This is interesting, at the end of the FAQ after an article about the UK's vaccine strategy:
What does all this mean for social distancing?
At some point enough vulnerable people will have been vaccinated for cases to fall to the point where there is no danger of the NHS being overwhelmed even if rules are eased. How many is the most pressing question of the new year.
That is, if I properly understand it, the absolute priority is to save patients' lives. This includes the lives of patients saved by preventing the NHS being overwhelmed by COVID patients, thus denying some patients necessary lifesaving treatment, whether for COVID-19 or something else.
Therefore, it follows that vaccinations should be offered to patients on the basis not of the risk that they will contract COVID-19 but of the risk that, should they become infected, they'll become so ill that, at least, they'll have to be treated in hospital and that there's a very real danger they'll die.
So while someone in their sixties, retired, and living in a tight family bubble or along, is probably far less likely to become infected with the virus than is an emergency nurse in her 30s, with young kids living at home. However, the older people, should they catch the virus, are so much more likely to become so ill htey end up in hospital than the nurse who is half their age, thus both risking their lives and also putting the hospitals under increasing strain.
Makes sense, I guess.
The same thinking seems to inform the contentious decision to increase the number of people who are vaccinated using the Pfizer vaccine by leaving longer than recommended between doses, which may apparently affect how long people remain immune after they first develop immunity, since at present they're more concerned about the number of people they can protect right now than they are about how long the protection lasts, because right now is when we need the hospital beds (or three weeks after the vaccination) and we can worry about the beds we need in March or April a bit nearer the time.
Vaccine shortages will be a problem for months, England’s chief medical officer warned last night as the government faced a revolt by GPs over cancelled second
www.thetimes.co.uk
Evernote link because paywall
www.theguardian.com
www.bbc.co.uk
abcnews.go.com
www.chicagotribune.com
berthub.eu
