The only way to stop the new coronavirus overwhelming our NHS is to vaccinate 2 million people every week

Right now, the vaccination rate is 10 times slower than this

This has to be fixed and vaccine supply won’t be the ‘bottle-neck’ soon (thread)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/28/two-million-vaccinations-week-needed-avoid-third-covid-wave/

For background, over Christmas a ‘Whitehall insider’ told the Telegraph that slow supply from manufacturers was limiting deployment of the life-saving vaccines

This may have been true earlier this month, but this supply problem is about to disappear

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/26/millions-receive-oxford-jab-jan-4/

First, the Pfizer vaccine: NHS bosses say the distribution of this vaccine is very hard due to it needing a -70 degree cold chain

However, Israel only uses the Pfizer vaccine, and if the UK matched their deployment speed, we’d be carrying out 5 million vaccinations per week! https://twitter.com/birdyword/status/1343486159687716864

According to the company, there should be enough Pfizer vaccine delivered to give around 4 million first doses by the end of 2020

Given we’ve vaccinated 800,000 people so far, that’s a lot of catching up in the New Year, just with Pfizer

https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/pfizer-vaccine-uk-covid-jab-not-get-10-million-doses-this-year-explained-782813

Next, the Oxford vaccine: this has been described as a ‘game-changer’ because it’s cheap, easy to manufacture and has a simple ‘cold chain’

It’s being manufactured in the UK too, so we should have loads of supply immediately to hand

Unfortunately there’s been problems

First, the Oxford vaccine still needs to be approved for emergency use, and it’s taken time to produce all the safety data required

However, the UK’s MHRA says it now has all the information it needs, and approval is expected within days

So what’s the supply situation?

According to AstraZeneca, 20 million doses of the Oxford vaccine should be ready, but only 4 million of those will be in glass vials ready to ship!

Crazy to think that so much vaccine has been produced, but it won’t be loaded into a vial in time

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-23/astra-oxford-vaccine-works-too-doses-could-be-in-short-supply

Despite the manufacturing issues, the UK should still have enough to give 7 or 8 million first vaccine doses in January

That’s enough to deploy more than 2 million per week and avoid a devastating third wave

This is what government should do to make that happen

First, GP surgeries should be paid to open 7 days a week to administer vaccines as fast as possible

Pay them ten times the current £12.50 tariff to give vaccines in care homes, and six times for the over 80s

That’s still only £2500 to save the life of a care home resident https://twitter.com/declamare/status/1343671822198386688

Second, the NHS is recruiting volunteers and teaching them how to give vaccines

This is a great idea but it will take at least another month for the scheme to screen and train these people

We just don’t have time to wait for this volunteer training to happen now the new variant has hit, so the government should deploy military Field Hospitals as emergency vaccination hubs in January, up until the volunteers are ready to take over

Third, distributing the vaccine quickly around the country faster is a big challenge for the NHS

When the PPE crisis hit back in April, the government came up with a solution

Get military logistics in now to support the NHS: it worked before, let’s do it again

Finally, the country shouldn’t accept overflowing hospitals and a shut-down economy because vaccines can’t been put in a glass vial

This is a ridiculous situation to be in

Government should pay AstraZeneca whatever it takes to get this manufacturing problem sorted out now

There’s other good ideas out there, like single-dosing the Pfizer vaccine, but these are the rapid easy fixes that government needs to put in place, starting right now

@nadhimzahawi is the minister responsible for the vaccine roll-out so I really hope he’s listening

As @Peston has pointed out, the UK can afford to spend whatever it takes on vaccination to save lives, protect our NHS and get our lives back to normal sooner

The vaccines are coming, and with this new variant spreading fast, any delay will be a disaster https://www.itv.com/news/2020-12-22/peston-the-economic-case-for-spending-whatever-it-takes-to-roll-out-the-covid-vaccine-fast