I've spent the day looking at the data on the UK's vaccination programme
It feels dangerously optimistic to say so but there are strong signs that things are going to be.... not awful
A thread on where we're at
Today was a good day for the vaccination programme. It's not just that more than 3m people have now been vaccinated. Yesterday was the first day more than 300,000 people were vaccinated in a single day
Can this progress continue? Ministers have always said that the limiting factor is the vaccine supply, but there have been no official statistics published on on how many vaccines the UK has got and when we can expect to get them
Until this week
On Wednesday, the Scottish government published its vaccine delivery plan, which included a projection of the number of vaccine doses that Scotland expects to get from the UK every week until the end of May
The UK government wasn't happy about this, apparently because it was worried about the reaction of the pharmaceutical companies expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2…
But @robblackie_oo was too quick. He saved the vaccine numbers - and what they show is incredibly revealing
This is what those numbers look like as a graph. You can see instantly how much the UK is relying on the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, although for some reason its supply to Scotland is inconsistent
Yet what really stands out is the total
If you add all those doses together, you get around 6.6m. As we know the Scottish adult population and the number of people in the priority groups, this allows us to start putting dates on when people might get vaccinated
Here's my very rough first go
Fyi: My numbers are different to the ones in the Scottish government vaccination plan, because I'm talking about supply and offers
They've gone and put dates on when people in the priority groups will get vaccinated, assuming take-up of 80%
Dose 1: early May
Dose 2: early July
You can also extrapolate from Scotland to the UK as a whole, assuming vaccine is supplied on a per capita basis. This is obviously a bit rough and ready but I'm told by someone who has experience of government vaccination programmes that it's pretty close to the reality
This chart by the brilliant @_GaneshRao is what you get for the UK as a whole
It goes a long way to explaining why ministers are so confident about the 15m vaccine target. According to this, they'll have 20m doses by mid-Feb. That's plenty
Now I know what you're thinking: how can this go wrong? Lots of ways, obviously, from manufacturing to getting jabs in arms
The latest SAGE minutes suggest only 28% of black ethnic groups will volunteer to have the vaccine. I've heard that's already an issue for GPs
But before you start feeling gloomy, look back at the Scottish vaccine plan. It's assuming 5% wastage. In reality, it says, the wastage rate is 1%
*too gloomy. Vaccine inequality is something to feel very gloomy about. But at least if we have the vaccine we can do something about it
There's more reason to be optimistic about supply. The Scottish government says that its projections cautiously use the *worst case* scenario provided by the Westminster government
In other words, it's quite possible that things will go better than these numbers suggest
I'm going to end this thread with a statement that feels like it can't be right, but on the basis of the data and conversations with sources, I believe it is justified
The government is preparing to under-promise and over-deliver on vaccines
There, I said it
I'm now regretting that last tweet. While I can see the political benefit of hiding vaccine supply numbers, publishing them has clear advantages for public confidence and (imho) v.few disadvantages for pharma relationships
Of course I'm biased but these figures should be public
Second person today to tell me this. If the six dose rule holds true across the board that would be an amazing boost
Sunday Telegraph reporting that every adult in "Britain"* could be vaccinated by the end of June. Sounds unlikely, but not completely impossible, although supply would have to come in very quickly for that to happen
*NI is part of the UK-wide vaccine plan
My analysis, using numbers rather than anonymous sources. Remember there's a delay between getting the vaccine and putting it in someone's arm, so to have actually vaccinated every adult by the end of June would be very rapid indeed news.sky.com/story/covid-19…
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"Currently, 96% of the population in England is within 10 miles of a vaccine service. By the end of January, everyone will live within 10 miles of a vaccination centre"
EXCLUSIVE: in an extremely 2020 plot twist, the UK's biggest covid testing lab is now home to an outbreak
Three out of four lab teams at the Milton Keynes Lighthouse Lab have been affected, as have office and administrative staff news.sky.com/story/covid-19…
One lab worker blamed lax safety procedures and said rules were being broken in order to meet targets
However it happened, the outbreak has hit the lab hard. In one 70-person lab team, there are currently 20 scientists isolating news.sky.com/story/covid-19…
The Department of Health and Social Care said it was aware of the outbreak, but denied any safety guidelines had been broken
I understand the Health and Safety Executive visited the Lighthouse Lab recently. Perhaps it will have a view news.sky.com/story/covid-19…
What's happening with the data about the vaccine? Well, let's put it this way: there's a lot to sort out
A THREAD on my reporting today
This is Dr Elliot Singer, a GP in Waltham Forest. If anyone can be called a community doctor, it’s him. He wasn’t just born locally, he was delivered by the GP who used to have his practice
He’s delighted to be delivering the vaccine, but the tech is causing “huge frustration“
There are numerous software systems involved with vaccination, but two are central. 1. Recording who's had the vaccine (and which vaccine, what batch etc). 2. Inviting and booking patients for appointments - what's known as "call and recall"
I just wish I knew what an online harm actually was
Funny to see the online harms bill positioned as a blow against big tech when it will give them the power to make sweeping decisions on enforcement while simultaneously making it much harder for smaller competitors
Rule of politics: displays of strength are often signs of weakness. Online harms delegates many aspects of justice to tech companies. It's effectively an admission that the state can't do the work itself