Gedge wrote: ↑Mon Dec 07, 2020 7:16 pm
weeksy wrote: ↑Mon Dec 07, 2020 6:33 pm
millemille wrote: ↑Mon Dec 07, 2020 6:27 pm
Not wanting to get involved in the name calling but instead thinking about the logistics of vaccination.
As far as I'm aware all of the vaccines that are approved, or appear credible and likely to be approved, need two injections several weeks apart?
Let's say - and it's stretch - that 100,000 people per day can be vaccinated, which means that after 3 weeks from day 1 of the vaccination program 200,000 injections per day need to be administered, then you are still looking at it taking at least 500 days to immunise enough of the population for herd immunity to be realised.
And that's working 7 days a week, 365 days a year at that capacity.....
I'd say that's a very optimistic figure. But don't forget, let's say 25% of them are under 20, therefore you do them last.
I’m Not following the maths ?
100,000 per day is 2.1 million in 3 weeks which would equate to 10 million by end of March .. There are around 7600 ( google fact) doctors surgeries , so ignoring purpose built vaccination sites and hospitals let alone pharmacies so if each surgery did 15 vaccinations a day that would easily be 100,000 a day ...in reality vaccination centres and hospitals re likely to do many tens if thousands more a day ( test centre already do hundreds of thousands of covid tests which I reckon would take longer than a vaccination )
You need 2 injections to immunise a person, spaced 3 weeks apart, so after the initial 3 weeks of injecting for no net result the productivity of the system (injections administered vs. immunisation achieved) is 0.5.
200,000 injections a day gives you 100,000 immunised people per day. 1 million is 10 days and we need, it appears, somewhere between 60 and 75% of the population immunised to achieve herd immunity. Worst case this means 50 million people need to be immune, but the vaccines appear to have 90% - or thereabouts - efficacy so you need to immunise 55 million or thereabouts to be sure. 550 days of non-stop vaccination at 200,000 injections per day on average to achieve this.
While the test centres do have a high throughput of tests bare in mind they are doing very little other than acting as hand out/collection points for the tests - which are largely self administered - and paperwork and that the test centres do not process the samples. The processing of the samples is done in industrial laboratories and is highly automated and done in large batches, not something you can do when administering injections.
We can't be in a situation where immunisation comes at the expense of all else, in terms of health service provision. We're already in the position where COVID has impacted upon the NHS's ability to do its day job and lives have/will be lost - to what extent is unclear - as a result. So can the existing infrastructure be asked to accommodate such a massive undertaking or does new need to be created?
The problem I foresee, although I may well be wrong, is that vaccination is going to rely on several different "brands" of vaccine and everyone will have to be given the correct pair of injections and, from the limited exposure I've had to NHS IT and record integrity/stability through my wife's past jobs as a hospice nurse, I don't think the existing NHS medical record system is up to administering 152 million new records/entries in a way that absolutely 100% guarantees everyone gets the correct injection at the correct time. So I can't see every GP surgery being capable of administering vaccinations because the record keeping/access won't allow it. The vaccination process will rely on a different IT system I would presume.
But of course I could be talking out of my hoop and the government has got it all planned and under control and it'll be a cinch....