How would you engineer Vaccine Success?

Hypothetically, if you wanted to engineer a big Govt success story around Vaccines and Lockdown… what would you do?👇🏼

• ❓Would you align Vaccine rollout in the peak of winter and give to the most frail and vulnerable, to mask your uncertainty regarding safety and stoke the fire of NHS overwhelm?
• ❓Would you plan to get the most vulnerable groups vaccinated with an initial dose by the time seasonal mortality is starting its natural decline?
• ❓Would to suppress and downplay the importance of vitamin D throughout summer, and then offer a govt provision in the middle of winter?
• ❓Would you report daily Vaccination numbers, whilst not reporting on Health Impact Events and serious Adverse Events?
• ❓Would you refrain from the idea that any death up to 28 days after initial Vaccination should be considered a Vaccine Death – as is done with COVID reporting?
• ❓Would you align Lockdown easing dates with the natural seasonal decline of Coronaviruses and other respiratory viruses?
• ❓Would continue to talk up new variants to increase the impetus for people to get vaccinated whilst simultaneously cautioning on vaccine durability?
• ❓Would you launch a major Asymptomatic testing campaign with less alarmist Lateral Flow testing, that can smooth the way to dialling down PCR testing in Spring?
• ❓Would you consider making changes to the PCR test, after WHO suggests lower Ct level readouts or some other means of lowering sensitivity and false results?
• ❓What else would you consider, to strengthen your chances of (initial) Vaccine and Lockdown success by the end of Winter?

I’m asking for a friend…

🤔 Just something to think about.

↖️ The top left graph shows weekly vaccines completed (purple) and our guesstimates of what is a probable weekly throughput (dashed line) and cumulative 1st dose vaccine numbers (pink).

↗️ Top right speculates on the potential effect this scaled vaccination campaign could have on the NHS (GP’s and Hosp) by estimating Health Impact Events. CDC observed a 2.36% – we’ve used 2%.

⬅️ The table provides our speculation of population coverage of 1st dose vaccines by the end of Feb – broken down by age brackets and suggesting a total of 12.4M by mid Feb and 17.2M by end of Feb.

↙️ The bottom left shows the ONS 5YR average Total Mortality curve for England to showcase the seasonal shape of mortality we would expect for any given normal year.

↘️ The bottom right showcases an extensive Paris microbiology study conducted several years ago to characterise the seasonality of the most common respiratory viruses.

The intention here is to provide food for thought.

Our estimates are exactly that – estimates, based on our read of govt objectives, logistics, stated priorities and population willingness. In the next 6 weeks we will see how close they are to reality… or not.

🔮 The future is easier to bear if you can anticipate what is coming and read both objectives of leaders, the patterns of nature and epidemiology, and the probable outcomes associated with packages of interventions.

#FoodForThought

Ivor Cummins and I discuss this and more in our most recent Podcast Chat – Episode #155:

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