Vaccine groups

I agree with Parsley3- the visitors- or the staff, coming in take the virus in- they should do the staff- AND the wider community- and close care homes to visitors again till everyone coming in is vaccinated- same with hospitals wards-do staff and wider community- keep visitors out till vaccines are completed.

Care home residents are sitting ducks if they aren’t vaccinated, so many more thousands will die if they aren’t prioritised - which of course they will be because the scientists have already decided that’s the best way to save the most lives. I think people will be shocked when they find out how many people have died in care homes by the end of this, although not everybody seems to care

The FACT is- they are sending these children/young adults and teachers/tutors in every day- just like the keyworkers/frontliners and yet DENYING them the vaccine- so using them as cannon- fodder and using teachers as babysitters- these are the facts Growstuff! And some of these people-teachers and the pupils- are clinically extremely vulnerable or extremely vulnerable as well- due to underlying health issues! Also a fact- if you're 'only' classed as 'extremely vulnerable' (not clinically) you must go school/college/uni and yet staff are allowed to 'work from home'- the Gov't is Not saving ALL the most vulnerable first- just the OLDEST most vulnerable! And im not saying they shouldnt- im saying they should save the younger vulnerable as well!! And yes Growstuff we ARE allowed OPINIONS regardless of wether it also has a FACT behind it!!?

I agree with the OP about vaccinating those in the community as that is where the virus is spreading. Care home residents are not out and about, people bring the virus to them. Teachers and older pupils should be high on the list too if schools are to stay open.

What about care home residents?
Are they no longer the priority?

should be 50-65 years with underlying health issues .i have been warned seeing i am allergic to penicillin i might have side effects.not sure i want it anyway. too many chemicals in my body already.

Growstuff is saying the vaccine hasnt been licensed for children. Getting annoyed at that is like being annoyed at me saying Paris is the capital of France.

And if the other variants they have found can be spread more by kids then why shouldnt we give them a vaccine? And teachers/tutors? They keep sending them all into education establishments (schools, colleges, universities) just like the front liners so they should be protected! They could at least vaccinate teachers/tutors and students/pupils 16& upwards who are after all not considered as 'children' in the medical world as they move them to adult services at 16! It might at least cut some of the danger! ? And no, we dont know if jab stops us passing it on- but if there more people are vaccinated the less there are to catch it! So if they've not caught it theres nothing to pass on!

I'm very happy for others to have an opinion if it's backed up by facts.

Nannan2 Children can have other vaccines because there have at some stage been trials. The Pfizer vaccine (and I think the AZ one too) has not been trialled on children and has not been licensed for use with them. Why are you sick of the truth?

It wasn't trialled on children because it wasn't considered that they are a priority. There's no reason why the vaccines can't be future trials involving children.

What do you want to know?

The Pfizer vaccine is complex to administer, so that is probably why the roll out has been slow re care homes. It only has a shelf life of three and a half days and 5 jabs have to be extracted from one phial. It's a logistical nightmare. At the GP surgery where I work in admin, we had to book in hundreds of over eighties over a three day period, the second jab is in a week's time. The Astra zeneca vaccine will be far more straightforward.

But yes,those most likely to die from Coronavirus should be vaccinated first, it's a no brainer.

Luca- Growstuff is ALWAYS Squabbling she(?) cant let others have their own opinion! And im sick of reading her(?) say "children cant be vaccinated as theres been no trials" as well! So what then? Are they going to just deny the children a life saving vaccine just because they've not 'trialled' it? How do they EVER give them all the OTHER vaccines they give them then??I keep asking this, but Growstuff has not told me....?

That's interesting I am just watching an old friend being sucked into the anti vaccine brigade on Facebook and there is lots of talk of boosting the immune system instead via alternative treatments.

Too true MOnica.

It always amazes me that people will happily take unregulated treatments and alternative medicines, which have no published evidence base, safety data or controlled trials, but will be suspicious of conventional medicine which has undergone all of the above. They are often the vaccine refuseniks.

i wonder how much she knew about what was in any other medications she took; paracetamol, for example, or cough medicine or simple indigestion remedies?

I must confess I do not.

Must agree strongly with those posters who feel that refusers should automatically go to the back of the queue! There was a much respected doctor on morning TV who told of a patient who said she wouldn’t have the vaccine because she “didn’t know what was in it” - despite the fact that she obviously had a face full of botox! Whole new meaning to ridiculous!

MissAdventure

What has happened with regard to the care home residents and staff who were refusing to consent to the vaccine?

I don't know. It's certainly not what I've been reading at local level. Family members are angry that their relatives in care homes haven't been offered vaccination, despite the promises.

MawBe

growstuff

Don't be annoyed Sparkling. They won't affect whether you are infected.

True, growstuff but we’re not just thinking about ourselves are we?
Getting the economy up and running, getting the health service back on its feet and reinstating elective procedures, getting education back to normal - all these will be contingent on getting this virus under control and then, if possible eliminating it so that the world does not grind to a halt the way it has done in 2020.

I couldn't agree more with your general principle.

However, (and I'm sorry to repeat myself) I have serious reservations about whether vaccines will achieve the hoped for outcomes. All we do know with relative certainty is that vaccines will offer people some (not 100%) protection from developing serious symptoms. If they offer more, it will be great, but they're not the magic wand people seem to expect.

There are various estimates about how many people are in the group most severely affected. It's probably somewhere between 12 and 20 million and the priority must be to give them protection with a vaccine. The remainder will have to be infected at some stage because there won't be enough doses for them and it would take months to vaccinate them all - not forgetting that the people in the rest of the world. It can never be guaranteed that people won't be infectious and, sadly, some people will still die.

The only way to achieve what you want is to suppress transmission and the only way to do that is by behavioural change (hands, face, space, etc).

If a minority of people choose not to be vaccinated, it doesn't really make much difference to the general plan. They are the ones losing out because they're failing to protect themselves. The ones who are dangers to the rest of us are the ones who persist in breathing their potentially infected germs all over other people.

What has happened with regard to the care home residents and staff who were refusing to consent to the vaccine?

growstuff

Don't be annoyed Sparkling. They won't affect whether you are infected.

True, growstuff but we’re not just thinking about ourselves are we?
Getting the economy up and running, getting the health service back on its feet and reinstating elective procedures, getting education back to normal - all these will be contingent on getting this virus under control and then, if possible eliminating it so that the world does not grind to a halt the way it has done in 2020.

Don't be annoyed Sparkling. They won't affect whether you are infected.

Casdon

With the millions of people who need and want to be vaccinated, it’s unrealistic to expect that a choice will be offered, other than for very specific medical reasons. If you don’t have the vaccination when it’s offered to you it’s unlikely that you will get an offer again until the end of the vaccination programme - which is as it should be. It’s up to each of us to weigh up the options, but be prepared to wait for at least six months for a second chance if you decline the first offer.

Personally, I think they should wait longer than that. There are plenty of under 50s who would like the jab, but realistically won't get it for years. They should have first refusal on any extra doses available.

Nobody will know for some time how much protection any of the vaccines give to third parties. The only people missing out are those who refuse to be vaccinated because the only certainty is that vaccination offers some protection to those who receive it. Indications are that take-up is high enough to reduce hospitalisations, which is a good thing for individuals and the management of public health resources.

Quite honestly, if they make that decision and subsequently suffer any consequences, I won't be shedding too many tears. In the UK, we are so lucky to have the NHS, but IMO people have a responsibility to take care of their own health and being offered a vaccination for free is part of that.

I feel annoyed with those that won’t be vaccinated. They will wait inside until the rest of us have the vaccine they are scared of having. COVID won’t go until we are all done, these people that won’t be done so that our youngsters can have a normal life are selfish. The only way in the past we got rid of smallpox, tb, polio etc was immunisation. It comes back into the population from those that wouldn’t have it. They would not presumably say no to a hospital bed if they got it. I thinkbw3 need a passport system so they can’t travel and put people at risk.

I think it’s the logistics, they will be calling people in order of the priority groups, and most vaccinations will be delivered from mass and community vaccination centres, with a minority through GP surgeries as they don’t have capacity to take on the numbers. The centres will work through the lists in order, so those who refuse the first offer will be put to the end of the programme, it’s got to be targeted to get the maximum numbers through in the shortest timeframe.
I think GPs will have to concentrate on the housebound and care homes first, then very elderly who have no means of getting to a mass vaccination centre. A few GP practices are administering the Pfizer vaccine, and I’d imagine they are making sure all their clinics are full because the vaccine has to be destroyed if the batch isn’t all used in a session, so some people may be lucky enough to be called out of sequence to avoid wastage.