Recently, Chinese cinemas grossed nearly $300m in total takings in one weekend, while US cinemas took peanuts. It is thought American box office receipts will never again match China’s. China is the dominant market now.
More importantly, Chinese movies, having hugely improved (by copying the West) now crowd out American movies. The top ten movies in China today are all Chinese-made.
The implications of this are enormous. Hollywood was a huge factor in projecting US soft power. It is diminishing fast.
@MattW - thanks and good first header. I hope the EU gets rolling on vaccination and I think they will.
I have seen no sign, in much of Europe, of a big distribution effort being setup. There has been some stuff in Germany... but without a coordinated supply chain and delivery system....
I guess I was speaking more in hope than anything else. I bet they do surprise on the upside, though, from this point. There'll have been some eurohands banged on eurotables and some euroheads banged together.
All of which have, of course, no real impact, given health is not an EU competence. Why on earth this was done EU wide I'll never known.
Fear of division over vaccine supplies plus a power "push" (rather than grab) by Merkel
What she sees in von der Leyen, is very hard to understand. She has screwed up at least 2 cabinet posts in Germany. Which included mucking up procurement completely... and losing at lawfare with the supplying companies.
Would almost certainly have done better with nation state procurement; some nations would have probably over ordered and could have transferred to others in that event.
I could understand the EU pooling if they'd gone Dutch on improving production capacity. But they didnt....
I don't think the problem was the principle of EU ordering, it was the execution. The EU could have ordered from a dozen different suppliers, and paid for them to produce ahead of approval, and paid for expansion of facilities.
But they didn't for two reasons:
1. The EU's decision makers are a long way away from voters. There was no Bibi or Johnson that had to answer to voters and who realised that getting everyone vaccinated would be very popular.
2. The EU doesn't actually have a lot of money. It's total budget is only a little larger than Belgium's. It never had the financial resource to commit the €100bn or so that would be needed to really accelerate vaccine production for a bloc the size of the EU. This should have been admitted early on.
The EU has a lot less money to throw around since we left.
It's not just that. In total, the EU spends about €150bn/year and it doesn't have the discretion the UK (or other sovereign states) have around running a deficit. Simply, it can't spend €50bn on vaccine production, without cutting spending in other areas.
It was therefore uniquely poorly positioned to fill the role it took, and it combined that with having "leaders" who failed to notice this and who were not directly answerable to voters.
For the EU's sake, the parliament should get rid of UvdL and the vaccine lady.
Should - but won't. The capacity to accept blame inside the EU is just not there, such is their insecurity over the whole bloody Project.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
@MattW - thanks and good first header. I hope the EU gets rolling on vaccination and I think they will.
I have seen no sign, in much of Europe, of a big distribution effort being setup. There has been some stuff in Germany... but without a coordinated supply chain and delivery system....
I guess I was speaking more in hope than anything else. I bet they do surprise on the upside, though, from this point. There'll have been some eurohands banged on eurotables and some euroheads banged together.
All of which have, of course, no real impact, given health is not an EU competence. Why on earth this was done EU wide I'll never known.
Fear of division over vaccine supplies plus a power "push" (rather than grab) by Merkel
What she sees in von der Leyen, is very hard to understand. She has screwed up at least 2 cabinet posts in Germany. Which included mucking up procurement completely... and losing at lawfare with the supplying companies.
Would almost certainly have done better with nation state procurement; some nations would have probably over ordered and could have transferred to others in that event.
I could understand the EU pooling if they'd gone Dutch on improving production capacity. But they didnt....
I don't think the problem was the principle of EU ordering, it was the execution. The EU could have ordered from a dozen different suppliers, and paid for them to produce ahead of approval, and paid for expansion of facilities.
But they didn't for two reasons:
1. The EU's decision makers are a long way away from voters. There was no Bibi or Johnson that had to answer to voters and who realised that getting everyone vaccinated would be very popular.
2. The EU doesn't actually have a lot of money. It's total budget is only a little larger than Belgium's. It never had the financial resource to commit the €100bn or so that would be needed to really accelerate vaccine production for a bloc the size of the EU. This should have been admitted early on.
The EU has a lot less money to throw around since we left.
It's not just that. In total, the EU spends about €150bn/year and it doesn't have the discretion the UK (or other sovereign states) have around running a deficit. Simply, it can't spend €50bn on vaccine production, without cutting spending in other areas.
It was therefore uniquely poorly positioned to fill the role it took, and it combined that with having "leaders" who failed to notice this and who were not directly answerable to voters.
For the EU's sake, the parliament should get rid of UvdL and the vaccine lady.
Hang on, are you saying the money for the vaccines bought by the EU simply came from the regular budget? I’d assumed it would have come in the form of extra money paid by the member states on a pro rata basis.
If you’re right, then only bet contributors have actually paid for their vaccines.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
Yuge study of 600,000 vaccinees shows 94% drop in symptomatic infections, and no diminution of effect in over 70s. Not clear how many of these are first dose vs both dose cases.
On the EU, this is a perceptive analysis of its problems from a journalist who is generally seen as pro-EU and critical of Brexit. For his pains he has had loads of abuse from Remainers
As I have mooted before, the west is dividing post Brexit, into the Anglosphere and the EU
I don't think it does to overplay this - the new administration obviously desires good relations with the EU, and it is ten times bigger than we are - but OTOH some people are also too negative about the whole Trump/Johnson comparison thing. Johnson is obviously not the same as Trump, and nor is the new President thick. The UK Government is very keen on the green agenda, and is hawkish on both Russia and China (during a period in which the EU has stitched up a chummy new trade agreement with the Chinese, and the Germans in particular are cosying up to Putin.) NordStream 2 is a notable problem because it circumvents existing land routes across various Eastern European states, and leaves Ukraine in particular increasingly vulnerable to further Russian aggression - something about which goody-two-shoes Merkel (let alone the new leader of the CDU) cares not one iota.
Fundamentally, Britain and the United States have a number of common interests. If we can work together on those then there is no reason why relations shouldn't be cordial.
Point of order, the EU is ~5x the GDP of the UK and around 7x the population. The numbers don't stack up for the EU as much as most think, especially wrt to foreign policy.
I think one of the more interesting things wrt EU is how will the self-perception be affected as it changes from "the world's largest free trade area" to number 4 or 5 amongst near-equals.
Near equals?
Er, the EU - post Brexit and mid-Covid - is already dwarfed by the RECP in the Pacific.
At the moment the EU is about 10-15% of global GDP (it’s hard to be precise amidst the volatility). The RECP is about 30% of global GDP - vastly bigger and growing faster.
RCEP isn't really much of anything though, it's a regional fig leaf for China.
@MattW - thanks and good first header. I hope the EU gets rolling on vaccination and I think they will.
I have seen no sign, in much of Europe, of a big distribution effort being setup. There has been some stuff in Germany... but without a coordinated supply chain and delivery system....
I guess I was speaking more in hope than anything else. I bet they do surprise on the upside, though, from this point. There'll have been some eurohands banged on eurotables and some euroheads banged together.
All of which have, of course, no real impact, given health is not an EU competence. Why on earth this was done EU wide I'll never known.
Fear of division over vaccine supplies plus a power "push" (rather than grab) by Merkel
What she sees in von der Leyen, is very hard to understand. She has screwed up at least 2 cabinet posts in Germany. Which included mucking up procurement completely... and losing at lawfare with the supplying companies.
Would almost certainly have done better with nation state procurement; some nations would have probably over ordered and could have transferred to others in that event.
I could understand the EU pooling if they'd gone Dutch on improving production capacity. But they didnt....
I don't think the problem was the principle of EU ordering, it was the execution. The EU could have ordered from a dozen different suppliers, and paid for them to produce ahead of approval, and paid for expansion of facilities.
But they didn't for two reasons:
1. The EU's decision makers are a long way away from voters. There was no Bibi or Johnson that had to answer to voters and who realised that getting everyone vaccinated would be very popular.
2. The EU doesn't actually have a lot of money. It's total budget is only a little larger than Belgium's. It never had the financial resource to commit the €100bn or so that would be needed to really accelerate vaccine production for a bloc the size of the EU. This should have been admitted early on.
The EU has a lot less money to throw around since we left.
It's not just that. In total, the EU spends about €150bn/year and it doesn't have the discretion the UK (or other sovereign states) have around running a deficit. Simply, it can't spend €50bn on vaccine production, without cutting spending in other areas.
It was therefore uniquely poorly positioned to fill the role it took, and it combined that with having "leaders" who failed to notice this and who were not directly answerable to voters.
For the EU's sake, the parliament should get rid of UvdL and the vaccine lady.
That doesn't hold water because the funding mechanism for the vaccine programme is in addition to the budget by the standard budgeting proportions, the EU could have spent more money it chose not to.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
Indeed. I don't see how treating patients during a pandemic while refusing to protect yourself and them from the spread is remotely ethical or in keeping with Hippocratic principles.
@MattW - thanks and good first header. I hope the EU gets rolling on vaccination and I think they will.
I have seen no sign, in much of Europe, of a big distribution effort being setup. There has been some stuff in Germany... but without a coordinated supply chain and delivery system....
I guess I was speaking more in hope than anything else. I bet they do surprise on the upside, though, from this point. There'll have been some eurohands banged on eurotables and some euroheads banged together.
All of which have, of course, no real impact, given health is not an EU competence. Why on earth this was done EU wide I'll never known.
Fear of division over vaccine supplies plus a power "push" (rather than grab) by Merkel
What she sees in von der Leyen, is very hard to understand. She has screwed up at least 2 cabinet posts in Germany. Which included mucking up procurement completely... and losing at lawfare with the supplying companies.
Would almost certainly have done better with nation state procurement; some nations would have probably over ordered and could have transferred to others in that event.
I could understand the EU pooling if they'd gone Dutch on improving production capacity. But they didnt....
I don't think the problem was the principle of EU ordering, it was the execution. The EU could have ordered from a dozen different suppliers, and paid for them to produce ahead of approval, and paid for expansion of facilities.
But they didn't for two reasons:
1. The EU's decision makers are a long way away from voters. There was no Bibi or Johnson that had to answer to voters and who realised that getting everyone vaccinated would be very popular.
2. The EU doesn't actually have a lot of money. It's total budget is only a little larger than Belgium's. It never had the financial resource to commit the €100bn or so that would be needed to really accelerate vaccine production for a bloc the size of the EU. This should have been admitted early on.
The EU has a lot less money to throw around since we left.
It's almost as if we took the money we were paying the EU and, er, spent it on the NHS instead...
Recently, Chinese cinemas grossed nearly $300m in total takings in one weekend, while US cinemas took peanuts. It is thought American box office receipts will never again match China’s. China is the dominant market now.
More importantly, Chinese movies, having hugely improved (by copying the West) now crowd out American movies. The top ten movies in China today are all Chinese-made.
The implications of this are enormous. Hollywood was a huge factor in projecting US soft power. It is diminishing fast.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
There’s a desperate attempt to blame this on Whitey in Woke circles, because of a BAME folk memory of white ‘experiments’ on black/Asian people in the 1930s or whatever, creating a historic unease of racist needles
If that were the case, you’d expect the oldest BAME folk to be the most resistant. They’re not. As that article implicitly accepts, it’s young BAMEs believing bullshit spread on social media. Hindus believing the vaccine contains beef, Muslims pork, black people thinking it changes your DNA.
At some point we will have to get a bit tougher. If you want to work in social care, you have the jab. End of.
It’s striking how different the situation is in Europe, where anti vaxxing (in France and Germany, say) is much more of a white problem. I have a friend with a French mother and German step father, in their 60s. Living in Bavaria. Wealthy, middle class, highly educated. Complete anti vaxxers
There’s also a satisfied curling of the lips amongst the anti-wokerati as they hint that it's all to do with "primitive" attitudes.
This sort of thing is why I no longer talk to right wing bloggers about race.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
I think the problem with that is that it would collapse services. We are desperate for bums on seats. Ban the unvaccinated and patients would die
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
Indeed. I don't see how treating patients during a pandemic while refusing to protect yourself and them from the spread is remotely ethical or in keeping with Hippocratic principles.
The difficulty with that is we are short of frontline healthcare staff already.
I've not seen any proper updated figures for vaccination take up for a couple of weeks. I suspect my area of East London is one of the slowest, if not the slowest, for getting vaccinations done. I believe only 73% of those in the top four categories had been contacted as of two weeks ago.
I'm in an age group which is already getting invitations for vaccination in other areas but nothing here yet. There needs to be a concerted effort to ensure parts of the country don't get left behind in terms of either vaccine supply or resources.
I also see the "friends of Boris Johnson" are already starting to play the "no more tax" card. The point is there needs to be some form of financial accounting or reckoning for all the emergency spending. Are we just going to keep on borrowing or is there going to be a serious effort to restore public finances in the next 2-3 years or are we just going to hope we can spend our way out of trouble?
Will we back to the same old nonsense about cutting public services - the NHS would seem to be sacrosanct and there's an argument for increasing spending on public health provision so what is the answer?
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Hats off to you Foxy. One of the many real heroes of the Covid pandemic.
@MattW - thanks and good first header. I hope the EU gets rolling on vaccination and I think they will.
I have seen no sign, in much of Europe, of a big distribution effort being setup. There has been some stuff in Germany... but without a coordinated supply chain and delivery system....
I guess I was speaking more in hope than anything else. I bet they do surprise on the upside, though, from this point. There'll have been some eurohands banged on eurotables and some euroheads banged together.
All of which have, of course, no real impact, given health is not an EU competence. Why on earth this was done EU wide I'll never known.
Fear of division over vaccine supplies plus a power "push" (rather than grab) by Merkel
What she sees in von der Leyen, is very hard to understand. She has screwed up at least 2 cabinet posts in Germany. Which included mucking up procurement completely... and losing at lawfare with the supplying companies.
Would almost certainly have done better with nation state procurement; some nations would have probably over ordered and could have transferred to others in that event.
I could understand the EU pooling if they'd gone Dutch on improving production capacity. But they didnt....
I don't think the problem was the principle of EU ordering, it was the execution. The EU could have ordered from a dozen different suppliers, and paid for them to produce ahead of approval, and paid for expansion of facilities.
But they didn't for two reasons:
1. The EU's decision makers are a long way away from voters. There was no Bibi or Johnson that had to answer to voters and who realised that getting everyone vaccinated would be very popular.
2. The EU doesn't actually have a lot of money. It's total budget is only a little larger than Belgium's. It never had the financial resource to commit the €100bn or so that would be needed to really accelerate vaccine production for a bloc the size of the EU. This should have been admitted early on.
The EU has a lot less money to throw around since we left.
It's almost as if we took the money we were paying the EU and, er, spent it on the NHS instead...
I've not seen any proper updated figures for vaccination take up for a couple of weeks. I suspect my area of East London is one of the slowest, if not the slowest, for getting vaccinations done. I believe only 73% of those in the top four categories had been contacted as of two weeks ago.
I'm in an age group which is already getting invitations for vaccination in other areas but nothing here yet. There needs to be a concerted effort to ensure parts of the country don't get left behind in terms of either vaccine supply or resources.
I also see the "friends of Boris Johnson" are already starting to play the "no more tax" card. The point is there needs to be some form of financial accounting or reckoning for all the emergency spending. Are we just going to keep on borrowing or is there going to be a serious effort to restore public finances in the next 2-3 years or are we just going to hope we can spend our way out of trouble?
Will we back to the same old nonsense about cutting public services - the NHS would seem to be sacrosanct and there's an argument for increasing spending on public health provision so what is the answer?
Anti-tax 'friends of Boris Johnson' you say? Here's a policy idea from one of his besties:
Cases have levelled off. You have to look at this at both the R figure (which is the proportional fall/growth) and the absolute numbers.
England numbers are still cratering but in cases per head of population there is still far more happening in England. In the last 7 days Scotland has recorded 107 cases per 100,000 whilst England has had 167 per 100,000 (The ONS estimates are England 1 in 80 people, Scotland 1 in 150).
My fear is that once England gets down to current Scotland level of infections it too will level off. That the level of restrictions we have can get down to a steady state there but not lower.
It is why I think Scottish School opening on the 22nd of Feb is a busted flush. Opening the schools will push R higher and R is currently 1 in Scotland. You can't take an action that puts R above 1, that's a slow motion suicide note.
EDIT: I see that Kent is at 105 per 100k, the same level as Scotland. A good candidate to see if it "Does a Scotland" and levels off.
Hmm, I think it's more likely to be the Kent variant becoming dominant in an area where it wasn't before, that's a time limited effect though so the downwards trend should pick up as we continue to vaccinate everyone.
In a closed system NPIs will have a constant R so as long as people aren't breaking the rules I don't see why the R will have trended to 1 other than having to accommodate a more transmissive variant into the overall figures.
Max, I wanted to reply to this even though it was a little while ago, because it's a misconception.
Imagine that society consists of two parts: a population who mix more amongst themselves (e.g. young workers), and a population who mix less both amongst themselves and with the first population (e.g. elderly and shielders). Suppose that R=RA>=1 in the more-mixing population and R=RB<1 in the less-mixing population. Initially say that cases are about even between the two populations, and so R is the average of RA and RB. As time goes by, cases within the second population tend to die down, but cases in the first population are stable or rise. A greater and greater proportion of cases happens in the first population, and R tends to RA.
This illustrates that R can trend even in a society where behaviour is constant. I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case at hand, but we shouldn't assume that constant R is an axiom.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
Moronic argument replace them with who?
Yes. People are overreacting. It's a problem but the answer isn't mass sackings of health and care workers.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
Indeed. I don't see how treating patients during a pandemic while refusing to protect yourself and them from the spread is remotely ethical or in keeping with Hippocratic principles.
It doesn't sound as though treating patients is the problem. If a doctor believes that vaccination isn't in an individual's best interests then it's entirely ethical for them not to urge patients to have vaccines.
It would be interesting to hear whether any anti-vaxxers are actually delivering vaccinations.
I've not seen any proper updated figures for vaccination take up for a couple of weeks. I suspect my area of East London is one of the slowest, if not the slowest, for getting vaccinations done. I believe only 73% of those in the top four categories had been contacted as of two weeks ago.
I'm in an age group which is already getting invitations for vaccination in other areas but nothing here yet. There needs to be a concerted effort to ensure parts of the country don't get left behind in terms of either vaccine supply or resources.
I also see the "friends of Boris Johnson" are already starting to play the "no more tax" card. The point is there needs to be some form of financial accounting or reckoning for all the emergency spending. Are we just going to keep on borrowing or is there going to be a serious effort to restore public finances in the next 2-3 years or are we just going to hope we can spend our way out of trouble?
Will we back to the same old nonsense about cutting public services - the NHS would seem to be sacrosanct and there's an argument for increasing spending on public health provision so what is the answer?
The weekly data has been released up to the 7th Feb -
From the weekly data, for first vaccinations, for London we get
Under 70 70-74 75-79 80+ East London Health and Care Partnership 7.72% 78.00% 78.82% 73.10% North London Partners in Health and Care 9.81% 78.23% 81.06% 76.27% North West London Health and Care Partnership 9.93% 76.68% 80.89% 78.24% Our Healthier South East London 9.25% 83.25% 86.23% 80.48% South West London Health and Care Partnership 10.06% 80.78% 89.11% 83.99%
How then do we restore the public finances - it's easy to make a cheap political point. You support the current Government - what do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt?
@MattW - thanks and good first header. I hope the EU gets rolling on vaccination and I think they will.
I have seen no sign, in much of Europe, of a big distribution effort being setup. There has been some stuff in Germany... but without a coordinated supply chain and delivery system....
I guess I was speaking more in hope than anything else. I bet they do surprise on the upside, though, from this point. There'll have been some eurohands banged on eurotables and some euroheads banged together.
All of which have, of course, no real impact, given health is not an EU competence. Why on earth this was done EU wide I'll never known.
Fear of division over vaccine supplies plus a power "push" (rather than grab) by Merkel
What she sees in von der Leyen, is very hard to understand. She has screwed up at least 2 cabinet posts in Germany. Which included mucking up procurement completely... and losing at lawfare with the supplying companies.
Would almost certainly have done better with nation state procurement; some nations would have probably over ordered and could have transferred to others in that event.
I could understand the EU pooling if they'd gone Dutch on improving production capacity. But they didnt....
I don't think the problem was the principle of EU ordering, it was the execution. The EU could have ordered from a dozen different suppliers, and paid for them to produce ahead of approval, and paid for expansion of facilities.
But they didn't for two reasons:
1. The EU's decision makers are a long way away from voters. There was no Bibi or Johnson that had to answer to voters and who realised that getting everyone vaccinated would be very popular.
2. The EU doesn't actually have a lot of money. It's total budget is only a little larger than Belgium's. It never had the financial resource to commit the €100bn or so that would be needed to really accelerate vaccine production for a bloc the size of the EU. This should have been admitted early on.
The EU has a lot less money to throw around since we left.
It's almost as if we took the money we were paying the EU and, er, spent it on the NHS instead...
One sometimes forgets that you voted Remain.
I was always a Eurosceptic, but didn't particularly fancy the years of economic and political turmoil that would inevitably result from a Leave vote, not least because the blowback might expose us to Corbyn. All of which came to pass. But now that we're out and clear, we might as well give it some welly!
I've not seen any proper updated figures for vaccination take up for a couple of weeks. I suspect my area of East London is one of the slowest, if not the slowest, for getting vaccinations done. I believe only 73% of those in the top four categories had been contacted as of two weeks ago.
I'm in an age group which is already getting invitations for vaccination in other areas but nothing here yet. There needs to be a concerted effort to ensure parts of the country don't get left behind in terms of either vaccine supply or resources.
I also see the "friends of Boris Johnson" are already starting to play the "no more tax" card. The point is there needs to be some form of financial accounting or reckoning for all the emergency spending. Are we just going to keep on borrowing or is there going to be a serious effort to restore public finances in the next 2-3 years or are we just going to hope we can spend our way out of trouble?
Will we back to the same old nonsense about cutting public services - the NHS would seem to be sacrosanct and there's an argument for increasing spending on public health provision so what is the answer?
This is where the barely visible Starmer needs to present his roadmap out of this presently enforced economic madness.
If it keeps him popular, I have no doubt Johnson will continue to painlessly spaff the cash. If we have no limit to our line of credit, and If he can borrow all the way to GE 2024 he gets himself another five years. What happens then is anyone's guess. He might have lost Sunak and a few others along the way too.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Why are you surprised?
Given that apparently mentally competent, post graduate educated, cultured, intelligent people, while not on crystal meth, actually buy* into Goop...
How then do we restore the public finances - it's easy to make a cheap political point. You support the current Government - what do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt?
What do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt whilst giving pay rises to the public services?
I've not seen any proper updated figures for vaccination take up for a couple of weeks. I suspect my area of East London is one of the slowest, if not the slowest, for getting vaccinations done. I believe only 73% of those in the top four categories had been contacted as of two weeks ago.
I'm in an age group which is already getting invitations for vaccination in other areas but nothing here yet. There needs to be a concerted effort to ensure parts of the country don't get left behind in terms of either vaccine supply or resources.
I also see the "friends of Boris Johnson" are already starting to play the "no more tax" card. The point is there needs to be some form of financial accounting or reckoning for all the emergency spending. Are we just going to keep on borrowing or is there going to be a serious effort to restore public finances in the next 2-3 years or are we just going to hope we can spend our way out of trouble?
Will we back to the same old nonsense about cutting public services - the NHS would seem to be sacrosanct and there's an argument for increasing spending on public health provision so what is the answer?
Anti-tax 'friends of Boris Johnson' you say? Here's a policy idea from one of his besties:
From the weekly data, for first vaccinations, for London we get
Under 70 70-74 75-79 80+ East London Health and Care Partnership 7.72% 78.00% 78.82% 73.10% North London Partners in Health and Care 9.81% 78.23% 81.06% 76.27% North West London Health and Care Partnership 9.93% 76.68% 80.89% 78.24% Our Healthier South East London 9.25% 83.25% 86.23% 80.48% South West London Health and Care Partnership 10.06% 80.78% 89.11% 83.99%
Note : this is actual vaccinations, not contacts.
My eye is drawn to the 73.1% vaccinations among over 80s in my part of the world which looks noticeably low. I'm probably not giving too much away by seeing I live in an ethnically cosmopolitan part of London and I note take up among South Asians and Blacks is well behind Whites.
From those figures, I suspect I will be waiting a while for my first vaccination.
I'll be updating the model as data rolls in but we're averaging 437,966 jabs a day for the previous 2 weeks now. Assumed an 85% takeup nationwide here, and no under 18s for the moment.
I'll be updating the model as data rolls in but we're averaging 437,966 jabs a day for the previous 2 weeks now. Assumed an 85% takeup nationwide here, and no under 18s for the moment.
Jesus, that graph really is a Valentine's Day special, isn't it?
Its classic Sadiq Khan. He looks good, makes all the right noises, great at PR side of politics, knowing when to pop up and who to attack, but is utterly woeful at getting anything done. He was the same in government.
I am not even sure he makes the right noises. I find him largely invisible, with occasional whingeing noises.
The article goes on to explain that he has received a bad hand, ie next to no legacy projects from Boris and a non-sympathetic government - but also that his working style is totally ineffective with allies and opponents alike.
I’ve not seen Sadiq do anything useful. Everyone something goes wrong it’s someone else’s fault. He’s massively increased his precept for no benefit that I’ve seen. He’s done nothing to tackle the issues with TfL.
From the weekly data, for first vaccinations, for London we get
Under 70 70-74 75-79 80+ East London Health and Care Partnership 7.72% 78.00% 78.82% 73.10% North London Partners in Health and Care 9.81% 78.23% 81.06% 76.27% North West London Health and Care Partnership 9.93% 76.68% 80.89% 78.24% Our Healthier South East London 9.25% 83.25% 86.23% 80.48% South West London Health and Care Partnership 10.06% 80.78% 89.11% 83.99%
Note : this is actual vaccinations, not contacts.
My eye is drawn to the 73.1% vaccinations among over 80s in my part of the world which looks noticeably low. I'm probably not giving too much away by seeing I live in an ethnically cosmopolitan part of London and I note take up among South Asians and Blacks is well behind Whites.
From those figures, I suspect I will be waiting a while for my first vaccination.
When I lived in Tower Hill (just behind the Royal Mint buildings that the Chinese want as their embassy), the local GP service was completely shit. In fact, I was unable to register for a GP, since their lists were... full?!!?
Given that a lot of vaccination has been happening via GPs...
I ended up keeping my GP from when I lived in Oxford.
I'll be updating the model as data rolls in but we're averaging 437,966 jabs a day for the previous 2 weeks now. Assumed an 85% takeup nationwide here, and no under 18s for the moment.
You're building in an unnecessary slowdown IMO. The infrastructure definitely exists to 1m+ jabs per day at this point if there is supply. In April we will get two new vaccines and the full supply level from AZ. We should be in receipt of 8-9m vaccine doses per week so we can run the first and second dose programmes without either or suffering.
I'll keep updating my model as reality rolls along. April will be an interesting month, the jab should be extended to under 50s at that point if areas are through willing over 50s and vulnerable.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
I think the problem with that is that it would collapse services. We are desperate for bums on seats. Ban the unvaccinated and patients would die
Exactly. Anti-vax sentiment is unhelpful anywhere but it's disastrous amongst medical professionals, especially given that a large proportion (something like 25%, IIRC) of Covid infections are thought to be hospital acquired. HOWEVER - you can't just get rid of valuable staff when they can't be readily replaced.
These medical professionals aren't flipping burgers or pulling pints. They're intelligent and educated people who've got where they are through many years of training and experience.
It's what makes these revelations doubly infuriating. It's not like these people have spent their entire lives as subsistence pastoralists in some remote valley in the Andes or some such place, getting all their knowledge of the world from the village elders. They've no excuse for ignorance. But there also exists no effective means to reprimand them. The only recourse available is explanation and persuasion, which absorbs precious time and effort on the part of others with no guarantee of success.
Meanwhile, older and vulnerable people who could be getting the vaccines instead are having to wait their turn (to say nothing of fitter, younger people at the back of the queue who face months of playing Russian roulette with Long Covid, whilst more privileged individuals get taken in by deeply stupid conspiracy theories on Facebook and sit around wringing their hands.)
I understand why people are pissed off. I'm pissed off. But in this instance we're also absolutely powerless, alas.
From the weekly data, for first vaccinations, for London we get
Under 70 70-74 75-79 80+ East London Health and Care Partnership 7.72% 78.00% 78.82% 73.10% North London Partners in Health and Care 9.81% 78.23% 81.06% 76.27% North West London Health and Care Partnership 9.93% 76.68% 80.89% 78.24% Our Healthier South East London 9.25% 83.25% 86.23% 80.48% South West London Health and Care Partnership 10.06% 80.78% 89.11% 83.99%
Note : this is actual vaccinations, not contacts.
My eye is drawn to the 73.1% vaccinations among over 80s in my part of the world which looks noticeably low. I'm probably not giving too much away by seeing I live in an ethnically cosmopolitan part of London and I note take up among South Asians and Blacks is well behind Whites.
From those figures, I suspect I will be waiting a while for my first vaccination.
If people are refusing jabs, they should be getting through the age groups more quickly not less. They don't stop & wait to persuade refusers, do they?
What is the reason for ethnic minorities to resist the vaccine? Why is this a thing? What’s the trigger?
Fake news on social media, specifically WhatsApp. I was glad to see the study showed only a 6% rejection rate among British Indians, it definitely matches the anecdotes from family and friends.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
What’s skin colour got to with anything? What an extraordinary position to take. I prefer to judge actions, not skin colour.
If some medical staff are so blasé with the lives of their patients that they refuse a vaccine in a pandemic, one wonders what else they’re unprepared to do. Report their own symptoms? Wash their hands between patients? The c. 25% of all cases and 40% of hospitalised cases acquired in nhs settings came from somewhere after all.
Threaten the sack and I doubt you’d end up losing more than a handful. And those that do? Oh well. Hospitalisations have peaked. And it may be that you still end up with a net positive impact on nhs capacity if they’re also spreading anti vax tendency among their patients.
How then do we restore the public finances - it's easy to make a cheap political point. You support the current Government - what do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt?
What do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt whilst giving pay rises to the public services?
I know the debt is so astronomical (and continues to necessarily grow for the moment) that it is almost impossible to countenance ever paying it back. However, is there not a point at which a British Government has to think about at least paying lip service to managing that debt?
I'll be updating the model as data rolls in but we're averaging 437,966 jabs a day for the previous 2 weeks now. Assumed an 85% takeup nationwide here, and no under 18s for the moment.
You're building in an unnecessary slowdown IMO. The infrastructure definitely exists to 1m+ jabs per day at this point if there is supply. In April we will get two new vaccines and the full supply level from AZ. We should be in receipt of 8-9m vaccine doses per week so we can run the first and second dose programmes without either or suffering.
If we get a significant pickup in capacity it'll show in later iterations of the model
Excellent thread piece, Matt. Why you never done one before?
I agree with the main thrust of your argument. You shouldn't draw too many conclusions from the bare figures, especially as we don't know where it all ends yet. I do however think it is reasonable to pause over the current results and reflect that the UK's vaccination roll-out probably would almost certainly have gone less well had the country still been part of the EU.
This gives unreconstructed Europhiles like myself food for thought. My habit has been to mock Leavers over the absence of palpable benefits of leaving the EU. Now we appear to have a very tangible one.
Of course nobody could have foreseen this, but it would be dishonest of Remainers to deny these very real consequences. If it can be reasonably argued that they derive from the very nature of the EU, and therefore further benefits of leaving the EU are likely to accrue in due course, there will be a lot of humble pie to be eaten, not least on this site.
I might even have some myself.
That’s a fair argument, but it also need to incorporate the counter-factual of what the response might have been had the perpetually awkward and non communitaire UK remained part of the EU. I cannot see that we’d happily have acquiesced to the current EU scheme - and it’s quite conceivable we’d still have gone our own way.
We might even have persuaded the EU to have been more proactive.
Don’t forget Cameron would still be Pm. He would have gone along with the EU because he was too lazy to do anything else.
I'll keep updating my model as reality rolls along. April will be an interesting month, the jab should be extended to under 50s at that point if areas are through willing over 50s and vulnerable.
The interesting point will be when the big pile of second shots comes in. Will it take over the vaccination program, or will it become a parallel operation with continuing 1st shots?
And yet he is going to win by a mile, almost certainly on the first count. Doesn't say much for our political class, does it?
The Tories can no longer compete in London, post Brexit. London is dead then for a generation, maybe forever.
That leaves the Lib Dems. I’ve seen one very short clip of their candidate where she appears to be about 13 years old.
The rule for London so far is don’t bother competing unless you are a v big beast.
I don't think Brexit has made that much of a difference. No Tory has got close to being Mayor other than Boris. The Tories did win the GLC much longer ago but times have changed.
I would agree that if you have to tell Londoners who you are you have already lost.
You would have thought it might attract some higher profile Tories who've been left out of the Boris cabinet. Your Jeremy Hunts, Justine Greenings, Amber Rudds, Tobias Ellwoods. Mind you they'd probably be too scared of losing.
Hunt wants to be Boris’s successor so he can’t lose. Greening probably doesn’t love the stories right now. Rudd will be busy grubbing around to make some money. Don’t have a view on Elwood as he’s never impinged on my consciousness in any meaningful way
Terrific day on vaccines and (relatively) data for the UK today.
I do wish Boris would rein in his ministers though. I'm tired of them constantly vying with one another with often competing messages which contradict one another. The latest was Hancock vs Gove on vaccine passports. Boris needs to get a grip of his wayward ministers.
I'll keep updating my model as reality rolls along. April will be an interesting month, the jab should be extended to under 50s at that point if areas are through willing over 50s and vulnerable.
The interesting point will be when the big pile of second shots comes in. Will it take over the vaccination program, or will it become a parallel operation with continuing 1st shots?
For simplicities' sake I've assumed 35690 2nd vaccinations a day from now till the 4th April. That's definitely going to be too many - but the broad 2nd vaxxed target is the first vax + 12 weeks. Of course 2nd jabs will really ramp up in April as you say it'll be interesting to see what happens to first appointment numbers at that point.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
So better to risk them infecting and possibly killing patients - or more likely infecting and killing otherwise healthy old people in homes, since that seems to be where the biggest concentration of problem anti-vaxxers are to be found?
I would be looking to the authorities to prosecute homes and staff for actively failing to protect occupants from the vaccine. This is way different to a situation last year where homes were ill prepared. This wold be a conscious decision by the home or hospital not to enforce a clear protective measure.
We would not allow paedophiles or those with a record of elder abuse to work on the front line with vulnerable people. Vaccination should be as necessary as a DBS check.
I'll keep updating my model as reality rolls along. April will be an interesting month, the jab should be extended to under 50s at that point if areas are through willing over 50s and vulnerable.
The interesting point will be when the big pile of second shots comes in. Will it take over the vaccination program, or will it become a parallel operation with continuing 1st shots?
For simplicities' sake I've assumed 35690 2nd vaccinations a day from now till the 4th April. That's definitely going to be too many - but the broad 2nd vaxxed target is the first vax + 12 weeks. Of course 2nd jabs will really ramp up in April as you say it'll be interesting to see what happens to first appointment numbers at that point.
I think that is a very doubtful assumption - the supply is the limiter at the moment.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
So better to risk them infecting and possibly killing patients - or more likely infecting and killing otherwise healthy old people in homes, since that seems to be where the biggest concentration of problem anti-vaxxers are to be found?
I would be looking to the authorities to prosecute homes and staff for actively failing to protect occupants from the vaccine. This is way different to a situation last year where homes were ill prepared. This wold be a conscious decision by the home or hospital not to enforce a clear protective measure.
We would not allow paedophiles or those with a record of elder abuse to work on the front line with vulnerable people. Vaccination should be as necessary as a DBS check.
But I thought R was just a numerical expression of overall observed virus velocity and so national R would not tend to RA unless A equaled the total population?
Max, I wanted to reply to this even though it was a little while ago, because it's a misconception.
Imagine that society consists of two parts: a population who mix more amongst themselves (e.g. young workers), and a population who mix less both amongst themselves and with the first population (e.g. elderly and shielders). Suppose that R=RA>=1 in the more-mixing population and R=RB
There is a strong feeling amongst those who discuss such things here in Kent that our eponymous variant ripped through the first of your two groups and is now finding fewer and fewer people to nab.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
So better to risk them infecting and possibly killing patients - or more likely infecting and killing otherwise healthy old people in homes, since that seems to be where the biggest concentration of problem anti-vaxxers are to be found?
I would be looking to the authorities to prosecute homes and staff for actively failing to protect occupants from the vaccine. This is way different to a situation last year where homes were ill prepared. This wold be a conscious decision by the home or hospital not to enforce a clear protective measure.
We would not allow paedophiles or those with a record of elder abuse to work on the front line with vulnerable people. Vaccination should be as necessary as a DBS check.
Oh well you are entitled to your opinion.
Just not practical in current circumstances.
I thought you understood supply and demand.
If the government add mandatory vaccinations to the health bill then they won't be able to find alternative work. They will have no choice.
How then do we restore the public finances - it's easy to make a cheap political point. You support the current Government - what do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt?
How then do we restore the public finances - it's easy to make a cheap political point. You support the current Government - what do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt?
What do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt whilst giving pay rises to the public services?
I know the debt is so astronomical (and continues to necessarily grow for the moment) that it is almost impossible to countenance ever paying it back. However, is there not a point at which a British Government has to think about at least paying lip service to managing that debt?
@TheJezziah was right !!!! Worrying about the public finances, forsooth !!!!
You are a Tory
I always knew you & the good lady MexicanPete enjoyed a quiet whisky and splash with RT at St Athan Golf Club.
What is the reason for ethnic minorities to resist the vaccine? Why is this a thing? What’s the trigger?
Fake news on social media, specifically WhatsApp. I was glad to see the study showed only a 6% rejection rate among British Indians, it definitely matches the anecdotes from family and friends.
Both of my Consultant colleagues not having the vaccine are Indian born Hindus.
Excellent thread piece, Matt. Why you never done one before?
I agree with the main thrust of your argument. You shouldn't draw too many conclusions from the bare figures, especially as we don't know where it all ends yet. I do however think it is reasonable to pause over the current results and reflect that the UK's vaccination roll-out probably would almost certainly have gone less well had the country still been part of the EU.
This gives unreconstructed Europhiles like myself food for thought. My habit has been to mock Leavers over the absence of palpable benefits of leaving the EU. Now we appear to have a very tangible one.
Of course nobody could have foreseen this, but it would be dishonest of Remainers to deny these very real consequences. If it can be reasonably argued that they derive from the very nature of the EU, and therefore further benefits of leaving the EU are likely to accrue in due course, there will be a lot of humble pie to be eaten, not least on this site.
I might even have some myself.
That’s a fair argument, but it also need to incorporate the counter-factual of what the response might have been had the perpetually awkward and non communitaire UK remained part of the EU. I cannot see that we’d happily have acquiesced to the current EU scheme - and it’s quite conceivable we’d still have gone our own way.
We might even have persuaded the EU to have been more proactive.
Don’t forget Cameron would still be Pm. He would have gone along with the EU because he was too lazy to do anything else.
It would have been too much of a faff to do different.
What is the reason for ethnic minorities to resist the vaccine? Why is this a thing? What’s the trigger?
Fake news on social media, specifically WhatsApp. I was glad to see the study showed only a 6% rejection rate among British Indians, it definitely matches the anecdotes from family and friends.
Both of my Consultant colleagues not having the vaccine are Indian borne Hindus.
Doctors at CONSULTANT level not getting the vaccine is absolubtely un-fucking-believable. What a pair of arseholes.
How then do we restore the public finances - it's easy to make a cheap political point. You support the current Government - what do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt?
End the pandemic.
Lift restrictions.
Get businesses and consumers back to normal.
Indeed. Though all that will do is highlight how unsustainable "normal" was to so many people. I am expecting a fair bit of both change and demand for change.
@MattW - thanks and good first header. I hope the EU gets rolling on vaccination and I think they will.
I have seen no sign, in much of Europe, of a big distribution effort being setup. There has been some stuff in Germany... but without a coordinated supply chain and delivery system....
I guess I was speaking more in hope than anything else. I bet they do surprise on the upside, though, from this point. There'll have been some eurohands banged on eurotables and some euroheads banged together.
All of which have, of course, no real impact, given health is not an EU competence. Why on earth this was done EU wide I'll never known.
Fear of division over vaccine supplies plus a power "push" (rather than grab) by Merkel
What she sees in von der Leyen, is very hard to understand. She has screwed up at least 2 cabinet posts in Germany. Which included mucking up procurement completely... and losing at lawfare with the supplying companies.
Would almost certainly have done better with nation state procurement; some nations would have probably over ordered and could have transferred to others in that event.
I could understand the EU pooling if they'd gone Dutch on improving production capacity. But they didnt....
I don't think the problem was the principle of EU ordering, it was the execution. The EU could have ordered from a dozen different suppliers, and paid for them to produce ahead of approval, and paid for expansion of facilities.
But they didn't for two reasons:
1. The EU's decision makers are a long way away from voters. There was no Bibi or Johnson that had to answer to voters and who realised that getting everyone vaccinated would be very popular.
2. The EU doesn't actually have a lot of money. It's total budget is only a little larger than Belgium's. It never had the financial resource to commit the €100bn or so that would be needed to really accelerate vaccine production for a bloc the size of the EU. This should have been admitted early on.
The EU has a lot less money to throw around since we left.
It's almost as if we took the money we were paying the EU and, er, spent it on the NHS instead...
One sometimes forgets that you voted Remain.
I was always a Eurosceptic, but didn't particularly fancy the years of economic and political turmoil that would inevitably result from a Leave vote, not least because the blowback might expose us to Corbyn. All of which came to pass. But now that we're out and clear, we might as well give it some welly!
Where "give it some welly" equals "release our potential", I suppose.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
So better to risk them infecting and possibly killing patients - or more likely infecting and killing otherwise healthy old people in homes, since that seems to be where the biggest concentration of problem anti-vaxxers are to be found?
I would be looking to the authorities to prosecute homes and staff for actively failing to protect occupants from the vaccine. This is way different to a situation last year where homes were ill prepared. This wold be a conscious decision by the home or hospital not to enforce a clear protective measure.
We would not allow paedophiles or those with a record of elder abuse to work on the front line with vulnerable people. Vaccination should be as necessary as a DBS check.
Oh well you are entitled to your opinion.
Just not practical in current circumstances.
I thought you understood supply and demand.
Do you think any action should be taken with someone who refuses vaccination and then infects people in a care home or hospital ?
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
So better to risk them infecting and possibly killing patients - or more likely infecting and killing otherwise healthy old people in homes, since that seems to be where the biggest concentration of problem anti-vaxxers are to be found?
I would be looking to the authorities to prosecute homes and staff for actively failing to protect occupants from the vaccine. This is way different to a situation last year where homes were ill prepared. This wold be a conscious decision by the home or hospital not to enforce a clear protective measure.
We would not allow paedophiles or those with a record of elder abuse to work on the front line with vulnerable people. Vaccination should be as necessary as a DBS check.
Oh well you are entitled to your opinion.
Just not practical in current circumstances.
I thought you understood supply and demand.
I do understand it. And yes I understand it is not something we can do instantaneously. But I do believe the threat of losing their jobs or prosecution if backed by a change in the law would reduce those numbers refusing to a very small amount who could then be dealt with accordingly.
At present if a care home worker or a nurse refuses to take the jab there is absolutely no consequence to that decision at all. I would suspect the employer is not even allowed to let other staff know as it would be a private medical matter. So there is not even peer pressure unless they make it known.
What needs to happen is that staff need to be made to understand there will be consequences. All employers have a disciplinary system of verbal and written warnings, improvement plans and finally dismissal. Any staff refusing to be vaccinated should be put into that system with a written warning as a start. This means stuff. In most private sector organisations - which includes most care homes - it prevents promotion for example.
Anything that can bring pressure on these people should be done and the Government needs to change the law to make it happen.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
What’s skin colour got to with anything? What an extraordinary position to take. I prefer to judge actions, not skin colour.
If some medical staff are so blasé with the lives of their patients that they refuse a vaccine in a pandemic, one wonders what else they’re unprepared to do. Report their own symptoms? Wash their hands between patients? The c. 25% of all cases and 40% of hospitalised cases acquired in nhs settings came from somewhere after all.
Threaten the sack and I doubt you’d end up losing more than a handful. And those that do? Oh well. Hospitalisations have peaked. And it may be that you still end up with a net positive impact on nhs capacity if they’re also spreading anti vax tendency among their patients.
If you cannot see the idiocy of your plan.
Even when a Consultant who has just done an extra shift in ICU confirms its not possible
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
I think the problem with that is that it would collapse services. We are desperate for bums on seats. Ban the unvaccinated and patients would die
Exactly. Anti-vax sentiment is unhelpful anywhere but it's disastrous amongst medical professionals, especially given that a large proportion (something like 25%, IIRC) of Covid infections are thought to be hospital acquired. HOWEVER - you can't just get rid of valuable staff when they can't be readily replaced.
These medical professionals aren't flipping burgers or pulling pints. They're intelligent and educated people who've got where they are through many years of training and experience.
It's what makes these revelations doubly infuriating. It's not like these people have spent their entire lives as subsistence pastoralists in some remote valley in the Andes or some such place, getting all their knowledge of the world from the village elders. They've no excuse for ignorance. But there also exists no effective means to reprimand them. The only recourse available is explanation and persuasion, which absorbs precious time and effort on the part of others with no guarantee of success.
Meanwhile, older and vulnerable people who could be getting the vaccines instead are having to wait their turn (to say nothing of fitter, younger people at the back of the queue who face months of playing Russian roulette with Long Covid, whilst more privileged individuals get taken in by deeply stupid conspiracy theories on Facebook and sit around wringing their hands.)
I understand why people are pissed off. I'm pissed off. But in this instance we're also absolutely powerless, alas.
A hospital is the first place they looked for spare-dose-users. They'll have gone through all the willing by now and moved on to people who know a group of people who can get in at no notice.
Every early recipient that refuses vaccination means one more for the lot next in line. They aren't hanging around trying to persuade Dr Who to please take this nice vaccine because we're stuck until you do, they're just pressing on with whoever's willing.
That's how it seems to be working locally, anyway.
What is the reason for ethnic minorities to resist the vaccine? Why is this a thing? What’s the trigger?
Fake news on social media, specifically WhatsApp. I was glad to see the study showed only a 6% rejection rate among British Indians, it definitely matches the anecdotes from family and friends.
Both of my Consultant colleagues not having the vaccine are Indian borne Hindus.
Doctors at CONSULTANT level not getting the vaccine is absolubtely un-fucking-believable. What a pair of arseholes.
Not least because they are at significant risk themselves.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
What’s skin colour got to with anything? What an extraordinary position to take. I prefer to judge actions, not skin colour.
If some medical staff are so blasé with the lives of their patients that they refuse a vaccine in a pandemic, one wonders what else they’re unprepared to do. Report their own symptoms? Wash their hands between patients? The c. 25% of all cases and 40% of hospitalised cases acquired in nhs settings came from somewhere after all.
Threaten the sack and I doubt you’d end up losing more than a handful. And those that do? Oh well. Hospitalisations have peaked. And it may be that you still end up with a net positive impact on nhs capacity if they’re also spreading anti vax tendency among their patients.
If you cannot see the idiocy of your plan.
Even when a Consultant who has just done an extra shift in ICU confirms its not possible
I dont know how to help.
You are not helping. By defending these people you are part of the problem.
How then do we restore the public finances - it's easy to make a cheap political point. You support the current Government - what do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt?
What do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt whilst giving pay rises to the public services?
I know the debt is so astronomical (and continues to necessarily grow for the moment) that it is almost impossible to countenance ever paying it back. However, is there not a point at which a British Government has to think about at least paying lip service to managing that debt?
@TheJezziah was right !!!! Worrying about the public finances, forsooth !!!!
You are a Tory
I always knew you & the good lady MexicanPete enjoyed a quiet whisky and splash with RT at St Athan Golf Club.
Busted! But it was Cottrell Park.
Very unimpressed with Starmer's declaration of "read my lips, no new taxes". So perhaps Mr Corbyn knows me better than I know myself.
< What do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt whilst giving pay rises to the public services?
I don't know which public services people are getting pay increases - I'm pretty sure most local Government workers are having their pay frozen for the financial year 2021-22. I'm not sure about the emergency services, NHS, armed forces etc.
Reading the December 2020 numbers, the one that struck me was income in the form of tax receipts was £43 billion and expenditure £86 billion (including £10 billion on the job support scheme). Borrowing was £34 billion.
I imagine the numbers for January and February are going to be equally bleak.
We need to get the income numbers back up - one school of thought is cutting taxes will perversely increase economic activity and bring in receipts (thank you, Mr Laffer). I imagine there is a lot of pent-up spending out there which will then explode (does that not bring an inflationary risk with too much money chasing too few goods and services?) once lockdown ends.
The alternative options are tax rises or spending cuts (you can take off the £10 billion job support programme but once that ends how much will welfare have to rise to support those whose jobs have been lost).
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
What’s skin colour got to with anything? What an extraordinary position to take. I prefer to judge actions, not skin colour.
If some medical staff are so blasé with the lives of their patients that they refuse a vaccine in a pandemic, one wonders what else they’re unprepared to do. Report their own symptoms? Wash their hands between patients? The c. 25% of all cases and 40% of hospitalised cases acquired in nhs settings came from somewhere after all.
Threaten the sack and I doubt you’d end up losing more than a handful. And those that do? Oh well. Hospitalisations have peaked. And it may be that you still end up with a net positive impact on nhs capacity if they’re also spreading anti vax tendency among their patients.
If you cannot see the idiocy of your plan.
Even when a Consultant who has just done an extra shift in ICU confirms its not possible
I dont know how to help.
You are not helping. By defending these people you are part of the problem.
They should get a vaccine.
I am not defending them
Just pointing out that sacking them is
a) Not possible
b) Stupid due to unavailabity of replacements
I thought you would think about the feasibility of your proposal and its impact before doubling down on it.
On the disparity between white and ethnic minority vaccine uptakes - might a more simple explanation be that EMs are less likely to trust the government/authority?
Does anyone know when the UK will receive Moderna ('spring' was the last I'd heard) or when Novavax and J&J vaccines will be approved and available in the UK ?
I had the thought that first doses could be switched to them while Pfizer and AZ could be used for second doses.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
What’s skin colour got to with anything? What an extraordinary position to take. I prefer to judge actions, not skin colour.
If some medical staff are so blasé with the lives of their patients that they refuse a vaccine in a pandemic, one wonders what else they’re unprepared to do. Report their own symptoms? Wash their hands between patients? The c. 25% of all cases and 40% of hospitalised cases acquired in nhs settings came from somewhere after all.
Threaten the sack and I doubt you’d end up losing more than a handful. And those that do? Oh well. Hospitalisations have peaked. And it may be that you still end up with a net positive impact on nhs capacity if they’re also spreading anti vax tendency among their patients.
If you cannot see the idiocy of your plan.
Even when a Consultant who has just done an extra shift in ICU confirms its not possible
I dont know how to help.
You are not helping. By defending these people you are part of the problem.
As it stands, I am required to be tested for HIV and immunised for Hep B. Covid is not currently required, hence unenforceable, but I don't thing a particular problem if it was.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
What’s skin colour got to with anything? What an extraordinary position to take. I prefer to judge actions, not skin colour.
If some medical staff are so blasé with the lives of their patients that they refuse a vaccine in a pandemic, one wonders what else they’re unprepared to do. Report their own symptoms? Wash their hands between patients? The c. 25% of all cases and 40% of hospitalised cases acquired in nhs settings came from somewhere after all.
Threaten the sack and I doubt you’d end up losing more than a handful. And those that do? Oh well. Hospitalisations have peaked. And it may be that you still end up with a net positive impact on nhs capacity if they’re also spreading anti vax tendency among their patients.
If you cannot see the idiocy of your plan.
Even when a Consultant who has just done an extra shift in ICU confirms its not possible
I dont know how to help.
You are not helping. By defending these people you are part of the problem.
They should get a vaccine.
I am not defending them
Just pointing out that sacking them is
a) Not possible
b) Stupid
I thought you would think about the feasibility of your proposal and its impact before doubling down on it.
Not possible? What on earth is the point of our 1940s command-and-control healthcare system if we can't command and control it?
Which is fine, but we already know how the virus acts in a system and we have have the ONS weekly infection surveys showing that the R value is under 1 down in all of the various age groups and regions.
My theory is that we are looking at two groups, one with regular global COVID who have seen cases drop and Kent COVID where cases are around their equilibrium within the existing closed system. So the baseline has been reached because the spread isn't the same as what we saw in London and South East at the end of last year where the real infection rate was probably around 3-5% per week for 4-6 weeks creating a large immunity pool with vaccines also taken into account.
Other areas that didn't have those surges are now struggling to keep the R below 1 because Kent COVID is much more transmissive and they don't have the same level of herd immunity, the Kent variant is running into many, many more available hosts, especially among younger cohorts who are likely to be working in public contact jobs or rule breakers and much less likely to have any kind of immunity either from vaccines or prior infection.
I actually think we're in some kind of agreement but I'd ascribe the higher R value group transmission of Kent COVID.
On the disparity between white and ethnic minority vaccine uptakes - might a more simple explanation be that EMs are less likely to trust the government/authority?
That is a significant issue, particularly the Black community.
< What do you think they should do to reduce current levels of deficit and indeed debt whilst giving pay rises to the public services?
I don't know which public services people are getting pay increases - I'm pretty sure most local Government workers are having their pay frozen for the financial year 2021-22. I'm not sure about the emergency services, NHS, armed forces etc.
Reading the December 2020 numbers, the one that struck me was income in the form of tax receipts was £43 billion and expenditure £86 billion (including £10 billion on the job support scheme). Borrowing was £34 billion.
I imagine the numbers for January and February are going to be equally bleak.
We need to get the income numbers back up - one school of thought is cutting taxes will perversely increase economic activity and bring in receipts (thank you, Mr Laffer). I imagine there is a lot of pent-up spending out there which will then explode (does that not bring an inflationary risk with too much money chasing too few goods and services?) once lockdown ends.
The alternative options are tax rises or spending cuts (you can take off the £10 billion job support programme but once that ends how much will welfare have to rise to support those whose jobs have been lost).
January ought to be a bit better - as it ought to include lower furlough claims for December and some tax receipts from the self employed.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
What’s skin colour got to with anything? What an extraordinary position to take. I prefer to judge actions, not skin colour.
If some medical staff are so blasé with the lives of their patients that they refuse a vaccine in a pandemic, one wonders what else they’re unprepared to do. Report their own symptoms? Wash their hands between patients? The c. 25% of all cases and 40% of hospitalised cases acquired in nhs settings came from somewhere after all.
Threaten the sack and I doubt you’d end up losing more than a handful. And those that do? Oh well. Hospitalisations have peaked. And it may be that you still end up with a net positive impact on nhs capacity if they’re also spreading anti vax tendency among their patients.
If you cannot see the idiocy of your plan.
Even when a Consultant who has just done an extra shift in ICU confirms its not possible
I dont know how to help.
You are not helping. By defending these people you are part of the problem.
They should get a vaccine.
I am not defending them
Just pointing out that sacking them is
a) Not possible
b) Stupid
I thought you would think about the feasibility of your proposal and its impact before doubling down on it.
Not possible? What on earth is the point of our 1940s command-and-control healthcare system if we can't command and control it?
What is the reason for ethnic minorities to resist the vaccine? Why is this a thing? What’s the trigger?
Fake news on social media, specifically WhatsApp. I was glad to see the study showed only a 6% rejection rate among British Indians, it definitely matches the anecdotes from family and friends.
Both of my Consultant colleagues not having the vaccine are Indian born Hindus.
Mental, they need to speak to my cousin, he convinced a couple of aunties and uncles to get it on a family zoom call.
But I thought R was just a numerical expression of overall observed virus velocity and so national R would not tend to RA unless A equaled the total population?
That's not quite correct - it would not tend to RA unless the population *of infected people* became, or tended, to population A. And that's what happens if there is differential mixing: most cases end up in the more mixing population, which is the part of the population with the higher R.
(The definition of R is the average number of subsequent infections caused by each infection. It's actually not a very good measure but it seems to have caught on.)
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
What’s skin colour got to with anything? What an extraordinary position to take. I prefer to judge actions, not skin colour.
If some medical staff are so blasé with the lives of their patients that they refuse a vaccine in a pandemic, one wonders what else they’re unprepared to do. Report their own symptoms? Wash their hands between patients? The c. 25% of all cases and 40% of hospitalised cases acquired in nhs settings came from somewhere after all.
Threaten the sack and I doubt you’d end up losing more than a handful. And those that do? Oh well. Hospitalisations have peaked. And it may be that you still end up with a net positive impact on nhs capacity if they’re also spreading anti vax tendency among their patients.
If you cannot see the idiocy of your plan.
Even when a Consultant who has just done an extra shift in ICU confirms its not possible
I dont know how to help.
You are not helping. By defending these people you are part of the problem.
They should get a vaccine.
I am not defending them
Just pointing out that sacking them is
a) Not possible
b) Stupid
I thought you would think about the feasibility of your proposal and its impact before doubling down on it.
Not possible? What on earth is the point of our 1940s command-and-control healthcare system if we can't command and control it?
Have you heard of Contracts of Employment?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, it's what they won't have if they choose to put anti-vaxing above the good of their patients.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
I think the problem with that is that it would collapse services. We are desperate for bums on seats. Ban the unvaccinated and patients would die
Exactly. Anti-vax sentiment is unhelpful anywhere but it's disastrous amongst medical professionals, especially given that a large proportion (something like 25%, IIRC) of Covid infections are thought to be hospital acquired. HOWEVER - you can't just get rid of valuable staff when they can't be readily replaced.
These medical professionals aren't flipping burgers or pulling pints. They're intelligent and educated people who've got where they are through many years of training and experience.
It's what makes these revelations doubly infuriating. It's not like these people have spent their entire lives as subsistence pastoralists in some remote valley in the Andes or some such place, getting all their knowledge of the world from the village elders. They've no excuse for ignorance. But there also exists no effective means to reprimand them. The only recourse available is explanation and persuasion, which absorbs precious time and effort on the part of others with no guarantee of success.
Meanwhile, older and vulnerable people who could be getting the vaccines instead are having to wait their turn (to say nothing of fitter, younger people at the back of the queue who face months of playing Russian roulette with Long Covid, whilst more privileged individuals get taken in by deeply stupid conspiracy theories on Facebook and sit around wringing their hands.)
I understand why people are pissed off. I'm pissed off. But in this instance we're also absolutely powerless, alas.
A hospital is the first place they looked for spare-dose-users. They'll have gone through all the willing by now and moved on to people who know a group of people who can get in at no notice.
Every early recipient that refuses vaccination means one more for the lot next in line. They aren't hanging around trying to persuade Dr Who to please take this nice vaccine because we're stuck until you do, they're just pressing on with whoever's willing.
That's how it seems to be working locally, anyway.
Can Time Lords contract Covid-19?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
But in all seriousness, I apologise for the inaccurate use of language in this case. I would expect, as you have suggested, that the unused doses wouldn't be sitting around for any length of time before being offered to someone else (i.e. reluctant persons who change their minds can be slotted in at a later date.) It's simply that being put near the front of the queue in the first place is a position of privilege that is denied to others. People lower down the queue who have to wait are entitled to feel a bit cheesed off that the privileged are turning down something that they are enthusiastic, even desperate, to have for no good reason. That's all.
What is the reason for ethnic minorities to resist the vaccine? Why is this a thing? What’s the trigger?
Fake news on social media, specifically WhatsApp. I was glad to see the study showed only a 6% rejection rate among British Indians, it definitely matches the anecdotes from family and friends.
Both of my Consultant colleagues not having the vaccine are Indian borne Hindus.
Doctors at CONSULTANT level not getting the vaccine is absolubtely un-fucking-believable. What a pair of arseholes.
Not least because they are at significant risk themselves.
Well, surely that's the absolute essence of the issue. If they prefer that risk to whatever their perception of the vaccine risk is, it really is up to them. It's the same issue for hospital Consultant as it is for Waste Disposal Technicians.
And if things don't moderate sufficiently, then gradually the general population getting Covid will be replaced with anti-vaxxers getting Covid. Shame about the people they infect, but still both WDT and Consultant take that into account & find their own balance.
Which is fine, but we already know how the virus acts in a system and we have have the ONS weekly infection surveys showing that the R value is under 1 down in all of the various age groups and regions.
My theory is that we are looking at two groups, one with regular global COVID who have seen cases drop and Kent COVID where cases are around their equilibrium within the existing closed system. So the baseline has been reached because the spread isn't the same as what we saw in London and South East at the end of last year where the real infection rate was probably around 3-5% per week for 4-6 weeks creating a large immunity pool with vaccines also taken into account.
Other areas that didn't have those surges are now struggling to keep the R below 1 because Kent COVID is much more transmissive and they don't have the same level of herd immunity, the Kent variant is running into many, many more available hosts, especially among younger cohorts who are likely to be working in public contact jobs or rule breakers and much less likely to have any kind of immunity either from vaccines or prior infection.
I actually think we're in some kind of agreement but I'd ascribe the higher R value group transmission of Kent COVID.
The Yorkshire pattern was a rapid rise in the autumn followed by a sharp drop in November, a smaller rise in December and then a slower fall from January.
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
What’s skin colour got to with anything? What an extraordinary position to take. I prefer to judge actions, not skin colour.
If some medical staff are so blasé with the lives of their patients that they refuse a vaccine in a pandemic, one wonders what else they’re unprepared to do. Report their own symptoms? Wash their hands between patients? The c. 25% of all cases and 40% of hospitalised cases acquired in nhs settings came from somewhere after all.
Threaten the sack and I doubt you’d end up losing more than a handful. And those that do? Oh well. Hospitalisations have peaked. And it may be that you still end up with a net positive impact on nhs capacity if they’re also spreading anti vax tendency among their patients.
If you cannot see the idiocy of your plan.
Even when a Consultant who has just done an extra shift in ICU confirms its not possible
I dont know how to help.
You are not helping. By defending these people you are part of the problem.
They should get a vaccine.
I am not defending them
Just pointing out that sacking them is
a) Not possible
b) Stupid due to unavailabity of replacements
I thought you would think about the feasibility of your proposal and its impact before doubling down on it.
I already said I accepted you can't immediately sack them. But you can put them on a disciplinary procedure which could ultimately lead to dismissal if they don't change their minds. It always takes ages for these things to work through (the improvement plan alone is normally either 3 or 6 months) but it is a black mark against their record and in the long run would prevent promotion etc. It should also leave them open to prosecution if they contract the disease and can then be shown to have passed it on to patients.
Right now being an anti-vaxxer in a position of contact with the vulnerable has no consequences at all. That has to change.
@Foxy - is it just the COVID vaccine that your colleagues won't have? Or is part of a general anti-vaxx sentiment.
In reality there's not a lot of point worrying about individual health professionals getting vaccinated against COVID. But I do worry that some of these people might not be giving the right message to their patients (in terms of things like MMR).
Oh dear. More anti-vax nonsense, this time in the NHS.
Significant disparities in vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in England may undermine the rollout and its ability to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, with far lower rates among black and south Asian staff, workers under 30, and those living in the most deprived areas, a scientific adviser to the government has said.
Doctors at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, which employs one of the largest and most diverse healthcare workforces in the country, raised the issue on Sunday after releasing the first public data on vaccination rates among UK healthcare workers.
Reading the piece, the disparities in terms of take-up are astonishing. Scandalous, in fact. As with the care homes, if the staff won't get vaccinated they jeopardise the welfare of the patients. And there's certainly no point in the Government putting out the kind of guilt tripping adverts, like the one that's just been playing on the TV as I've been typing, entreating the public to protect the NHS if large chunks of the NHS workforce won't bloody well protect themselves.
I mean, is medicine in this country to be governed by science, or by antique prejudices and bullshit shared on anti-social media? Not good enough.
Having just got back from a busy day on ICU at the Trust in question I do find it incredible, in the sense of unbelievable, but there it is.
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
Do you think they should enforce vaccinations? I believe they should, if they are front line staff working with patients. No vax, no job. Sorry
This story is a total disgrace and makes me irate beyond words. Emergency legislation passed as quickly as the brexit bill was to sack the lot of them please.
"Sack Doctors" especially brown ones that should help in the busiest ever spell in the NHS.
Well done
What’s skin colour got to with anything? What an extraordinary position to take. I prefer to judge actions, not skin colour.
If some medical staff are so blasé with the lives of their patients that they refuse a vaccine in a pandemic, one wonders what else they’re unprepared to do. Report their own symptoms? Wash their hands between patients? The c. 25% of all cases and 40% of hospitalised cases acquired in nhs settings came from somewhere after all.
Threaten the sack and I doubt you’d end up losing more than a handful. And those that do? Oh well. Hospitalisations have peaked. And it may be that you still end up with a net positive impact on nhs capacity if they’re also spreading anti vax tendency among their patients.
If you cannot see the idiocy of your plan.
Even when a Consultant who has just done an extra shift in ICU confirms its not possible
I dont know how to help.
You are not helping. By defending these people you are part of the problem.
They should get a vaccine.
I am not defending them
Just pointing out that sacking them is
a) Not possible
b) Stupid
I thought you would think about the feasibility of your proposal and its impact before doubling down on it.
Not possible? What on earth is the point of our 1940s command-and-control healthcare system if we can't command and control it?
Have you heard of Contracts of Employment?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, it's what they won't have if they choose to put anti-vaxing above the good of their patients.
On the disparity between white and ethnic minority vaccine uptakes - might a more simple explanation be that EMs are less likely to trust the government/authority?
That is a significant issue, particularly the Black community.
One does wonder how that works as well though. Covid vaccination isn't stop and search. It isn't a negative thing where it might plausibly be claimed that it's directed against black people. Covid vaccination is a positive thing and it's being given on an equal opportunities basis to everybody. If it were part of some weird conspiracy against ethnic minorities then most of the recipients would not be (a) white and (b) thrilled to receive it. Turning it down just because it's come from the state makes no more sense than turning down a brown envelope stuffed with £50 notes for the same reason. It's all very odd.
Which is fine, but we already know how the virus acts in a system and we have have the ONS weekly infection surveys showing that the R value is under 1 down in all of the various age groups and regions.
My theory is that we are looking at two groups, one with regular global COVID who have seen cases drop and Kent COVID where cases are around their equilibrium within the existing closed system. So the baseline has been reached because the spread isn't the same as what we saw in London and South East at the end of last year where the real infection rate was probably around 3-5% per week for 4-6 weeks creating a large immunity pool with vaccines also taken into account.
Other areas that didn't have those surges are now struggling to keep the R below 1 because Kent COVID is much more transmissive and they don't have the same level of herd immunity, the Kent variant is running into many, many more available hosts, especially among younger cohorts who are likely to be working in public contact jobs or rule breakers and much less likely to have any kind of immunity either from vaccines or prior infection.
I actually think we're in some kind of agreement but I'd ascribe the higher R value group transmission of Kent COVID.
Yes, your hypothesis could well be correct, it's certainly plausible and I think it fits with the data.
One thing I want to stress, though, is that we really are working in a world of very incomplete information and hypotheses that can't reliably be distinguished. It's good to have a working theory for what is going on, of course.
(Be careful about what it means for R to be under in all age groups. R isn't truly defined in an age group, because members of one age group can infect or be infected by members of another. A better measure -- but still not really a very good one, as R is a terribly blunt instrument -- is to consider the matrix of infections passing from members of one group to another. Even determining that matrix is no simple task, in the presence of asymptomatic carriers.)
What is the reason for ethnic minorities to resist the vaccine? Why is this a thing? What’s the trigger?
Fake news on social media, specifically WhatsApp. I was glad to see the study showed only a 6% rejection rate among British Indians, it definitely matches the anecdotes from family and friends.
Both of my Consultant colleagues not having the vaccine are Indian borne Hindus.
Doctors at CONSULTANT level not getting the vaccine is absolubtely un-fucking-believable. What a pair of arseholes.
Not least because they are at significant risk themselves.
Well, surely that's the absolute essence of the issue. If they prefer that risk to whatever their perception of the vaccine risk is, it really is up to them. It's the same issue for hospital Consultant as it is for Waste Disposal Technicians.
And if things don't moderate sufficiently, then gradually the general population getting Covid will be replaced with anti-vaxxers getting Covid. Shame about the people they infect, but still both WDT and Consultant take that into account & find their own balance.
Sadly that ignores the fact there are a small but significant group of people who cannot have the vaccine for medical reasons or, for example, because they are pregnant women. If someone in a home or in hospital has, for example, a history of severe allergic reaction then they are not recommended to take the vaccine. In that case the only protection they have is the fact that the medical professionals dealing with them are vaccinated.
Not getting vaccinated is not only a case of putting yourself at risk.
Comments
Recently, Chinese cinemas grossed nearly $300m in total takings in one weekend, while US cinemas took peanuts. It is thought American box office receipts will never again match China’s. China is the dominant market now.
More importantly, Chinese movies, having hugely improved (by copying the West) now crowd out American movies. The top ten movies in China today are all Chinese-made.
The implications of this are enormous. Hollywood was a huge factor in projecting US soft power. It is diminishing fast.
https://www.ft.com/content/573340cb-30b9-421e-8fec-51c8348a6bbb
There is a surprising suspicion of vaccination in some communities, particularly those at high risk.
The Trust has a plan to phone each individual to discuss, but ultimately cannot at present enforce vaccinations.
If you’re right, then only bet contributors have actually paid for their vaccines.
Nice attempt to deflect from the worst per capita performer
40% worse than France 120% worse than Germany.
World beating UK
How much are Chinese films being exported to the rest of the world like Hollywood films are?
This sort of thing is why I no longer talk to right wing bloggers about race.
Except on here occasionally.
Well done
I've not seen any proper updated figures for vaccination take up for a couple of weeks. I suspect my area of East London is one of the slowest, if not the slowest, for getting vaccinations done. I believe only 73% of those in the top four categories had been contacted as of two weeks ago.
I'm in an age group which is already getting invitations for vaccination in other areas but nothing here yet. There needs to be a concerted effort to ensure parts of the country don't get left behind in terms of either vaccine supply or resources.
I also see the "friends of Boris Johnson" are already starting to play the "no more tax" card. The point is there needs to be some form of financial accounting or reckoning for all the emergency spending. Are we just going to keep on borrowing or is there going to be a serious effort to restore public finances in the next 2-3 years or are we just going to hope we can spend our way out of trouble?
Will we back to the same old nonsense about cutting public services - the NHS would seem to be sacrosanct and there's an argument for increasing spending on public health provision so what is the answer?
https://twitter.com/Independent/status/1360878351402041347
Imagine that society consists of two parts: a population who mix more amongst themselves (e.g. young workers), and a population who mix less both amongst themselves and with the first population (e.g. elderly and shielders). Suppose that R=RA>=1 in the more-mixing population and R=RB<1 in the less-mixing population. Initially say that cases are about even between the two populations, and so R is the average of RA and RB. As time goes by, cases within the second population tend to die down, but cases in the first population are stable or rise. A greater and greater proportion of cases happens in the first population, and R tends to RA.
This illustrates that R can trend even in a society where behaviour is constant. I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case at hand, but we shouldn't assume that constant R is an axiom.
--AS
It would be interesting to hear whether any anti-vaxxers are actually delivering vaccinations.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/02/COVID-19-weekly-announced-vaccinations-11-February-2021.xlsx
There was also a monthly summary
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/02/COVID-19-monthly-announced-vaccinations-11-February-2021-.xlsx
From the weekly data, for first vaccinations, for London we get
Under 70 70-74 75-79 80+
East London Health and Care Partnership 7.72% 78.00% 78.82% 73.10%
North London Partners in Health and Care 9.81% 78.23% 81.06% 76.27%
North West London Health and Care Partnership 9.93% 76.68% 80.89% 78.24%
Our Healthier South East London 9.25% 83.25% 86.23% 80.48%
South West London Health and Care Partnership 10.06% 80.78% 89.11% 83.99%
Note : this is actual vaccinations, not contacts.
If it keeps him popular, I have no doubt Johnson will continue to painlessly spaff the cash. If we have no limit to our line of credit, and If he can borrow all the way to GE 2024 he gets himself another five years. What happens then is anyone's guess. He might have lost Sunak and a few others along the way too.
Given that apparently mentally competent, post graduate educated, cultured, intelligent people, while not on crystal meth, actually buy* into Goop...
*With serious amounts of cash.
https://twitter.com/air_intel/status/1361014828475768833
From those figures, I suspect I will be waiting a while for my first vaccination.
https://twitter.com/Pulpstar/status/1361035084753735685
I'll be updating the model as data rolls in but we're averaging 437,966 jabs a day for the previous 2 weeks now.
Assumed an 85% takeup nationwide here, and no under 18s for the moment.
Given that a lot of vaccination has been happening via GPs...
I ended up keeping my GP from when I lived in Oxford.
These medical professionals aren't flipping burgers or pulling pints. They're intelligent and educated people who've got where they are through many years of training and experience.
It's what makes these revelations doubly infuriating. It's not like these people have spent their entire lives as subsistence pastoralists in some remote valley in the Andes or some such place, getting all their knowledge of the world from the village elders. They've no excuse for ignorance. But there also exists no effective means to reprimand them. The only recourse available is explanation and persuasion, which absorbs precious time and effort on the part of others with no guarantee of success.
Meanwhile, older and vulnerable people who could be getting the vaccines instead are having to wait their turn (to say nothing of fitter, younger people at the back of the queue who face months of playing Russian roulette with Long Covid, whilst more privileged individuals get taken in by deeply stupid conspiracy theories on Facebook and sit around wringing their hands.)
I understand why people are pissed off. I'm pissed off. But in this instance we're also absolutely powerless, alas.
If some medical staff are so blasé with the lives of their patients that they refuse a vaccine in a pandemic, one wonders what else they’re unprepared to do. Report their own symptoms? Wash their hands between patients? The c. 25% of all cases and 40% of hospitalised cases acquired in nhs settings came from somewhere after all.
Threaten the sack and I doubt you’d end up losing more than a handful. And those that do? Oh well. Hospitalisations have peaked. And it may be that you still end up with a net positive impact on nhs capacity if they’re also spreading anti vax tendency among their patients.
Terrific day on vaccines and (relatively) data for the UK today.
I do wish Boris would rein in his ministers though. I'm tired of them constantly vying with one another with often competing messages which contradict one another. The latest was Hancock vs Gove on vaccine passports. Boris needs to get a grip of his wayward ministers.
I would be looking to the authorities to prosecute homes and staff for actively failing to protect occupants from the vaccine. This is way different to a situation last year where homes were ill prepared. This wold be a conscious decision by the home or hospital not to enforce a clear protective measure.
We would not allow paedophiles or those with a record of elder abuse to work on the front line with vulnerable people. Vaccination should be as necessary as a DBS check.
Just not practical in current circumstances.
I thought you understood supply and demand.
But I thought R was just a numerical expression of overall observed virus velocity and so national R would not tend to RA unless A equaled the total population?
Lift restrictions.
Get businesses and consumers back to normal.
You are a Tory
I always knew you & the good lady MexicanPete enjoyed a quiet whisky and splash with RT at St Athan Golf Club.
If you prefer let's look at per capita and per country. A few worse than UK (eg Belgium), most better.
My piece is really about the next several months, and what can be done about it.
What do you think these numbers will be at the end of March, or in May?
(Clue: the EU number on that chart is currently increasing at 225 per month. The UK one is flattening out).
At present if a care home worker or a nurse refuses to take the jab there is absolutely no consequence to that decision at all. I would suspect the employer is not even allowed to let other staff know as it would be a private medical matter. So there is not even peer pressure unless they make it known.
What needs to happen is that staff need to be made to understand there will be consequences. All employers have a disciplinary system of verbal and written warnings, improvement plans and finally dismissal. Any staff refusing to be vaccinated should be put into that system with a written warning as a start. This means stuff. In most private sector organisations - which includes most care homes - it prevents promotion for example.
Anything that can bring pressure on these people should be done and the Government needs to change the law to make it happen.
Even when a Consultant who has just done an extra shift in ICU confirms its not possible
I dont know how to help.
Every early recipient that refuses vaccination means one more for the lot next in line. They aren't hanging around trying to persuade Dr Who to please take this nice vaccine because we're stuck until you do, they're just pressing on with whoever's willing.
That's how it seems to be working locally, anyway.
Very unimpressed with Starmer's declaration of "read my lips, no new taxes". So perhaps Mr Corbyn knows me better than I know myself.
Reading the December 2020 numbers, the one that struck me was income in the form of tax receipts was £43 billion and expenditure £86 billion (including £10 billion on the job support scheme). Borrowing was £34 billion.
I imagine the numbers for January and February are going to be equally bleak.
We need to get the income numbers back up - one school of thought is cutting taxes will perversely increase economic activity and bring in receipts (thank you, Mr Laffer). I imagine there is a lot of pent-up spending out there which will then explode (does that not bring an inflationary risk with too much money chasing too few goods and services?) once lockdown ends.
The alternative options are tax rises or spending cuts (you can take off the £10 billion job support programme but once that ends how much will welfare have to rise to support those whose jobs have been lost).
I am not defending them
Just pointing out that sacking them is
a) Not possible
b) Stupid due to unavailabity of replacements
I thought you would think about the feasibility of your proposal and its impact before doubling down on it.
I had the thought that first doses could be switched to them while Pfizer and AZ could be used for second doses.
I am not defending them
Just pointing out that sacking them is
a) Not possible
b) Stupid
I thought you would think about the feasibility of your proposal and its impact before doubling down on it.
Not possible? What on earth is the point of our 1940s command-and-control healthcare system if we can't command and control it?
Which is fine, but we already know how the virus acts in a system and we have have the ONS weekly infection surveys showing that the R value is under 1 down in all of the various age groups and regions.
My theory is that we are looking at two groups, one with regular global COVID who have seen cases drop and Kent COVID where cases are around their equilibrium within the existing closed system. So the baseline has been reached because the spread isn't the same as what we saw in London and South East at the end of last year where the real infection rate was probably around 3-5% per week for 4-6 weeks creating a large immunity pool with vaccines also taken into account.
Other areas that didn't have those surges are now struggling to keep the R below 1 because Kent COVID is much more transmissive and they don't have the same level of herd immunity, the Kent variant is running into many, many more available hosts, especially among younger cohorts who are likely to be working in public contact jobs or rule breakers and much less likely to have any kind of immunity either from vaccines or prior infection.
I actually think we're in some kind of agreement but I'd ascribe the higher R value group transmission of Kent COVID.
February, however, will be dire I suspect.
Have you heard of Contracts of Employment?
(The definition of R is the average number of subsequent infections caused by each infection. It's actually not a very good measure but it seems to have caught on.)
--AS
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, it's what they won't have if they choose to put anti-vaxing above the good of their patients.
[Sodding blockquotes!]
Sorry, couldn't resist.
But in all seriousness, I apologise for the inaccurate use of language in this case. I would expect, as you have suggested, that the unused doses wouldn't be sitting around for any length of time before being offered to someone else (i.e. reluctant persons who change their minds can be slotted in at a later date.) It's simply that being put near the front of the queue in the first place is a position of privilege that is denied to others. People lower down the queue who have to wait are entitled to feel a bit cheesed off that the privileged are turning down something that they are enthusiastic, even desperate, to have for no good reason. That's all.
And if things don't moderate sufficiently, then gradually the general population getting Covid will be replaced with anti-vaxxers getting Covid. Shame about the people they infect, but still both WDT and Consultant take that into account & find their own balance.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=region&areaName=Yorkshire and The Humber
I would guess that Kent covid is only now spreading substantially.
Right now being an anti-vaxxer in a position of contact with the vulnerable has no consequences at all. That has to change.
In reality there's not a lot of point worrying about individual health professionals getting vaccinated against COVID. But I do worry that some of these people might not be giving the right message to their patients (in terms of things like MMR).
Yes, it's what they won't have if they choose to put anti-vaxing above the good of their patients.
[Sodding blockquotes!]
Cunning Plan!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsXKS8Nyu8Q
I'd agree with that.
One thing I want to stress, though, is that we really are working in a world of very incomplete information and hypotheses that can't reliably be distinguished. It's good to have a working theory for what is going on, of course.
(Be careful about what it means for R to be under in all age groups. R isn't truly defined in an age group, because members of one age group can infect or be infected by members of another. A better measure -- but still not really a very good one, as R is a terribly blunt instrument -- is to consider the matrix of infections passing from members of one group to another. Even determining that matrix is no simple task, in the presence of asymptomatic carriers.)
--AS
Not getting vaccinated is not only a case of putting yourself at risk.