1. There’s concern from some people that taking the COVID-19 vaccine, when/if it’s available, will be mandatory. After all, Prime Minister Scott Morrison briefly suggested it for Australia (except for the medically exempt), before backtracking.
This will not happen in the UK.
2. The head of the government’s vaccine task force, Kate Bingham, told the @FinancialTimes she wanted to clear up the public’s “misguided” perception.
She said that vaccinating the whole population was “not going to happen”, adding “we just need to vaccinate everyone at risk.”
3. She goes on to say that the government is aiming to vaccinate about 30 million of the 67 million population if a successful vaccine against COVID-19 is found.
That’s the same number as will be offered this year’s flu vaccine.
4. “People keep talking about ‘time to vaccinate the whole population’, but that is misguided,” she says. “There’s going to be no vaccination of people under 18. It’s an adult-only vaccine, for people over 50, focusing on health workers and care home workers and the vulnerable.”
5. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) had previously published an interim ranking for who will receive the vaccine, which confirms the elderly and certain key workers will be prioritised.
6. Ms Bingham does say that should any vaccine prove to be 95% effective, it might make sense to vaccinate more widely. But this is considered unlikely, and any decision on this would be taken later.
7. The FT points out: “Some public health experts said the fact that many British people believed a vaccine would be taken by the entire population pointed to a lack of clarity in government messaging about what the public could expect.”
8. Before anyone comments - there is no evidence whatsoever the Brazilian volunteer who died recently had taken the Oxford vaccine, despite what you may have seen on Twitter. Had he done so, the trial would have been suspended immediately.
Coronavirus has had a significant impact on jobs in the UK. The most recent unemployment rate - for June to August - was 4.5%, up 0.4% on the previous three months. That equates to 1.5 million total unemployed. bbc.co.uk/news/business-…
The real picture might be worse - between March and September the number of people claiming benefits for being out of work rose 120% to 2.7 million.
The young have been hit particularly hard by all this. 156,000 fewer 16-to 24-year-olds are employed versus three months before.
In August the @bankofengland forecast unemployment to rise to 7.5% by the end of 2020 (2.5 million).
That was before @RishiSunak unveiled his Job Support Scheme, which aims to protect jobs, but only those that will be ‘viable’ in the spring.
The answer is very clearly ‘yes’ – but that doesn’t mean there’s a reason to be concerned.
The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) prepared a paper on this for SAGE, which was discussed on 1/10 and published today.
It confirms that the virus Is mutating as it passes from person to person. This is normal, and most mutations will not matter. But there is a chance that some will affect how easily the virus spreads, how likely it is to make someone ill and how severely ill that person becomes.
At he moment, researchers believe that none of the genetic changes found in the virus increase or decrease severity of disease, but they may affect transmission.
The report goes on to say there are tens to hundreds of genetically distinct lineages of circulating in the UK.
The government has published details of its winter flu vaccine programme today, with more than 30 million to be vaccinated, with priority given to the most vulnerable, elderly and children.
The Flublok vaccine has been selected, which has been used in the USA the last 3 winters.
A free vaccine will be available to:
• those aged 65 and over
• pregnant women
• people with some pre-existing conditions
• all school year groups up to Year 7
• household contacts of NHS shielded patients
Once vaccination of the most ‘at-risk’ groups is well underway, the @DHSCgovuk will decide when to open the programme to invite people aged 50 to 64, with further details “to be announced soon.”
There are reports of shortages in some pharmacies due to high demand for flu jabs.
Pre-existing conditions of people who died with COVID-19: A thread.
In July, @ONS published its final report on pre-existing conditions in deaths involving COVID-19. As far as I'm aware, this very useful and important information has not been published since.
Of the 50,335 deaths that occurred in March to June involving COVID-19 in England and Wales, 46,376 (92.8%) had COVID-19 assigned as the leading cause of death.
45,859 (91.1%) had at least one pre-existing condition, while 4,476 (8.9%) had none.
The mean number of pre-existing conditions for deaths involving COVID-19 between March and June was 2.1 for those aged 0 to 69 years and 2.3 for those aged 70 years and over.
There’s lots of usual information in today’s press release from the @Join_ZOE Covid Symptom Study App, which gives an indication of what’s happening before other sources.
In the release @timspector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King's College London, comments:
“The data is no longer showing the exponential increases that we were seeing a couple of weeks ago, but is clearly showing new cases continuing to rise.”
“The North West still has the most cases and the fastest acceleration of cases with doubling times of around 10 days. Slowing this rapid rise is a priority. Scotland, Wales, London and the Midlands are slowly increasing with a doubling time of 14-28 days...
Today, @SadiqKhan repeated his claim from 25 September that London is at a “tipping point in the spread of this virus” and that we need to start preparing for additional restrictions.
We need to be careful, but are we really at a tipping point?
Well there’s no doubt that positive cases are rising in the capital, as we’re seeing in much of the UK. That’s borne out by both @PHE_uk/@NHSX dashboard data and the @Join_ZOE Covid Symptom Study App.
However the rate of growth in London does not appear comparable with northern parts of England, which was shown in the @ONS infection survey this week: