After 1 week of #COVID19 #vaccination, the #UK is closing in on 500,000 doses given. You might not think this is much given a total population of 67 million, but it is potentially a very important milestone with major positive consequences. Why? 1/n

The infection fatality rate of #COVID19 is about 1%, so if we did nothing at all to protect ourselves, we'd expect about 670,000 in the #UK deaths by the end of the #pandemic. About 80% of these deaths would occur in the risk groups: elderly, diabetics, lung problems etc 2/n

We can therefore predict who would be likely to die from #COVID19 in about 536,000 cases. If (this is the big "if") the #NHS can identify those half million & target them in the first #vaccination wave, then there is potential to cut the death rate before cutting infections. 3/n

And that is precisely what the priority list #vaccine roll-out strategy is trying to do. Those who are most likely to die of #COVID19 will by the New Year, have been vaccinated once, and by mid-January will have received their booster. 4/n

By early February, we may be in a situation where #COVID19 cases are still climbing, but we will have stopped seeing the delayed death curve climbing with 3 weeks delay (av. time infection -> death) 5/n

Through #vaccination, we'll have reached a point where we have a " #Sheltering" strategy that actually works. The problems with previous sheltering efforts was it only took on infected (usually #asymptomatic) person to enter a care home or hospital and kick off an outbreak. 6/n

The most vulnerable to #COVID19 will now have their physical sheltering bolstered by immunological sheltering through #vaccination. This is great, but we also need to keep pressing on with vaccinating the rest of us. Why? 7/n

80% of #COVID19 deaths are in the identifiable risk groups but the other 20% are elsewhere throughout the population. To prevent those deaths, #vaccination rollout will progressively work its way down the scale of risk. & COVID's impact is just #mortality but also #morbidity 8/n

#COVID19 #morbidity includes things like #LongCovid and the complications of long-term intensive care. These things are very apparent in younger age groups, even when actual death rates are low. So #vaccination needs to keep going until we can safely reach #HerdImmunity /end