Will we Won.t we ?

Did the Buffoon tell you that?

Sorry, just to reiterate, I’m not sure how much our vaccination situation will be a factor.

At the moment it’s possible that you could be vaccinated and very unlikely to get ill, but still pass it on to others. We currently don’t know, but should find out by the start of the season.

Now, if they find you can’t infect others once vaccinated, or are less likely to, that’s great. But I understand testing on vaccines for under 16s is unlikely to be complete until August, and Greece won’t want a load of British kids coughing over everyone IF that’s still dangerous.

So the overriding factor is likely to be how quickly the Greeks are vaccinated, not how many Brits.

News from the i this morning saying the government are behind. It’s a tad misleading, as the numbers are ramping up. We started with the relatively scarce Pfizer jab, and we’re now starting to see the far more plentiful AZ jab appear.

Nonetheless, the numbers they’re quoting are interesting. They say (all figures approx.) that we’ve vaccinated 2.5 million already, and that we’ll need to do 350k a day U.K. reach the target by mid-Feb.

Bit of maths, 33 days to 15/2, so 33 x 350k = 11.5 million. Added to the 2.5 million already done means they think the target is 14 million.

But they say we’re only doing 150k a day. 150k x 33 = 5 million + 2.5 million already done = 7.5 million.

Total U.K. adult population is 55 million. I’m guessing an absolute maximum of 90% will get the vaccine, so that’s 50 million.

But the important thing is, they all need TWO jabs, so 50 million people is 100 million jabs.

Mammoth task.

It will get easier, though. The first cohort has been the old, and often infirm. The pace in vaccination centres is necessarily slower than it will be for the young. And when people are given their second jab, they won’t need to be kept at 2m distance, which should speed things up.

Excellent news Dennis, let’s hope Vera follows quickly after.

I think it will come as a great relief to us all once we’ve received the vaccination, the wife and I think we’re going to fall into group 6 , so hoping to receive jab before Easter

Okay, this is interesting.

www.ekathimerini.com/261209/article/ekathimerini/news/covid-19-vaccination-certificate-not-prerequisite-to-travel-to-greece-this-summer-says-minister

Greece wants the EU to set up a vaccination passport type system.

However, you won’t need one to get into the country.

It looks like the idea is, if you have one, you’re waved through at customs. If you don’t, you’re tested. That stops them having to test everyone.

It makes sense on some levels. But if vaccinated people can still pass the virus on, it won’t make a lot of sense. However, from the news this morning, it looks like the vaccinated will be at least less likely to pass it on. There’s never going to be 100% certainty. But if you can get it down to (for example) 90%, the picture improves dramatically. We’re looking at 100,000 dead in the U.K. If we’d brought that down by 90%, then you gave to start comparing that to the flu, where up to 20,000 die a year.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55651518

A bit of news. Initially looks bad, but is actually good.

There’s a delay in distribution of the Pfizer vaccine in Greece (and indeed everywhere).

This has been caused by a change being made to the manufacturing process, which will eventually mean more can be made.

Delays are expected up to mid-February, but after that the vaccine should arrive in larger quantities. They’ll soon catch up, and quickly overtake where they should have been.

www.ekathimerini.com/261268/article/ekathimerini/news/pm-says-vaccinations-going-as-fast-as-available-doses-allow-warns-of-delays

Back to the question in the thread title, I’m not really worried about our Kefalonia trip in August, but Skiathos starting in late May is anyone’s guess.

Our best hope is that most of the island’s vulnerables will be vaccinated by then, and new cases in both Greece and the U.K. should be low.