The Jabbers Hit The Jabpot!
It has been announced that yesterday a total of 609,050 does of the vaccine were administered.
It is an incredible figure, made up of 598389 first and 10661 second jabs.
It really was a Super Jabba Saturday, with one report on the BBC, saying that in one vaccination centre in Newcastle, 2,000 people were vaccinated.
If the reported 1,400 vaccination centres around the UK, hit two thousand per day, that is 2.8 million jabs per day and we could vaccinate sixty million people twice in just 43 days. Probably, this is an unachievable time, as not all centres could handle 2000 jabs per day.
I think we’re in for a very statistically interesting few days, as the vaccinators find a level that is at equilibrium with the population and their determination to get vaccinated or not!
I feel, that vaccine supply permitting, the daily number for jabs will be around the psychologically important 500,000.
Your First Crossrail Service May Arrive In Time For Christmas
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in today’s Sunday Times.
I have thought this might happen for a few months.
I wrote project management software for nearly forty years. If you ever used Artemis, that was the system, I wrote in a Suffolk attic.
Artemis helped provide the UK with North Sea oil and gas, by calculating and scheduling the labour requirements.
One problem was that there was so many projects, that there was a severe labour shortage. As a friend, who supported our systems in Aberdeen, told me, you couldn’t get some tradesmen for love or money, as they had all retrained to go offshore.
Shortage of workers is often the reason for projects being late and Crossrail is no exception.
Walk through the City and West End of London along the route of the line and you’ll see endless new office, retail and residential developments around all the stations.
These Central London developments are often luxurious and funded by Sovereign Wealth or similar funds, all of whom have bottomless pockets.
If they need more workers, they just raise wages and they have been stealing them from Crossrail. Consequently Crossrail has had to pay more and has been hemorrhaging cash and getting later.
Many of these buildings are now complete and the workers can be hired by Crossrail to speed up the finishing of the line.
Unless of course, the Mayor and the Councils allow more new buildings to be constructed.
But there is a beneficial effect of the Covids working in favour of Crossrail. It has probably badly damaged forecasts for a new development, that they are being delayed for a few years.
So Crossrail can move towards a finish, which will start to generate revenue for Transport for London.
This page on the Crossrail web site is the Crossrail Project Update for December 2020, which was published on the 14th January 14th 2021.
This video shows Mark Wild, the Chief Executive Officer of Crossrail giving the latest update.
This text accompanies the video.
Delivery of the Elizabeth line is now in its complex final stages and is being completed at a time of great uncertainty due to the risks and potential impacts of further Covid outbreaks. Our focus is on meeting the immediate challenges posed by COVID-19.
We are planning to start intensive operational testing, known as Trial Running, at the earliest opportunity in 2021. It involves multiple trains operating in the central operating section to test the timetable and build reliability, while the final works to the stations are completed. It will take a period of time to fully test the Elizabeth line before it can open for passenger service. This includes a final phase known as Trial Operations involving people being invited onto trains and stations to test real-time service scenarios to ensure the readiness of the railway.
Following the opening of the central section, full services across the Elizabeth line from Reading and Heathrow in the west to Abbey Wood and Shenfield in the east will be introduced. The introduction of full services will be aligned with the National Rail timetable change which occurs twice a year in May and December.
According to this article on Ian Visits, which is entitled An Update On The Crossrail Project Progress. Crossrail is in Systems Integration Dynamic Testing (SIDT), which is described by Ian like this.
The pre-Trial Running tests, Systems Integration Dynamic Testing (SIDT) started early last December and allowed them to increase the number of trains running through the tunnels from four to eight. That meant running trains with 5-minute gaps, close to how the service will open with its initial 12 trains per hour each way.
Crossrail have produced a video, which describes the train testing.
SIDT restarted after Christmas on the 13th January and once complete, I assume Trial Running will start at the earliest opportunity.
Further sections of the Crossrail Project Update describe Trial Running, Covid-19.
There is also this video of Farringdon station.
When Will Crossrail Open?
Predicting this is difficult, but this article on Building, which is entitled Crossrail Trial Running Set To Start By March.
These points are from the article.
- Mark Wild said that trial running will start before the end of March.
- From the start of trial running to opening will be between six and nine months,
- It looks like Crossrail will open in the last quarter of 2021.
As it would be nice to open by Christmas to give shopping centres and hospitality a lift, I think that it will open in September or October 2021.
Could Crossrail Open Earlier, If A Shorter Service Were Run?
Some people have said, that Crossrail might be able to open earlier, if it ran initially between say Farringdon and Abbey Wood.
This paragraph from the Crossrail Project Update for December 2020, could be decisive.
All central section stations including Bond Street are certified to support Trial Running. Four of the central section stations have had all of their assets assured and certified as ready for use, the last stage for stations in the Trial Running pathway. The remaining central section stations are scheduled to achieve this by the end of the month.
Does this mean that trial running will start by the end of March and serve all central stations?
Bond Street station certainly seems to have caught up with the others and there is no longer any suggestion it could open a year later.
Mon Dieu! Le Soleil A Volé Notre Titre
The Sun today has a headline of Brexit 1 – Brussels 0!
The title of this post, is possibly the reaction of the editor of the leading French newspaper; Le Figaro, that according to Andrew Marr, used the headline first.
Crash Diets Turn Lockdown’s Fat Cats Into Fit Kits
The title of this post, is the same as that of an article in The Sunday Times.
I just think it is a very good title for an article.
It’s almost the whole story in a title.
Covid: What’s Happening To The EU Vaccine Scheme?
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
These are the introductory paragraphs.
The European Union has been criticised for the slow pace of coronavirus vaccinations in member states.
It has introduced export controls on vaccines produced in the EU after the roll-out was hit by delays and supply problems.
The delays and supply problems seem to concern the AstraZeneca plant in Belgium. Get that running flat out would surely help to solve the problem.
Wikipedia has an interesting statement under Production and Supply for the AZ vaccine, in the Wikipedia entry for the vaccine.
On 13 June 2020, AstraZeneca signed a contract with the Inclusive Vaccines Alliance, a group formed by France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, to supply up to 400 million doses to all European Union member states. However, the European Commission intervened to stop the deal being formalised. It took over negotiations on behalf of the whole EU, signing a deal at the end of August.
It looks to me that the EU strangled a deal that could have saved their bacon, if Wikipedia is correct.
- Did the delay mean that AstraZeneca delayed completing their European factories, as they were worried about getting any order at all?
- Sometimes, it is difficult financing firm orders, let alone ones that might be cancelled at the whim of politicians.
- Was Macron hoping the French vaccine was coming through and so could replace the AstraZeneca vaccine? But it didn’t appear, so the EU had to go cap-in-hand to AstraZeneca, who now had the problem of getting the equipment from suppliers, they’d mucked about.
It looks to me like an almighty coq-up!
The section about the Oxford vaccine in Wikipedia, also says that the vaccine has been licenced to the US, Argentina for Latin America and India and that production from the UK and EU factories will be between 100 and 200 million doses per month, when up to full speed.
Those production figures look like they could satisfy the UK’s order for 100 million doses and 400 million for the EU, if AstraZeneca can get the Belgian plant fully working.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a solution something like this.
- Novavax gets UK certification very soon.
- Novavax starts supplying doses to the UK, in perhaps March.
- AstraZeneca sends some UK vaccine to the EU, with Novavax keeping the vaccination rate high.
- AstraZeneca gets their EU factories up to speed in something like June.
- The EU gets its vaccines and is now able to vaccinate at a vaguely acceptable rate if they get their systems right.
- Moderna comes on stream around the middle of the year.
- The UK has adequate deliveries of AstraZeneca, Moderna, Novavax and Pfizer vaccines and starts mass vaccination for everyone, around the start of September.
If the EU had allowed the original deal to proceed for EU vaccines, the timescales would probably be have been three months earlier.
Conclusion
The EU will get its vaccines, but later than if they’d placed their orders at the same time as the UK did.
Macron Rex: Interfuctus Est.
The title of this post, is a tagline in the big cartoon in today’s copy of The Times.
It is drawn in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry and has all the players in our spat with the EU.
Many have been shot by syringes.
Does President Macro have a sense of humour?
Try to see a copy and examine the detail!
The Voice’s Tom Jones, 80, Feels ‘Bulletproof’ After Second Covid Vaccine
The title of this post is the same as that as this article on the Metro.
The title says it all and surely Tom Jones is the type of celebrity, who could encourage others to have the jab.
A Way Out Of The AstraZeneca Vaccine Row With The EU
This article on the BBC is entitled Brexit: EU Introduces Controls On Vaccines To NI.
These are the introductory paragraphs of the article.
The EU is introducing controls on vaccines made in the bloc, including to Northern Ireland, amid a row about delivery shortfalls.
Under the Brexit deal, all products should be exported from the EU to Northern Ireland without checks.
But the EU believed this could be used to circumvent export controls, with NI becoming a backdoor to the wider UK.
The row involving AstraZeneca, the UK and the EU is now getting serious,
I think, the EU are missing an opportunity.
My Experience Of The AstraZeneca Vaccine
Yesterday, I received my first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which I wrote about in Job Done – I’ve Now Had My First Covid-19 Vaccination.
As I am an engineer, who helped to finance a drug-delivery system, I know a bit about the subject of drug delivery.
My jab yesterday seemed to have been administered very quickly and painlessly, without fuss. I regularly have B12 injections as I’m coeliac and this AstraZeneca one was certainly less painful for me.
Have AstraZeneca designed the vaccine and its delivery system so that it will have application in mass vaccination situations like refugee camps, where thousands may need to be vaccinated quickly?
Consider.
- It can be transported and stored at easy-to-manage temperatures.
- I suspect that a skilled vaccinator can vaccinate more patients per hour, than with other vaccines.
- I didn’t feel a thing, which must help those with needle phobia.
- The vaccinator didn’t need to apply a plaster, just using a cotton wool pad and pressure. This must save time.
This looks to me, like disruptive innovation is at work.
Surely, though by streamlining the vaccination process, this will increase the number of patients vaccinated by a well-trained team. This will be what doctors ordered.
The Real Problem With The AstraZeneca Vaccine
I have worked a lot in the design of project management systems and very often, when projects go awry, it is due to a lack of resources.
It strikes me that the problem with the AstraZeneca vaccine, is that there are not enough factories to make the vaccine.
As it is easier to distribute and AstraZeneca are making it without profit, perhaps the EU should approach the UK about creating a couple of large factories to make the vaccine in suitable places across the UK and the EU.
A proportion of this increased production could be distributed to countries, that couldn’t afford a commercial vaccine or didn’t want to get ensnared by the Chinese in a Vaccines-for-Resources deal.
It should also be remembered that Oxford are at the last stages in the testing of a vaccine for malaria. That would surely be a superb encore for Oxford University and AstraZeneca. I suspect the UK will back it, but it would surely be better, if the EU backed it as well.
Covid-19 Vaccination On The Island Of Ireland
Every day, The Times publishes a table of how many people in various countries have been vaccinated against the Covids.
Today’s figures included.
- UK – 11 %
- Ireland – 3 %
Out of curiosity, I calculated today’s figure for Northern Ireland. It was 10.4 %.
As the people of Ireland form a rich pattern of families, commerce and employment on both sides of the border, will these figures cause tensions in the Republic?
Job Done – I’ve Now Had My First Covid-19 Vaccination
I arrived a few minutes early at the Francis Crick Institute, for my appointment to be vaccinated.
I had booked to be vaccinated there, as I wanted to have a look inside one of London’s new modern buildings.
Note.
- The multi-triangular steel sculpture in front of the building is by Conrad Shawcross, who is the son of the journalist, writer, and broadcaster; Sir William Shawcross and the historian, critic and writer; Dame Marina Warner.
- I am a great fan of large sculptures like these being displayed in full view in suitable public spaces, rather than hidden away in store-rooms or in the farthest toom of a gallery. I wrote about this in Is There Space On The Overground For Large Art?.
I was had been told to enter from the North side of the building.
As the pictures show there were no signs, but someone spotted me and gave me directions.
I was directed to stand in a particular place and then told to enter the building, by walking down a set of stairs to the basement.
- I think my temperature could have been automatically checked before entry, as it certainly wasn’t anywhere else, that I noticed.
- There was a stair-lift at the entrance, for those not able to manage the stairs.
- Not that I saw anybody walking with more than the aid of a stick!
Once in the basement, I was asked to sit on one of about ten socially-distanced chairs.
Registration
There were a group of about six young ladies and perhaps a couple of young men, who then registered all those who had come for vaccination.
This was done mainly using your NHS number, so make sure you bring it.
Interview
Once registered, I was moved to another set of socially-distanced chairs, each of which was outside a cubicle.
I was then called in to the cubicle and given an interview by a young doctor.
She asked general questions and some about the drugs I take, so make sure you know what drugs you’re taking.
But otherwise the questions were ones everybody should know about themselves.
Vaccination
Once interviewed, I was moved to another set of socially-distanced chairs, each of which was outside a cubicle.
After about five minutes, I was called into the cubicle to be vaccinated, by a young lady.
I was only asked one question and that was whether I was right-handed or left-handed.
I am complicated, as because my left arm was badly broken by the school bully and I am right-handed, I prefer to have injections in my dominant right arm.
I also told her, that my unusual skin, means I don’t bleed from injections and she wouldn’t need a plaster.
She then said, that very few need a plaster with this vaccine.
The injection was quick and one of the few where the vaccinator didn’t say something like “Sharp scratch!”
I held a small cotton wool pad over the spot for perhaps thirty seconds, but despite being on Warfarin, my skin did its usual good job of stopping any bleeding.
I declined the sticker saying I’d been vaccinated and before I left, I was told I’d had the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Timings
From the time I arrived until the time I left was about half-an-hour.
Professionalism
It was all very professional and well-organised.
I’ve worked in factories and it was arranged very much how some factories are arranged, where the product being built is moved from one work-station to another until they reach Despatch.
It was also very relaxed and unhurried with lots of extra young people directing the patients around the various seats and cubicles.
Throughput
I have done my share of time-and-motion studies in the past and I suspect that, as time progresses, that the number of patients handled by this facility could be increased.
On the other hand, it may be kept a bit below capacity to make sure the relaxed atmosphere is preserved.
A Thought On The Staff
I must admit, I didn’t see all of the staff, but of the ones I saw, only one wasn’t white and she was Chinese and called Ying. Incidentally, she registered me, when I arrived.
A Thought On The Patients
All of the patients were white and with the exception of one other and myself, they were all female. As the patients were mainly over sixty and had probably made a choice to be vaccinated at the Francis Crick Institute on their computer, I find the ethnic distribution of the patients curious.
A Thought On The AstraZeneca Vaccine
I have a regular B12 injection and a flu vaccination every year, so I’m used to injections. The practice nurse is very quick, but the lady, who vaccinated me today was exceptionally quick.
- She also had a couple of syringes ready-filled waiting for me and following patients.
- She was able to vaccinate me, without my taking off my short-sleeved shirt and thermal vest.
- I also hardly felt a thing.
- I didn’t need a plaster.
As a friend, who also had the AstraZeneca vaccine, also said he didn’t feel a thing, I wonder, if AstraZeneca have designed this vaccine and its delivery system, so that patients can be quickly vaccinated.
Imagine market day, in a very populous country like Brazil, India or Nigeria! Has this vaccine been designed to handle mass vaccinations in an environment like that?
It should be remembered that this is AstraZeneca’s first vaccine.
I have a feeling, that this vaccine could have been designed to a new set of rules, so that teams can vaccinate large numbers of people quickly.
The Anonymous Widower 