Questions I can't answer -

[shewhomust]

I don't know whether it's better that schools should remain closed, to minimise transmission of the virus, or should reopen, to give children better access to education:

but I do know that a school which is 'closed' will still be open to children who have particular needs, are seen to be at risk, or whose parents are essential workers; while a school that is 'open' will still be sending home groups of children to self-isolate, and I don't know how they teach classes whose teacher is self isolating (or, indeed, ill). So shouldn't we stop talking about this as - sorry, but this is the only way to say it - an open or shut case, and address the actual, fluid situation?

I don't know whether it's better to vaccinate according to the original, tested, schedule of two doses at 21-day intervals, or to spread the initial and still reasonably effective dose as widely as possible:

but it seems needlessly cruel, not to mention creating a lot of work, to reschedule second doses for which patients have already been given appointments. Couldn't we just say, on second thoughts, let's do it this way from now on?

I don't know who is in charge of naming the fleet of Irish Ferries, but I congratulate them:

A recent report in the Guardian reveals in passing the existence of the ferry Ulysses. I don't know whether the name refers to the original Ulysses / Odysseus, who spent ten years wandering around the Mediterranean trying to find his way home, or Joyce's Ulysses / Leopold Bloom, who spent a day wandering round Dublin. But considering the question brightened my morning.

Comments

[cmcmck]

My view was continue as you were with the first vaccinations but by all means use the Oxford jab differently if that's useful.

Confusing a bunch of elderly people is just plain wrongheaded!

All too much of this looks like blind panic!

[shewhomust]

So much is unknowable, but there's no need to go the full headless chicken...

[cellio]

I would be livid if, having gotten the first half of the vaccine based on a cost-benefit analysis of the full cycle, they then yanked the second half away and said "nope, that's good enough!". Now what do I do -- do I get to start over, or am I stuck with half a vaccine and no way to protect myself, when if I'd known I would have just waited? That's a terrible thing to do to people.

[shewhomust]

Oh, they aren't withdrawing the second half of the vaccine, just delaying it - so it's only the appointment that it lost.

And of course, cost-benefit doesn't apply in the same way in the UK: it's free on the NHS...

Even so, not a good decision.

[cellio]

I wasn't actually thinking about the financial cost. I hope insurance or the government will pay for the vaccine so that even the poor can get it; it's a public health issue, after all, so even if appealing to human decency isn't persuasive, self-interest should be.

I was thinking of other factors that would cause someone (who can keep isolating) to want to delay getting the vaccine. Somebody with personal concerns about allergic reactions might decide to wait to see if that becomes better understood, for example.

Delaying the second dose sounds like a bad idea. I understand the desire to get the first dose into more people, but everything we know about effectiveness is based on getting two doses on a particular schedule. Once we violate that schedule, we don't know anything any more -- and people who got the first dose but not the second (on time) are now presumably at the back of the line for starting over to get a proper vaccine "because they have something" -- but maybe they don't. Who knows? What a mess. :-(

[shewhomust]

Oh, I see. Yes, there are always costs, even if they aren't financial.

[athenais]

I would be concerned about boarding the Ulysses in case it took it into its head to wander the Med when I just wanted to get to Holyhead. Hard to explain why you're late to work that day.

[shewhomust]

'Zackly!