OT Covid priority groups

P.S. I do wonder if we’ve got the priority groups quite right. At the moment it seems to be secondary school pupils and college students who seem to be the biggest ‘super spreaders’. Personally I think that was completely predictable, but they are also relatively easy groups to vaccinate...especially the former who are all in one place for most of the day. Maybe they should be the priority?[/QUOTE]

You're totally wrong there RA, you've got to vaccinate those most likely to die or be hospitalised first. Then, even if the kids continue to spread it around, the ones most likely to need treatment, will be immune.

Your idea may reduce the number of cases, but not be as effective in reducing deaths and hospitalisations.

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Originally Posted by Ram59

P.S. I do wonder if we’ve got the priority groups quite right. At the moment it seems to be secondary school pupils and college students who seem to be the biggest ‘super spreaders’. Personally I think that was completely predictable, but they are also relatively easy groups to vaccinate...especially the former who are all in one place for most of the day. Maybe they should be the priority?

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You're totally wrong there RA, you've got to vaccinate those most likely to die or be hospitalised first. Then, even if the kids continue to spread it around, the ones most likely to need treatment, will be immune.

Your idea may reduce the number of cases, but not be as effective in reducing deaths and hospitalisations.[/QUOTE]

I might be, I’m not sure you can be as certain as you seem and I was posing a question not making an assertion.
My reasoning goes...schools are well know for being ‘hotbeds’ of germ and virus reproduction. That’s inevitable and is the reason we’ve closed down the vast majority of other places where people gather together in large numbers.
If the young, and largely immune, people who attend schools only contacted each other you’d most likely be right...but they don’t. They all go home, and being te-enagers, probably journey home quite irresponsibly. That’s a combination which almost guarantees the spread of the virus.
The question I suppose is...should one of the greatest priorities be stopping the most obvious source of spread?

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Originally Posted by ramAnag

1. Fair enough MA. As I said...I too respect your view and, in your particular situation, may well go the same way. There are two sides to everything though and the simple fact is...the more people who are safely vaccinated...the better protected the global population is.

2. It’s fine lines...as with the take up - or lack of it - of the measles vaccine and the implications of that.

3. Are the eligibility groups in Holland the same as here and what is the situation with schools?

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1. Having listened to and read interviews with the responsible people in the UK and NL from both the medical and political side, it appears that they don't know if the vaccine a) stops you contracting CV-19 b) if it does how long the protection lasts and c) stops you spreading it. Until the answers to those 3 points are known you might be a little premature in pinning your hopes on the vaccine.

2. The most recent Dutch poll (yesterday) showed a 60% willingness to have the vaccine. I virologist said last night on TV that a 70% uptake would provide herd immunity

3. The eligibility groups aren't fully decided yet. The gist of what politicians are saying is that it looks like care home staff and those in the care homes first. After that? The other "groups" are health workers, hospital patients, over 80s, over 70s, over 60s (age groups in that order), those with underlying health conditions, healthy adults aged between 18 and 60. The order of these groups has not yet been settled.

Then there are 3 more groups to be looked at. Namely, pregnant women, mothers who are breast feeding and the under 18s. The vaccine hasn't been tested on any of the people in these groups and the consensus at the moment seems to be that it would be too dangerous to give any of the 3 groups the vaccine.

There are also odd voices saying that the danger of death or complications on healthy 18 to 50s is so minute that vaccination isn't "really necessary".

Sorry I can't be more definitive but the definitive asnwers aren't out there yet.

Or, expressed differently, shut the schools? Where have I heard that before as a notion!

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Originally Posted by MadAmster

1. Having listened to and read interviews with the responsible people in the UK and NL from both the medical and political side, it appears that they don't know if the vaccine a) stops you contracting CV-19 b) if it does how long the protection lasts and c) stops you spreading it. Until the answers to those 3 points are known you might be a little premature in pinning your hopes on the vaccine.

2. The most recent Dutch poll (yesterday) showed a 60% willingness to have the vaccine. I virologist said last night on TV that a 70% uptake would provide herd immunity

3. The eligibility groups aren't fully decided yet. The gist of what politicians are saying is that it looks like care home staff and those in the care homes first. After that? The other "groups" are health workers, hospital patients, over 80s, over 70s, over 60s (age groups in that order), those with underlying health conditions, healthy adults aged between 18 and 60. The order of these groups has not yet been settled.

Then there are 3 more groups to be looked at. Namely, pregrnant women, mothers who are breast feeding and the under 18s. The vaccine hasn't been tested on any of the people in these groups and the consensus at the moment seems to be that it would be too dangerous to give any of the 3 groups the vaccine.

There are also odd voices saying that the danger of death or complications on healthy 18 to 50s is so minute that vaccination isn't "really necessary".

Sorry I can't be more definitive but the definitive asnwers aren't out there yet.

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And that I’d suggest is the point.
‘The definitive answers aren’t out there yet’.
According to some this will be the result of EU bureaucracy that we are now free from. According to others it’s because the UK is anxious to shout ‘we were first’ regardless of safety. I, for one, DON’T know
Will I have it? Yes...because I’m 66 and want my life back. Would I have it if I were a pregnant woman...not without more reassurance.

GP...I don’t think recommending that school students might be a good choice for vaccinating first in any way equates to shutting the schools.
Precisely the reverse.

yes but, per my comment above, your premise that students are primary vectors in the spread seems to have no substance either

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Originally Posted by Geoff Parkstone

yes but, per my comment above, your premise that students are primary vectors in the spread seems to have no substance either

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So why have they announced today that all secondary school pupils are to be regularly tested from January? Why choose that group?
If you’d said the vaccine only offers protection to the direct recipient and not necessarily to those he/she comes into contact with you’d have a very good point...but as things are, and as MA has pointed out, that’s another for the list of ‘don’t know’ at the moment.

Up here in Cheshire I've seen the secondary school kids leaving school in large groups. No social distancing going on at all. No wonder they are the super spreaders

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Originally Posted by Oldtimeram

Up here in Cheshire I've seen the secondary school kids leaving school in large groups. No social distancing going on at all. No wonder they are the super spreaders

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Exactly OTR...that’s a situation replicated outside virtually every secondary school in the country, and that’s before they get home and mix with other family members.

The maths of this make jabbing ‘oldest first’ so obvious even the govt couldn’t have got it wrong