I notice the US Government owned AZ inventory (“millions of doses”) is being sent or redirected to Mexico and Canada. Its not yet been approved for use in the US but presumably was part of pre-approval Federal ordering last year. Moderna and Pfizer seem to be what people here are getting although I heard from a coworker today that one of the local centers provided him the option to sign up for either of those or J&J.
I’m probably looking at a month before I’ll be notified of vaccination availability by my provider. I’m not in a big hurry at this point as local cases are way down and as I mentioned here previously, I may have had the virus a couple of months ago with whatever level of immunity that would imply. My major interest would be working around travel restrictions and border controls in Europe but with the situation around the Alps still problematic with no end in sight, I doubt I’ll be there any time soon. Maybe spring of 2022. I miss it but with a little discipline to carve out the time I can fly more here instead.
The UK will gladly take it off their hands 
According to the Daily Trash (which always reliably gets the real dirt) about 4M doses were blocked by the Indian Govt, resulting in the hiccup reported 2 days ago whereby a block has been put on vaccing people under 50 until late April or so (would be doing them right now otherwise). This shipment was apparently not ordered a long time ago like the other 100M or so; it was an “extra” which the UK was hoping to get. But maybe it was in the original contract and India just blocked it, and the UK must be careful to not p1ss off India since a lot of AZ stuff is made there. Of course the real story won’t come out for ages.
Isn’t the US using some sort of emergency power to control export of Moderna?
I don’t think US manufactured vaccines are being exported except under special approval… but I’m hardly an expert on the subject. It may only be doses owned by the US Federal Government. Maybe somebody else knows better.
On a more positive note the roadmap in the UK and the so named opening up is an interesting point of discussion.
In recent weeks I feel the rate of infections has stopped falling as quickly. This is to be expected as society opens up, and people relax (even if they shoulnt). For example schools are back, with all that involves. This may increase with outside dining permitted next month and more people returning to work etc.
So what does the Government do?
It is possible (probable) infection rates may start to increase in the community as younger people who have not been vaccinated are infected.
Is the roadmap then based on the rate of infection (the R) or do we transfer to the number of cases going to hospital, which hopefully in spite of rising infections, will continue to fall?
There is a theory that it is more ok for younger people to be infected because the condition is almost always mild and they dont end up in hospital.
Of course this could be very bad news for those who have chosen not to be vaccinated and are vulnerable. It could also be bad news for those that have been vaccinated, in that the vaccine will be challenged far more, as the chance encounters between vaccinated people and those infected will increase. With more infections it may even result in more variants that challenge the vaccine, and if the vaccine stops 80% of hospitalisation we may even so see a rise on older people ending up in hospital again.
Quite a bit of challenging modelling.
All interesting points for discussion.
In a strange way it will be the scenario of a virus that kills very few people (viz via with most of the elderly now vaccinated) but yet is still highly contageous and infects very high numbers of young people. That would have been the exact scenario if this virus had not been lethal to essentially 1% (or whatever it is) of the elderly population. Productivity may also suffer as lots of people take to their beds for a couple of weeks or so, and, potentially there is a rise in long Covid in the young.
Of course if the roll out goes quickly enough hopefully any of this might be short lived, as more and more of the younger population is vaccinated.
Never the less, depending on your point of view, we may not be out of the woods yet.
Peter wrote:
According to the Daily Trash (which always reliably gets the real dirt) about 4M doses were blocked by the Indian Govt, resulting in the hiccup reported 2 days ago whereby a block has been put on vaccing people under 50 until late April or so (would be doing them right now otherwise). This shipment was apparently not ordered a long time ago like the other 100M or so; it was an “extra” which the UK was hoping to get. But maybe it was in the original contract and India just blocked it, and the UK must be careful to not p1ss off India since a lot of AZ stuff is made there. Of course the real story won’t come out for ages.
This was speculated about on the mainstream media and the PM answered questions on the 4M dosed that are “delayed” directly saying that “the Indian Govt was not involved in any way” in his broadcast to the nation. I doubt very much he would lie about this very specific question as it would be easy to be caught out by the likes of the DM etc… but hey…
No; we won’t be out of the woods for quite a while, but I think the hospital situation will be under control from now on, in the UK.
Yes, I saw that from Boris, but they also had the head of the Indian vaccine manufacturer saying that everybody is putting pressure on him and they can’t please everybody at the same time. So who is really behind it, is anybody’s guess. A very complicated situation.
Interesting that the French lockdown is regional. Here, that seems to have been given up on, since the local politicians and the media capitalise on any “inequality”.
Peter wrote:
Interesting that the French lockdown is regional. Here, that seems to have been given up on, since the local politicians and the media capitalise on any “inequality”.
In my region the numbers are less than a quarter of those in the Paris area.
Anyway, I thought that the UK was 4 regions with different plans… 
Regards, SD..
Anyway, I thought that the UK was 4 regions with different plans
Negative; it has 4 regions with different politicians, and CV19 has created a once in a lifetime opportunity for these poor people who normally cannot achieve a media profile bigger than an ant
I am sure this is the same in every country in which “health” is a regionally devolved matter.
Looks like its Sputnik, Moderna and J&J for us then.
