Scotland is ahead of schedule* with second-doses of their Covid vaccines

[andrewducker]

If you look at the graph of vaccines here you can see that as of today we've given out 1,068,704 second-doses. The date we'd given that many first doses was February 12th (1,113,625 doses). That's 73 days ago. Or 10.5 weeks.

Which is 1.5 weeks ahead of the dosage schedule that the JCVI set.

I can only assume that the Pfizer doses we have in stock are all reserved for second doses, with no new supply coming in, so we might as well inject people with them now, a bit closer to the date that Pfizer says we ought to have done.

Indeed, 64% of people who had a first Pfizer dose have also had a second Pfizer dose, compared to 26% of people who have had an AZ first dose (data further down that page).

I don't have historical records of what doses were given out on previous dates, so I can't see if that's ahead of the curve for both, or just Pfizer, but I'm betting it's just Pfizer.

*Well, kinda. Obviously the Pfizer doses are intended to be given after 2 weeks. But this is them being ahead of the schedule they set of 12 weeks between first and second doses.

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

I'll have just sent you my chart - no idea how to upload it to DW - but feel free to if you can.

Looking at the data tables, cummulative 2nd doses today are 1,064,704. 84 days ago (twelve weeks) cummulative 1st doses were 666,271 - so we're perhaps 402k ahead of "schedule" for 2nd doses - about 2 weeks worth depending on what you consider the benchmark for daily doses is.

[andrewducker]

I don't think I can! Might be possibly to put it into Google Sheets and link to that.

(I've not played with that enough to do it quickly, and have a small child to pick up from nursery in a mo, or I'd have a go myself.)

[danieldwilliam]

I'll mess about with it.

[danieldwilliam]

The data tables split the cumulative figures by vaccine type.

[andrewducker]

If I get more time tomorrow...

[errolwi]

Anyone seen a recent estimate of how many hundreds/thousands of lives saved in the UK by moving to ~12 weeks (in line with expected behaviour of vaccines in general) rather than the 2 weeks used in initial trials to provide proof of efficacy ASAP? And presumably the lost opportunity in the USA and elsewhere.

[hairyears]

AstraZeneca supplies are in doubt, as some of the UK's doses were been made by the Serum Institute in India.

We will *probably* administer all of the scheduled AZ second doses, but it's going to be a bit of a squeeze.

Disclosure: This is a matter of personal interest to me.