject the initial 2M people (1.5M healthcare & 420k+ care home), thats circa 4M injections and I think the initial burst of vaccine we have is 800k, I think its going to take until March to into the few levels of the priority list for candidates for the vaccine.
However, the interesting thing is that , if the risk is really by age and underlying conditions then, there is 13M above the age of 65 and probably another 5M underlying conditions , therefore circa 20M required to enable the NHS to cope in most scenarios, so thats 40M dose's and 80M injections.
The GP service current injects about (this is a guess) 30/40% (25M) of patients with the standard flu jab every year with no trouble, but these are mostly people that are able to go to the GP, so the real challenge is two fold, care homes and the volume in which the UK has access to the vaccine, 800k pfizer Dec, and then likely 10M Zenica (made but not approved) in Dec should be enough to cover a massive vaccination programme for Dec and Jan.
One giant risk that is screaming out , is that if the distribution of the pfizer vaccine is only deliverable in 975 sets then, hospitals likely to be first (NHS) , then the NHS staff likely to be the bulk of the first to receive it and we really really need it to not have any or at least very very mild side effects, what we really dont want is to lose any NHS staff even for a short period, because they are run thread bare as it is.
All in all, The UK is in a strong position, we just need the vaccine to do what it says on the tin and prevent hospitalisations and possibly infections.