I have no idea which group I fall into

[Muddles]

68yrs old
Diabetic T2, high blood pressure, underactive thyroid, fatty liver disease, asthma and overweight.

Using the omni vaccine queue calculator it puts me in Group 5 but that's for people under 65 with underlying health conditions. If I understand it correctly I'm clinically vulnerable and think I should be in Group 4. I haven't had a letter telling me to shield, but my GP advised me to sheild at the beginning of the first lockdown. If I select 'Have you been advised to shield' on the omni calculator it puts me in Group 4.

Can anyone tell me if I am Group 4 or Group 5?

Sorry for being a bit dim. lol

 

[Loobyloo]

I think without a doctor's letter telling you to shield i would put you in group 5. To be in group 4 you would have to be clinically extremely vulnerable. The group under 65 you are referring to as group 5 is in fact group 6 which includes Diabetics under 65. I may be wrong but that's how i would read it.

 

[trophywench]

I agree with Loobyloo - unless you've had numerous letters from Matt Hancock & Robert Jenrick since last March, first time advising us to not go anywhere where there were people until the end of July 2020, and similar in October and this year too, you are not on the official ECV list. I'm just over 70 and 'officially' ECV (add emphysema and PAD to your list for me) and had jab 1 this very morning. Husband, 73, still under Oncology surveillance when the GP lists were compiled, also with COPD and only 50% lung capacity on a good day in warm weather, so don't wish yourself in a higher category.

Like old age - ECV doesn't come on its own!

They will get to everyone - it just takes time is all.

 

[helli]

And remember, the Omni vaccine calculator is actually a guesser. It seems to change frequently and is only an estimate.
For example, when I used it before Christmas, it told me I would have my jab early Feb; now it says mid March.
I think of it as a bit of fun and certainly not fact.

 

[Muddles]

Thanks everyone for your replies.
This is part of the latest Gov list of priority groups.

4	All those 70 years of age and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals (not including pregnant women and those under 16 years of age)
5	All those 65 years of age and over
6	Adults aged 16 to 65 years in an at-risk group (see clinical conditions below)

Looking at the Gov list, Group 5 - the over 65's - doesn't mention clinical conditions. I did read somewhere that over 65's who were CV (diabetes, asthma, obese) are moved up to Group 4 and lumped in with the ECV people and are being vaccinated with the over 70's. Which is why I asked if anyone knew.

I'll just assume it'll be sometime in February or early March. I'm not worried about it just interested to see which group anyone in my situation is in.

Yes the omni calculator does change and is really erratic so can't be relied on.

 

[grovesy]

Well I am a couple of years younger than you and I think I am in group 5, I will only believe it when I get mine in my arm.
I will have to wait for my letter to see were I am asked to go.

 

[rebrascora]

I have no idea what group I am in and I really don't care. I will get my vaccine when I get an invitation to go for it. Ridiculously, I have had shielding letters even though I am a fit, active, 56yr old with good diabetic control and just mild asthma.... I feel a total fraud and I am not following the shielding advice although I am being careful, but my lifestyle is low risk anyway.
I will be pleased to get the vaccine but hope I don't get offered it before the likes of yourself @Muddles as your need is clearly greater than mine. It just seems to be a bit of a lottery, but I understand these decisions had to be made in a relatively short space of time and not all will be correct. The NHS is under extreme pressure at all levels and we just have to be patient and wait for our appointment for the vaccine whenever that happens. The timing is going to vary depending upon which part of the country you are in anyway, as some areas are ahead of others with their vaccination program.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hope you get your invitation through in a timely way @Muddles

The groups seem to be working, more or less, up and down the country, and it seems that the UK is substantially ahead of some European neighbours with the rollout, but I've certainly seen reports that the dividing lines between the groups blur a little and that not everyone in group x was done before folks in group y started to get invited.

I’m content to just wait for my letter, whenever that shows up 🙂

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Looking at the Gov list, Group 5 - the over 65's - doesn't mention clinical conditions. I did read somewhere that over 65's who were CV (diabetes, asthma, obese) are moved up to Group 4 and lumped in with the ECV people and are being vaccinated with the over 70's. Which is why I asked if anyone knew.

I don't know whether there's any general moving of people, but I got a vaccination yesterday (to my surprise). I'm reasonably well controlled without any other relevant risk factors (apart from living alone, which does seem significant to me but I haven't seen it noted). I was assuming I'd be in group 6 (I was never asked to shield).

I can only imagine the categories are at least slightly different: that the vaccination category which includes ECV isn't exactly what ECV was before. (And maybe it comes down to what individual GPs decide, and mine may have (reasonably, I think) included my living alone as relevant.)

 

[stillgoing]

Around here (bournemouth) they were asking for any over 70 that had been missed. Under 70 and you are a child!!!

 

[Kaylz]

I see people mentioning that it puts you in group 4, you are not extremely clinically vulnerable with just diabetes, high BP etc, extremely clinically vulnerable were those on the shielding lists, just issues stated only put us at clinically vulnerable (underlying health issues) so as diabetics only we are group 6 (dependant on age of course)

Calculators etc are a waste of time as it's whole nation based and there isn't the same amount of people in the "groups" in each area meaning some younger ones will obtain it much sooner in different areas
xx

 

[grovesy]

Around here (bournemouth) they were asking for any over 70 that had been missed. Under 70 and you are a child!!!

It seems to vary quite a lot , this morning the site with all the lastest vaccination information here, Essex, and Suffolk, has updated it site this morning from saying wait to be contacted, to those over 80 that have not been contacted yet to ring their GP.

 

[Becka]

Being clinically vulnerable means having underlying health conditions, roughly those under 65 who who are offered a free flu vaccine. So that puts you in group 6, unless already in a higher group.

People who are clinically extremely vulnerable have very specific conditions or use specific medications which put them at a much higher risk of serious illness if infected. They will have also been asked to shield by their government, so you will know from that is you should be in group 4.

Although a G.P. can use their clinical judgement to put someone in the shielding group, that is not the same as simply recommending they should shield. It does not come with the same legal protections in terms of employment nor access to support from councils or supermarkets. So this would means you are still only considered clinically vulnerable, and in group 6.

For the vaccination programme they have been pairing groups together, at least for the initial groups. So groups 1 and 2 (care homes, over 80s, and frontline health and care workers) have ben offered the vaccine at the same time, rather than group 2 needing to wait for group 1 to be mostly complete. The same is happening now with groups 3 and 4 (over 75s, over 70s, and C.E.V. people under 70).

As well as the various lifespans on storing a vaccine, once it has been opened and diluted it has to be used immediately. With the Pfizer vaccine it can be refrigerated for six days once it has been moved from cold storage. It can then last for two hours at room temperature before it needs to be diluted for administration, and once diluted it has to be used within six hours. If left beyond any of those times it has to be disposed of.

So some people are being offered the vaccine earlier than their priority group to avoid any being wasted. This may mean it being offered to non-frontline staff at a vaccination location, offering it to family or carers attending with a person being vaccinated, or even just stopping random passers-by a location.

I am very much under 65, but was offered the vaccine almost three weeks ago when a local centre opened because they had more vaccine than they needed for the over 80s, so they were offering it to C.E.V. patients too.

The government has set a target of February 15th to vaccinate everyone in the top four groups. At the current rate they will only be a few days late if they do not make it. But with an up to 12-week dosing schedule since January, that would mean they are unlikely to start before April. So vaccination fo group 6 should take place in March even if they do not pair it with group 5 and start later this month.

So I would not worry too much about the date as it will only be a few weeks difference, and with the various lockdown restrictions it is not as though you can do anything with those extra weeks. It is also important to remember the primary benefit of the vaccine is that it protects you from serious illness. It is still unclear how much it will prevent you from catching Covid-19 or from spreading it to others.

Which means you still need to follow all the protective measures like distancing and wearing face coverings etc. after vaccination until enough of the population has been protected. So in the short term being vaccinated will not really make much difference to what you do unless you have been shielding. But it does mean you should no longer have to worry about being hospitalized or dying if you do become infected. And even in the worst case scenario where it has no impact on transmission, when enough people have been vaccinated its effects can be regarded more like the flu and a low enough risk that people can live their lives normally.

 

[Muddles]

I don't know whether there's any general moving of people, but I got a vaccination yesterday (to my surprise). I'm reasonably well controlled without any other relevant risk factors (apart from living alone, which does seem significant to me but I haven't seen it noted). I was assuming I'd be in group 6 (I was never asked to shield).

I can only imagine the categories are at least slightly different: that the vaccination category which includes ECV isn't exactly what ECV was before. (And maybe it comes down to what individual GPs decide, and mine may have (reasonably, I think) included my living alone as relevant.)

I live alone too, with no next of kin.

I heard today on my local radio, that the vaccination sites are phoning people at short notice if they have any vaccine left over, which is good news, as they’ll work thru the groups quicker.

Another new mass vaccination opened here today and they are hoping to vaccinate 1,000 a day, they did almost 600 today. We already have one mass v. site vaccinating that number daily plus several GP hubs and pharmacies. We are very lucky in this county. I think they are trying to get us all done before the G7 in the summer.

 

[mikeydt1]

if you have got a mobile phone then keep a watch on it as that is how they will also contact you via text. if it isn't a smart phone then go online and look for NHS covid virus there is a link to book the vaccine. (Note you cannot just book without a invite)

 

[PeterV]

68yrs old
Diabetic T2, high blood pressure, underactive thyroid, fatty liver disease, asthma and overweight.

Using the omni vaccine queue calculator it puts me in Group 5 but that's for people under 65 with underlying health conditions. If I understand it correctly I'm clinically vulnerable and think I should be in Group 4. I haven't had a letter telling me to shield, but my GP advised me to sheild at the beginning of the first lockdown. If I select 'Have you been advised to shield' on the omni calculator it puts me in Group 4.

Can anyone tell me if I am Group 4 or Group 5?

Sorry for being a bit dim. lol

It appear that if you are under 65 with Diabetes you are in a group with an underlying health condition and will be vaccinated in stage 6. However, if over 65 the Health authorities don't consider whether you are diabetic or not and 65-70 year olds will be vaccinated in stage 5. Another way of looking at it is that a healthy 70 year old will be vaccinated well before a 69 year old Diabetic who might be vaccinated just before an 18 year old Diabetic. I have asked Diabetes UK and others why but never received a response. That said I guess as someone else said, be patient your turn will come.

 

[trophywench]

I dare say a few eyebrows may have been raised at the beginning of January when our 16+ year old granddaughter with no health problems whatever, went for her jab because it would not have been obvious at that time to any of the 80 yos or their carers with them, that she has a part time job in the evenings, cleaning at the hospital !

 

[Becka]

Another way of looking at it is that a healthy 70 year old will be vaccinated well before a 69 year old Diabetic who might be vaccinated just before an 18 year old Diabetic. I have asked Diabetes UK and others why but never received a response.

Because the vaccination programme has been designed to reduce deaths and hospital admissions, so that is what is being prioritized. Those 75 and over have, as a group, have a greater risk of hospitalization and death than those who are clinically extremely vulnerable. And those 65 and over a bigger risk than those who are just clinically vulnerable, which includes people with diabetes.

But you also need to be pragmatic, grouping people by age or condition keeps things simple allow the process to run quickly and easily. If you group people intersectionally then it requires more effort to identify people and it will take longer.

You have the risk that your 69 year-old with diabetes may get overlooked if they need to be identified individually rather than offered as part of a group because of their age band or medical condition. And that also requires individual effort to cross referencing different groups to quantifying each patients level of vulnerability, which also risks slowing the process down.

Right now a surgery receptionists can just pull up a list of everyone over 70 and then contact them one-by-one. To do it the other way would mean someone, potentially with clinical training, needing to go through every single patient compare their age and conditions, assign them a priority, and only when that is done produce a priority list to give to a receptionist.

One thing that we had been warned of locally is that hospital clinics and G.P.s may both offer a vaccination appointment, so just decline the second one, because that way there is less risk of missing anyone than if they had to first sort separate patient lists.

So even if the 69 year-old with diabetes is correctly identified, they may not get vaccinated any more quickly because of the added delay. But instead a lot more people who would otherwise have been vaccinated for their age will be waiting longer as half-empty vaccination centres wait for patients to be identified.

And the risk to an 18 yea-old diabetic is tiny compared to an active and healthy 70 year-old. The reason for the high number of deaths with diabetes with an underlying health condition is because of the high prevalence of diabetes in older people. On its own diabetes does not represent a significant risk, whilst being healthy is not a guarantee of safety either. But being 70 does represent a higher risk, diabetes or not.

 

[Muddles]

Thanks everyone for your input. I have been told I'm group 5 due to my age, by my doctor's surgery. They dont take into consideraton asthma or diabetes in my age group (over 65's). They also said they are no longer giving vaccinations as they have no idea when or if they will be receiving anymore vaccines. So everyone over 65 will have to either wait for a letter to go elsewhere or if they do get more vaccine wait to see if we will be contacted or not.

So as they said, being 68, severely asthmatic and diabetic is not now classed as clinically vulnerable. Can't say I'm happy with that information. I am more concerned about the asthmatic side of things than the diabetic. Perhap's it's just my surgery that have this cavalier attitude. Who knows.

And to rub salt in the wound, a few of my friends elsewhere in the country, who are in their late 50's early 60's with no underlying health conditions and in good health, have been inundated with letters from the NHS asking them to make an appointment for their vaccinations and who are for some unexplained reason on the ECV list.

The whole system seems a total mess and disorganised if you ask me. But as long as I stay as I am, shielding and getting everything delivered I'm not worried as I'm quite safe at home, but I do worry about those not in the same situation who have to go out to shop.

 

[Becka]

Diabetes and asthma are most definitely classed as conditions which make someone Clinically Vulnerable. However I think this confusion may just be a communication issue. Because you are over 65 you are in a higher priority group, so your health conditions do not matter in terms of priority as you will be offered the vaccine earlier.

If they judged you on your health conditions rather than your you would have to wait longer! Group 6 in the J.C.V.I. guidance is "all individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality," because everyone 65 and over with those conditions will have already been vaccinated as part of their age groups, or employment if frontline health and care workers.

As for your friends, if they are classed in the N.H.S. system as being Clinically Extremely Vulnerable the they would previously have ben asked to shield. So if this is wrong why did they not previously clarify this with their surgeries?