POLL: Will you have the COVID-19 vaccine?

[Boatbuilder]

No, Ipswich is a Lower Tier Local Authority of it's own, Katharine. There are five LTLA's that make up the UTLA (Upper Tier Local Authority) of Suffolk.
They are East Suffolk, Mid Suffolk, West Suffolk, Ipswich and Babergh.

You can see how Ipswich is faring in the country (case rate) in comparison to all the LTLA's on this chart, and Suffolk in the UTLA's on this chart.

Both charts are sorted lowest to highest rate on the most recent date and you can see how the UTLA's have changed from day to day since I started that one at the beginning of June.

[Hannah]

Does anyone know the figures for serious illness among the younger age group?

There's data in Germany from last year (so before Delta). 5,6% of cases ended up in ICU and 0,1% died within the age group of 20 to 39. 14% in ICU and 0,7% dead in age group 40 to 59. It might be higher with Delta, I think.
(For anyone knowing German: Data regarding the severeness of the Covid on page 8 )

There's also no data regarding LongCovid in the report in the link. I think for younger people that's the bigger risk. I'd probably survive and wouldn't have to go to hospital even without the vaccine but the risk for LongCovid is much higher. I already have - amongst other things and without having had Covid - asthma, insomnia, hypersomnia and fatigue and that's bad enough. I wouldn't want that to get worse. And of course I don't want other people to experience so many limitations as I in daily life.

[dsr]

There aren't any figures published on the gov.uk Coronavirus website indicating anything like that, Katharine, just as there aren't any figures that I have been able to find on there which give the deaths by age or age-groups. It is possible that they do exist but more than likely they would be on the ONS (Office for National Statistics) website. I think it is safe to assume that as those figures show, the higher the age groups the fewer the cases as many more people in those groups are fully vaccinated, although fully vaccinated people can still get the virus as we know. I also keep a record of the vaccinations by age-group here in East Suffolk and that typically shows how the roll-out is progressing each day - the number of people receiving the first or second dose by age group. If you want to have a look it is HERE. There are still about 25,000 people in the East Suffolk adult population who haven't had their first vaccination yet - about 12%.

I can help you out with death statistics, because they are analysed according to death certificate causes of death. Since the delta variant started to take hold (beginning of April, I have assumed) the number of people under 30 who have died with coronavirus either as a primary cause or as a secondary cause, is 13. That's out of something like half a million cases. We don't know the prior state of health of those 13.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ndandwales

[Boatbuilder]

Thanks, that was interesting - does Ipswich come under East Suffolk do you know?

Katharine, here is a chart for the Ipswich vaccination uptake. I hope it is of use to you. I will keep it updated as it only takes a couple of minutes each day.

[Boatbuilder]

I can help you out with death statistics, because they are analysed according to death certificate causes of death. Since the delta variant started to take hold (beginning of April, I have assumed) the number of people under 30 who have died with coronavirus either as a primary cause or as a secondary cause, is 13. That's out of something like half a million cases. We don't know the prior state of health of those 13.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ndandwales

DSR, thanks for coming up with that. I will have a good study of that tomorrow having saved a copy of the linked workbook on that page.

I do have a couple of workbooks I have created and which I update daily on the infections in your LTLA area (Pendle) as that is where one of my daughters lives. If you want I can send you the 'read-only' links to them.

[dsr]

Thanks. I've been keeping a fairly close eye on Pendle as it happens, for obvious reasons!, so it's OK thanks. Unless you have them drilled down into the different boroughs? What has been interesting is that even in a small area like Pendle, the phases of the waves have been very different. For most of this year Nelson was the source of a good three quarters of the Pendle cases. Colne had next to none for 3 months straight. But with the current delta wave, Nelson has been lower than expected while Colne, Barnoldswick, even Higham and Barley have been "picking up the slack", so to speak.

[Fiona1986]

I get my second dose tomorrow. So far I've seen a lot of people say that their second dose had much worse side-effects than their first, but equally, many people have said if they had side affects after their first they didn't after their second an vice-versa. I had a host of mild symptoms from the first so I don't know what that'll mean for tomorrow! I'm getting it at 1.10 and need to straight into work after as well.

[Boodi 2]

Good luck tomorrow Fiona! I had absolutely no side-effects after my second shot (and only very mild ones after the first), but my son and his girlfriend had their second shots this week and they both felt very run-down and exhausted for 36-48 hours afterwards, but are fine again now, so it really seems to affect everyone differently, as we all had the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine.

[Nick]

I'd love to get my second jab. I was offered one date, two weeks ago, but couldn't make it as we'd been "pinged" and now there is absolutely nothing available.

[Katharine]

I don't think there is going to be a choice soon, it looks like the vaccine is going to become pretty much compulsory.

[Boatbuilder]

I hope all goes well for you tomorrow, Fiona.

From Friday until Sunday we have the Latitude Festival taking place at Henham Park, just 10 miles or so down the A12 from where I live. There is supposed to be 40,000 attending, and they are all supposed to have had either both jabs or a negative test as one of the government's 'experimental events'.

However, it was interesting to watch the local BBC Look East news tonight where they were interviewing people in the nearby small market town of Halesworth, which is only about three miles away from the festival location and the hotels there are booked-up with people attending the festival. All the locals they spoke to seemed nervous about it and when I looked at the statistics, Halesworth's distict, as of today, has the highest infection rate of all the 30 MSOA's in East Suffolk, despite the rates in the entire county of Suffolk being the third lowest in England. I shall certainly be watching to see how they move over the next couple of weeks in comparison to the rest of East Suffolk.

[Fiona1986]

That's me at work now having just had the second dose. My arm's starting to ache, so is my head and I feel a bit sick but I'm not sure how much of it is psychosomatic and down to me expecting to feel like that!

[Courtenay]

Hope the effects lift off soon, Fiona, whatever they're caused by! I had only very mild side effects from my first dose (felt slightly tired and achey the day after, but my temperature was normal and I felt fine again by the evening) and absolutely none from the second, so it really does seem to be different for everyone.

[db105]

I got the second dose of Pfizer on Wednesday. Very mild side effects both times, just slight soreness in the area where I got the injection, appearing about 4 hours after the injection and lasting for 1 or 2 days. Happy to have my inmune system trained and to have done my part in getting out of this awful pandemic.

[Fiona1986]

I'm definitely feeling worse this time around. I felt really tired yesterday evening and then achy especially in my back. Have felt tired and headachy today, but luckily my parents offered to take Brodie off our hands (second breakfast at a cafe then lunch at theirs and a play in their garden) so I was able to take a nap this afternoon. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow!