Vaccine: Dr Hilary says ‘I can’t believe how misinformed’ people are
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has become the first to be rolled out to patients in the UK, after it was shown to have more than 95 percent efficacy. The vaccine started being administered to patients on December 8, with hundreds of thousands having received it since. The vaccine is being provided via NHS hospitals, and patients should wait until they get a call for vaccination rather than trying to chase it up themselves, as the Government has provided a priority list in an effort to prioritise the clinically vulnerable.
When will diabetics get the Covid vaccine?
In total, the Government has secured access to more than 350million doses of coronavirus vaccines.
These are due to be administered to Brits between now and the end of 2021, ensuring everyone on the list gets their turn.
People with diabetes will get the vaccine eventually, but they are quite far down the list for now.
Diabetics will be included in the sixth group to be vaccinated, which includes people “aged 16 to 64 years with underlying health conditions, which put them at higher risk of serious illness or death from coronavirus”.
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Although the guidance states diabetics are including in those with underlying health conditions, this doesn’t apply to people with gestational diabetes.
This is because pregnant women are not advised to get the vaccine and they won’t be offered it.
The first group of people to be offered the vaccine will be care home residents and their carers, followed by 80-year-olds and over and front-line health workers.
After that, those aged 75 and over will get vaccinated, followed by those aged 70 and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals.
Is the vaccine safe?
Despite health experts, researchers, regulators and the Government insisting the vaccine is safe for use, many people continue to question its validity.
This is because while normal vaccines can take up to 10 years to be developed, the Covid vaccine was approved after less than one year.
The vaccine has been authorised for emergency use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), which approves all medication in the UK.
A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Social Care said the emergency approval came after “months of rigorous clinical trials and a thorough analysis of the data by experts at the MHRA who have concluded the vaccine has met it strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness”.
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Head of the MHRA, Dr June Raine insisted “no corners had been cut” in bringing the vaccine to hospitals to be administered.
Speaking at a Downing Street briefing, Dr Raine said: “The safety of the public will always come first.”
She also said the recommendation has “only been given by the MHRS following the most rigorous scientific assessment of every piece of data”.
Writing in The Conversation, Dr Mark Toshner said: “I keep hearing people talk about the seven to ten years it takes to make a vaccine and how dangerous speeding this up might be.
“The word that keeps popping up is ‘rushed’, and it is making the average person nervous about vaccine safety.”
He added: “Next time somebody expresses concern at the astonishing speed the vaccine trials have happened at, point out to them that ten years isn’t a good thing, it’s a bad thing.
“It’s not ten years because that is safe, it’s ten hard years of battling indifference, commercial imperatives, luck and red tape.
“Safety has not been compromised. All trials have been through the correct ‘phases’ or process of any normal drug or vaccine.
“Hundreds of thousands of the very best of us volunteered and had an experimental vaccine.”
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