Talk:COVID-19 vaccination in the United Kingdom

Adult population vs. actual population
I've noticed that every other country pretty much measures percentage based on the total population of the country, yet you have the adult population listed. I attempted to change this in an edit a while ago but it was reverted. I think some discussion should be generated about this. CaffeinAddict (talk) 04:45, 7 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I believe by default most countries pages are doing based upon total population, since it's easier to calculate. I changed this because the vaccine is not approved for children, it would not be a useful metric at all to have a total population number used for vaccines if anyone below 16 is unable to get them it would give a distorted picture of the programme. Also, the doses reported and percentages should match the government figures, which they wouldn't if total population is included (specifically the percentages). Personally, I would keep it like this until the vaccine is approved for adolescents etc, but there should be some more voices on here before any more decisions made. Haroony213 (talk) 12:36, 8 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Vaccines are approved for people aged 16+. The gov.uk page gives the percentage of people aged 18+ who have had first and second doses.  In my view, what we really should be giving is the percentage complete the vaccination programme is.  If I'm not mistaken, this is the UK's COVID-19 vaccination programme, not the UK's COVID-19 adult vaccination programme specifically, and as such all ages would naturally be offered the jab once vaccines are approved for them.  Therefore, the percentage complete would be the percentage of the total population who have had the jab (or explicitly declined to have it; this is before you consider people deemed medically unfit, which would open a new can of worms).  However, it seems we don't have the required data to do this – see my comment below – and so the best we can do is just show the percentages given on the gov.uk page, which are percentages of adults who have been vaccinated. — Smjg (talk) 11:36, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Currently, the percentage figures in the infobox are being done as calculations. There are three problems with this:
 * The percentages are being given as percentages of adults who have been vaccinated, but they're being calculated using the total numbers of first and second doses given, which count children (at the moment, these are 16- and 17-year-olds classed as clinically vulnerable, plus any under 16s given a vaccine as exceptional cases if there are any) and adults alike.
 * Where is the total size of the adult population being taken from, and how is this being kept up to date? Looking at the page history, it would appear the answer to the latter question is "it isn't".  People are reaching adult age every day, and people are dying every day (and not just from COVID).  (In normal circumstances, there'd also be migrations to consider.)
 * Even if we had up-to-date figures for both of these which count only the adults, we would still need to exclude from the counts those who have had one or both doses and since died, but we don't seem to have any figures for this.

As such, we don't have the necessary data to do calculations for this. As such, I'm going to amend it to just give the percentages from the government page. — Smjg (talk) 11:16, 12 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree with the points, for the fact that some 16-17 and children may be vaccinated, I agree it is just simpler to use GOV.uk percentages. I was the one who changed it from total population to adult, and the formula for percentage was already there, I essentially revered the percentages given by the GOV.uk ones to get an adult base population number and used that as what to divide by in the formula. In retrospect, I should've just presented what's on GOV.uk instead of calculating. One point I would raise is that only the Pfizer vaccine is approved for over 16s (thereby being the only given to 16/17 so not all are like you said), and, the current target of the programme is to vaccinate adults and a few children (16s/17s and younger special cases), when the vaccine is approved for younger people, we should change accordingly. But the current target is the immunisation of adults (mainly). If we're looking really long term, yeah sure, it is the COVID-19 immunisation programme in the UK for everyone.

If its worth anything, the percentage that was calculated before you changed it matched the GOV.uk dashboard, but would be rounded up/down by default, but mostly matched the dashboard when I updated it. Haroony213 (talk) 03:02, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

(arbitrary break)
Just touching base on the discussion I generated here. Because Deployment of COVID-19 vaccines calculates percentage of total population, it seems to make sense in a worldview of the subject rather than the UK only view. For the record, I'm Canadian and started the COVID-19 vaccination in Canada article. We've recently approved the use of Pfizer for people as young as 12. With exception of a few local metrics (for example the City of Toronto), most of our sources don't calculate percentage of adult population vaccinated (and when they do they include the general population as well). But these are skewed now because it counts adults as 18+ when we are now beginning to vaccinate 12+. I think in the grand scheme of things it is a better metric to calculate total population as it is likely that the UK will follow suit and approve vaccine for children as well. Anyway that's my two cents. CaffeinAddict (talk) 17:01, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

I had concerns immediately I came to the article that it is using percentages that are the adult population not the total population. Given that the total numbers that have been vaccinated are the totals and that people might think of the total population of the UK as being around 65 million, the use of the percentages by reference to adults only is a misleading exaggeration that, even though it states "adult population" tends to suggest it has been rolled out - in the sense of people actually being given vaccinations - more than it has. I even feel I have to clarify, when I use the word "people" these days, that "people" includes children since they are routinely excluded from the Government's figures. It is even affecting debate in the UK in that it is being claimed that 83% of the population have had a first dose, when in fact it is much lower since there are millions of unvaccinated children. As regards the vaccine "not being approved for children", this is no longer true. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved for use in older children in the UK. Nor do I find at all convincing an argument that the total population wouldn't be an appropriate when the vaccine hasn't been approved for children under 12 or, since the Government hasn't decided, based on vaccination committee recommendation, to vaccine (older) children that therefore the adult population should be used because children haven't been vaccinated. On the contrary, *because* children have *not* been vaccinated, the population used should therefore *not* be the adult population. Using the adult population is precisely wrong when children have not been vaccinated, are therefore excluded from vaccination at present, because it therefore presents a misleading picture as to the extent of the vaccination. It suggests 83% have been vaccinated when in fact children have been excluded because they are not included in the programme. Therefore, the use of the adult population gives a distorted picture, the precise opposite of the argument proposed above. Neither does the use of the adult population, when total populations would normally be used when talking about percentages in a country, be a neutral point of view. Children do exist in the UK and in a not insignificant number and moreover I understood that the percentages needed to achieve vaccine-induced immunity are of the total population not the adult population only so seeing 83%, people could be misled that the UK is much closer to reaching a maybe 90% herd immunity for the Delta variant present there than is in fact the case. Use of the adult population is not neutral point of view and instead it is biased, and especially when the adults-only percentages are coming from the biased source of the UK Government, which is not objective or neutral but is a biased and politically motivated source using figures that support its own vaccination programme. I note I am not the only one who has had concerns over use of the adult population. The article's use of the adult population also undermines my trust in Wikipedia since I see Wikipedia as politically biased and politically motivated by using such slanted figures that support the politically motivated UK Government's narrative aspaa (talk) 20:05, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * In solidarity with Deployment of COVID-19 vaccines I think the article should use total population as the metric. CaffeinAddict (talk) 17:06, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Whether it is misleading of course depends upon how you intend to use the information. If you are interested in *adherence* then above 18 is more meaningful, if you are interested in immunity, perhaps you should be including natural infections, or scaling by immunity rates. If you are interested in progress towards completion and vaccine supplies then the 16 plus figure is more meaningful. I'm not particularly sure any figure is more or less misleading, and would argue for giving several figures.
 * I think including adherence figures is useful, should they exist. I suspect that the article is just repeating government figures however, so I doubt this is the politics of wikipedia. It may be propagating the politics of the government however. Talpedia (talk) 19:10, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This has still not been well addressed. CaffeinAddict (talk) 03:15, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Doses actually delivered
It seems to be difficult to obtain the breakdown by vaccine type delivered. I have to say, I'm getting mighty tired of the false equivalence of "fully vaccinated". Each vaccine has a different effectiveness level against different COVID strains, depending upon dosage history and time elapsed.

We're going to need to take a far more nuanced view of this going forward—refracted through final vaccine uptake, down to the granularity of major subpopulations—to see where the cookie crumbles on "openness" for different countries and regions.

Right now, ten minutes of focused Google search did not determine the ratio of Pfizer to AZ shots delivered in the UK to my satisfaction. What I seemed to discover is that at some recent point in time, actual deliveries from the drug companies were 2:1 in favour of AZ of Pfizer (this only loosely correlates over short spans of time with jabs delivered to the population).

Here on Wikipedia, this article fails to moot that this distinction is important, as it rushes to tabulate "one" against "two" in glorious technicolor. 50% worthless, as I happen to believe that one dose of Pfizer (or the mRNA twins more generally) might be as effective as two doses of another vaccine, depending upon the strain in circulation, and the health status (mainly age) of the recipient.

In the UK, the 617 variant is now on the upswing, as a first-dose coverage rate about the same as Canada. But I'm not sure this will happen in Canada, where one dose of Pfizer is the norm by far, despite the UK's vast superiority in 2nd doses delivered. 617 is the main lingering threat to whether Western society is mostly open for business as usual come the autumn, or hunkering down to avert yet another wave, as some booster shot of slightly different composition is hastily brewed for rapid deployment.

We need to stop pretending that all vaccines are created equal PDQ, if we're going to track this development with any cognitive nuance moving forward from our present circumstance in early summer. &mdash; MaxEnt 18:17, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Estimated future deliveries would be nice to know also. So if one for example wants go get Moderna vaccine, can it be trusted it will continue to be in stock? Vaccines expire quicly, although of course the expiration date can be extended.

https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/nhs-moderna-jabs/116602/ "NHS say 170,000 Moderna jabs to expire in next two weeks. August 2, 2021".

I can't find information, how did they manage to get rid of these 170,000 doses.

--ee1518 (talk) 21:20, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Actual Protection
The actual effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccination can be found in the Yellow books.

The following are the total number of cases reported in the UK people who have had Covid-19 whilst vaccinated. Yellow cards report coloration they do not prove or show in of themselves causation. Having the Covid-19 vaccine does not give you Covid-19. For both Pfizer and AstraZeneca the number of people catching reporting or dying from Covid-19 are very low. It also does not take into account the total number of people vaccinated with each type of vaccine, the health or age of the vaccinated, the number of vaccines taken or the period of time after being vaccinated. It is also possible for one person to have more than one reaction.

Should this be included in the main page?

--AncientArk (talk) 09:48, 21 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm confused. You state "The following are the total number in the UK people who have had Covid-19 whilst vaccinated" but the table headers indicate that they are numbers of people who've had COVID-19 as a reaction to the vaccine, which is totally different.  I've just taken a quick look at one of the documents on gov.uk that you've linked to and it seems it's different again: numbers of people who've had COVID-19 where the reporter has suspected that the vaccine caused it.  On this basis, it seems we can't use these figures to tell us how effective the vaccines are.  I think that, in the majority of cases, there would be no reason to suspect that the vaccine caused the disease - one would presume the vaccine merely failed to prevent it.
 * A further consideration is that being vaccinated is going to alter people's behaviour. These behavioural changes will affect their chances of coming into contact with somebody with COVID-19 and therefore catching the infection.  Therefore, such figures cannot be relied on to measure vaccine efficacy unless they are from blinded, placebo-controlled trials. — Smjg (talk) 14:41, 21 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I've made a few edits to better describe yellow books, as it is very important that no-one thinks that the vaccines give you Covid-19. The Yellow card is merely correlation not causation. They are the total number reported, Yellow Cards can be reported by individuals, but in the case of serious complication and death they will be reported by doctors. So whilst you are right they do not capture all instances there is unlikely to be much of a difference in proportion of reporting in Pfizer vs AZ, there could be difference in the pre-weighted out comes which may make comparisons more difficult. Initially AZ, due to its ease of distribution, was taken to care homes and given to the elderly, where as Pfizer was given to front line medical staff. More recently Pfizer has been given to those under 40, so you would expect better outcomes for Pfizer. Where the Yellow card reports death or an individual has contracted Covid-19 then that is what occurred, it is not that the vaccine caused it, if it is suspected Covid-19 then it would appear in the suspected row. Yellow cards are reviewed by medical staff (that is why it is a separate row in the data). Statistically it doesn't matter if case is reported, just that probability remains the similar. In a blind placebo trial it still relies on individual reporting we rely on the presumption that the proportion of reporting would meet the statistical norm (one of the reason trials need to be quite large), so there is no difference in this (well except the cohort is huge). Interestingly in the AZ trail there was constant regular testing in the Pfizer trial it solely relied on individual reporting, that is another debate, but does nicely show why it is difficulty to compare efficacy ratings of different controlled trials. What is a shame is we do not know the proportion of vaccinations in the UK as without it the comparison is not that useful. AncientArk (talk) 14:57, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Weekly Figures Table
The article includes a weekly figures table which runs to 21 March 2021. I feel this either needs to be

a) removed from the article b) brought up to date, or c) replaced with a more useful graphic of vaccine figures

Currently it's just incomplete information. I'm not sure it actually adds very much to the article so would appreciate thoughts on this.

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tracland (talk • contribs) 06:14, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

It is so outdated that it is grossly misleading! Rif Winfield (talk) 09:36, 1 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Did we reach any consensus on this point? Unless it is going to get updated then I'm tempted to just remove it from the article. I do think it is valuable information (if completed) but as per comment above, currently without being updated it is grossly misleadingTracland (talk) 06:34, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Adding to my above comment, I'd be happy to update this with a table that summarises the number of doses given by the end of each month (as published here: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations) with details of number of each dose and percentage of the population. This would be a reduction in the amount of data provided as I don't have time to do it but individual country (England, Wales, Scotland etc) and would reduce the stats from weekly to months. I think weekly might be overkill on the amount of statistics required in a wikipedia article in any case. So far as I'm aware there is no data on 3rd booster jabs but if there is I guess some stats on this should also be included somewhere.Tracland (talk) 06:37, 11 October 2021 (UTC)