Thread by @swardley

X : How's the vaccination going?
Me : Postcode lottery? I suspect it depends upon where you live in UK. My area is poor.
X : ?
Me : I live on Romney Marsh. We have Lydd airport as our vacinnation centre. It started ... yesterday ... no pharmacy delivery, no public transport ...

... my village - Burmarsh (300 odd souls) - along with having terrible internet connections has a bus service, once per week. Yes, one bus per week. Of course, there's no public bus stop at Lydd Airport ...

... in my wide network, I only know one person who has been vaccinated (well, it's happening tomorrow) but they knew a volunteer who said they had space and then badgered their local GP ...

X : I thought the army was organising this?
Me : Lol. As far I'm aware it's Invicta Health, it should be the NHS. Could be worse, it could have been Group 4 and Dido Harding ....

... talking with friends, no-one knows any of the care homes have been vaccinated. Apparently the local rumour is you can bypass the mess by SwiftQueue appointment ...

X : What about doctors surgeries?
Me : Lol. Not through surgeries or pharmacists ... we have this vaccination centre. As far as I know, we are far behind.

I talk to a lot of people who are getting angry and confused - itv.com/news/meridian/… - this isn't a pop at @MattHancock, the person who sould be all over this is our local MP @DamianCollins.

... I can only judge the effort from what I see at the local level. It's why I don't believe the Gov targets will be reached anymore than Boris' promises of all fibre broadband by 2025. We will get there eventually but this is going to take time.

X : Swiftqueue?
Me : That's the local rumour, a bit like yorkshirepost.co.uk/health/swiftqu… ... what the truth is, well ... there's a lot of confusion.

X : Thoughts on reducing lockdown by Spring?
Me : Sending the kids back to school? Seems like madness. Gov is trying and they're talking about vaccinating "the four priority groups" by mid-February but ... I don't believe that'll happen and I don't believe it's enough anyway.

... I'm the last of the nine priority groups, I don't expect to get vaccinated before Sept and then there's another 35M to go. So when you say Spring, if you are talking Spring 2022 then fine.

This Spring? No. Unless your plan is another wave, I wouldn't.

X : Isn't UK doing well?
Me : From today - "Questions are being raised about the efficiency of the coronavirus vaccination programme in Kent after reports of towns yet to inoculate their first residents" - itv.com/news/meridian/… ... I live in the heart of that in the marsh.

... so yes, it depends upon where you live in the UK.

You wan't to come down my neck of the marsh, actually, no you don't ... even in a mask.

X : What do you think is going wrong?
Me : People are trying, I have no doubt. It's just the expectations are too much and the communication is poor.

X : What's happening with Map Camp this year?
Me : I'll start planning soon, it'll be in Oct time.
X : Virtual?
Me : Of course.

X : Is there a lot of resistance to vaccination?
Me : Not that I'm aware of. There is just little vaccine being offered. Of course the rumours are going through the roof fuelled by the vacuum of information i.e.

https://twitter.com/BBCRadioKent/status/1352356999103700993

They are not kidding when they talk about - Kent vaccine "deserts" as many over 80s continue to isolate - I literaly know one person in all my networks around here who is getting vaccinated - itv.com/news/meridian/…

What you also need to know is that in my neck of the marsh, along with "vaccine deserts" and "backdoors" for some, it was only two weeks ago that we had the highest death rates in the country - kentonline.co.uk/folkestone/new… ... you can understand why people are getting angry.

Anyway, as I said I'm not having a pop at @MattHancock but our local MP @DamianCollins (Mr "jobless youths should work for less than minimum wage") who at DCMS was responsible for broadband, not exactly popular in my mind - well, he needs to get a handle on this.

These tales of entire towns of 30K people with not one single person over 80 being vaccinated are commonplace -

https://twitter.com/TheShitWind/status/1352325677748539396

... there needs to be a lot more transparency of information. The rumours are flying.

and that's the problem, neatly summed up by "The chaos and confusion surrounding the Kent coronavirus vaccination rollout" - kentlive.news/news/kent-news…

X : Have you seen they've cut supply of vaccines in the north - theguardian.com/world/2021/jan…
Me : Yes. Look, this is why I'm not having a pop at @MattHancock. It's not an easy logistics problem and we seem to have problems in some regions like Kent ...

i.e. consider

1) The Kent strain - chroniclelive.co.uk/news/uk-news/s…

2) Some of the highest death rates - kentonline.co.uk/folkestone/new…

3) Entire towns towns yet to inoculate their first residents - itv.com/news/meridian/…

... so I can understand that supply can vary if it is being priortised to where it needs to go based on medical needs.

X : Kent needs more?
Me : There maybe medical reasons why other areas needs more but some regions starting to talk about vaccinating under 70s whilst others have over 80s waiting needs communication on why. That's the problem, the vacuum of information.

This is excellent - travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus… - H/T @Balmeri

X : How many vaccines have been delivered across Kent?
Me : Over 100k across the entire region according to Kent Online - kentlive.news/news/kent-news… - we don't yet know district by district.

X : Vacuum of information?
Me : For the best part of the year, I've been banging on about test (at home), test (in transit), test (at destination) and isolate. We don't even know how many people are infected - kentlive.news/news/kent-news…

Good to see this was updated - kentandmedwayccg.nhs.uk/your-health/co…

Anyway, the good news is the GOV is talking about the lockdown running until summer. Even the Daily Mail is getting in on the act - dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ar… ... maybe we can use this time to finally get test, test, test and isolate up and running? Learn from China.

X : Kent to get another mass vaccination site?
Me : It's good that it will cover the Marsh. What you need to remember is that for the Marsh, we had one vaccination site - Lydd Airport - kentandmedwayccg.nhs.uk/your-health/co… and that opened in "the last few days" - kentonline.co.uk/folkestone/new…

Such a vaccination program was always going to have some variation and the Marsh itself has quite a dispersed population, so not easy.

You have to be careful with "averages" particularly when distribution is not equal.

X : Explain
Me : Look, the Kent average might be 50% of over 80s vaccinated but up until a few days ago, for the Marsh then that figure was probably closer to 0% ... hence the whole thing kicked off - itv.com/news/meridian/… ... we don't have local surgeries offering the jab.

X : That seems unfair.
Me : No. The marsh is about 100 sq miles and has less than 25k souls. Our biggest towns - Dymchurch and New Romney have less 10k. From a medical need point of view, everyone would understand that more dense areas are a priority. The issue is communication.

X : What about Hythe?
Me : Not the marsh, 12 miles away. Hythe (pop. 15k) has had 4,300+ vaccinations since Dec. The marsh (pop. about 20k) only started vaccinations a couple of days ago. There will be disparity i.e. some areas close to 100% of over 80s, some nearer 0% ...

... but disparity is inevitable if you think about the roll out of such a program which is why there needs to be good communication. Talking averages like "50% have been vaccinated" is shockingly poor, especially if the recipients of the message are living in those low % areas.

If you don't address the issue, if you don't talk about it and directly to the people who haven't been vacccinated ... then those recipients of the message feel "left behind", "it's not happening to us" and they get angry. Then the rumours fly.

X : How far is the vaccine centre?
Me : Lydd Airport? About 10 miles. Alas, our public transport service is poor ... we have one bus per week (not one per hour) on Thursday and unfortunately it doesn't stop at Lydd airport.
X : How are people supposed to get to it?
Me : hmmm ...

Me : Do you mean, what if you don't have a car? Well, we do have a rag'n' bone man that used to go around in a horse and cart? It's not exactly an ideal location but it's something,

Amazon offers to help with US vaccine delivery - bbc.com/news/technolog…

Hmmm, with a new distribution centre for Ashford, Kent ... can we have a bit of this for the future plus Project Kuiper?

"We're first in the country on rate of deaths, last in the queue for vaccinations" fair dues, holding no punches - kentonline.co.uk/folkestone/new…

Just over 107,000 people have now been vaccinated against Covid-19 in Kent and Medway - roughly a quarter of the total number that must receive the jab for the goal to be met in 24 days. - kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/only…