COVID-19: Vaccine and testing procedures Megathread Part 2 [Mod Warning - Post #1]

seamus

Why in God's name do they keep doing that? "At the current rate we'll only have X vaccinated by June. They're going to have to ramp up".

No sh1t. That's why they put the ramp-up in the implementation plan you saw a month ago. :rolleyes:

Van.Bosch

I was skeptics of our HSE rollout. Seeing the stats today and the fact we will have daily updates in the hub next week I would say I am now happy with the rollout and we are doing a good job.

XsApollo

Gael23 wrote: »

My GP won’t see anyone for any reason so don’t know how I’m supposed to get it. I had an infected eye last week and I was told to email in a picture of it

Did your GP treat the eye infection?
They are doing video or whatever to asses the severity of what issue the person has.
If after that you need to be seen in person you will be.

leahyl

I really think once the oxford one comes on stream it will make an awful difference for rollout - not having to be stored that the extremely low temperature that the pfizer one is.

Le Bruise

seamus wrote: »

Why in God's name do they keep doing that? "At the current rate we'll only have X vaccinated by June. They're going to have to ramp up".

No sh1t. That's why they put the ramp-up in the implementation plan you saw a month ago. :rolleyes:

If I could like this twice I would. It's unreal how people don't seem to be getting this!?! That online vaccine queue yoke has panicked so many friends/work colleagues etc with it's pre-populated 42k vaccinations a week. I've had to explain it over and over!

timsey tiger

leahyl wrote: »

I really think once the oxford one comes on stream it will make an awful difference for rollout - not having to be stored that the extremely low temperature that the pfizer one is.

The temp thing is a red herring, supply is the issue. If we had 10m doses of pfizer in a fridge, we'd be flying through the pop.

is_that_so

Van.Bosch wrote: »

I was skeptics of our HSE rollout. Seeing the stats today and the fact we will have daily updates in the hub next week I would say I am now happy with the rollout and we are doing a good job.

It's also pleasing to see that their own confidence in the plan and the rollout has not been misplaced.

ixoy

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Not to forget as well that god awful vaccine queue calculator. Utter rubbish

You mean to tell me a graph projection doesn't always have to go in a straight line? A graph projection can curve? That's madness!

I had to hold back recently when someone mentioned that tool. At the very least it should be tweaked to introduce a "ramp up" feature, adding in projected doses-per-week at different periods.
Somehow though, when I keyed in one set of stats, it projected a 3-day window for me to get my first dose. Other times a 9-month window.

leahyl

I attended this seminar yesterday, for anyone interested. It was great to hear an expert in the area talk about the vaccines http://www.ucc.ie/en/publichealth/sphseminarseries2021/

lucernarian

is_that_so wrote: »

Reasonable and rational explanations been offered on this by multiple posters yet you seem utterly disinclined to accept any of them and that your prerogative.

TBH you've been "holding them to account" on these threads with no evidence except your own bias on anything they do so let's not use disingenuous to refer to other posters!

77,300 is not a bad number - evidence that they can both do this and are doing so at a reasonable pace.

Misrepresenting what I say is not a reasonable and rational explanation of anything... How many more reports in the media and elsewhere of non frontline staff being vaccinated ahead of frontline HCWs, in explicit contravention of the vaccination rollout plan, do we need before the HSE loses their immunity to criticism?

Been very supportive of their ability to test in the face of skyrocketing cases and positivity rate, so it's definitely disingenuous to use my posting history as some sort of accusation of bias, and I don't see why it's even allowed in the forum.

is_that_so

lucernarian wrote: »

Misrepresenting what I say is not a reasonable and rational explanation of anything... How many more reports in the media and elsewhere of non frontline staff being vaccinated ahead of frontline HCWs, in explicit contravention of the vaccination rollout plan, do we need before the HSE loses their immunity to criticism?

Been very supportive of their ability to test in the face of skyrocketing cases and positivity rate, so it's definitely disingenuous to use my posting history as some sort of accusation of bias, and I don't see why it's even allowed in the forum.

70,000 front line workers have been vaccinated. Some of those will be admin, because they are patient facing. The HSE are issuing stronger guidelines to hospitals on who should be vaccinated first but it's bit of a moot point at this stage as the majority of them have been vaccinated.

hmmm

"He said said Ireland has received 152,100 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to date, along with 3,600 doses of the Moderna vaccine."

This sounds like supplies of the Pfizer vaccine are significantly ahead of what we were expecting?

lucernarian

is_that_so wrote: »

70,000 front line workers have been vaccinated. Some of those will be admin, because they are patient facing. The HSE are issuing stronger guidelines to hospitals on who should be vaccinated first but it's but of a moot point at this stage as the majority of Group 1 have been vaccinated.

Lab-based phlebotomists that are not dealing with the public at all, or back office staff, are what we are talking about here.

Where are these guidelines, and to whom are they being issued? Is it a department circular or what? If you wanted to show that the HSE is actually doing their best here and to reasonably dispute my conclusion, why don't you just provide the evidence rather than allude to it?

Russman

lucernarian wrote: »

Misrepresenting what I say is not a reasonable and rational explanation of anything... How many more reports in the media and elsewhere of non frontline staff being vaccinated ahead of frontline HCWs, in explicit contravention of the vaccination rollout plan, do we need before the HSE loses their immunity to criticism?

Been very supportive of their ability to test in the face of skyrocketing cases and positivity rate, so it's definitely disingenuous to use my posting history as some sort of accusation of bias, and I don't see why it's even allowed in the forum.

The rollout plan was never set in stone and was always a live document (hate that phrase tbh). Prof Butler said it at one of the briefings last week that when a situation arises where doses are available due to someone not showing up or not being available or at the end of the day etc., the practice is to give these doses out to people who are on-site or available. It only seems like common sense to me.
You can't expect them to say, "no, I can't give this spare dose to the receptionist because there's a nursing home somewhere that haven't started yet", although I'm not sure if thats what you're suggesting ?

seamus

lucernarian wrote: »

Misrepresenting what I say is not a reasonable and rational explanation of anything... How many more reports in the media and elsewhere of non frontline staff being vaccinated ahead of frontline HCWs, in explicit contravention of the vaccination rollout plan, do we need before the HSE loses their immunity to criticism?

Unless we see any reports of groups being explicitly targetted for vaccination ahead of schedule, these reports don't matter.

Individuals being vaccinated because they're lucky to be in the right place at the right time to avail of surplus doses in a batch, is a non-issue.

It's a consequence of the nature of how these are distributed, and it's not unique to Ireland. We've seen reports from other countries of people being offered vaccination on the street because of no-shows to clinics.

is_that_so

lucernarian wrote: »

Lab-based phlebotomists that are not dealing with the public at all, or back office staff, are what we are talking about here.

Where are these guidelines, and to whom are they being issued? Is it a department circular or what? If you wanted to show that the HSE is actually doing their best here and to reasonably dispute my conclusion, why don't you just provide the evidence rather than allude to it?

Colm Henry mentioned it in the briefing so you should contact him.

marno21

Are we 2nd in the EU per capita now? I realise not all countries in the EU have their data up to date as ours but we seem to have crossed 1.5 per 100 people now which places us behind Denmark only.

CIARAN_BOYLE

hmmm wrote: »

"He said said Ireland has received 152,100 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to date, along with 3,600 doses of the Moderna vaccine."

This sounds like supplies of the Pfizer vaccine are significantly ahead of what we were expecting?

Did they mention anything about why this was? I half understood a German article from one of the state governments last week that they wouldn't get the same amount every week due to size of the shipping containers. Some weeks they would get double the average and some they would get nothing.

lucernarian

lucernarian wrote: »

Lab-based phlebotomists that are not dealing with the public at all, or back office staff, are what we are talking about here.

Where are these guidelines, and to whom are they being issued? Is it a department circular or what? If you wanted to show that the HSE is actually doing their best here and to reasonably dispute my conclusion, why don't you just provide the evidence rather than allude to it?

Do you know what a phlebotomist does?

And lab based staff are key to the operation of the hospital. Of course they are front line. Ditto admin staff that are required to work in the hospital

Sky King

I wonder if the roll out issues in other countries is helping us?

Like if Pfizer have a deal to supply the USA but they have a ton of vaccines still in fridges due to rollout issues then are countries which are getting through it better getting additional allocations?

josip

I think there are 30,000 in Group 1 and 95,000 in Group 2?
If 70,000 of Group 2 have already been vaccinated doesn't that mean that vaccination of Group 3 needs to start happening immediately or there will be decrease in the weekly administration rate?

We have received 155,000 doses already and we will be minimising buffering, so the stock is there, albeit of the super cool Pfizer/BioNTech.

So will some over 70s be able to get vaccinated with Pfizer/BioNTech in the weeks that we're waiting for Pfizer/BioNTech?

odyssey06

seamus wrote: »

Unless we see any reports of groups being explicitly targetted for vaccination ahead of schedule, these reports don't matter.
Individuals being vaccinated because they're lucky to be in the right place at the right time to avail of surplus doses in a batch, is a non-issue.
It's a consequence of the nature of how these are distributed, and it's not unique to Ireland. We've seen reports from other countries of people being offered vaccination on the street because of no-shows to clinics.

They'll need their second dose within X days though... do they have to rely on being in the right place at the right time for that?

lucernarian

seamus wrote: »

Unless we see any reports of groups being explicitly targetted for vaccination ahead of schedule, these reports don't matter.

Individuals being vaccinated because they're lucky to be in the right place at the right time to avail of surplus doses in a batch, is a non-issue.

It's a consequence of the nature of how these are distributed, and it's not unique to Ireland. We've seen reports from other countries of people being offered vaccination on the street because of no-shows to clinics.

This has already happened with the second priority being bumped up ahead of the first - even proportionally the acute hospital rollout was more advanced than the nursing home rollout, but I might need to do some calcs to specify more on that. Certainly, acute hospital frontline workers along with the wider staff cohort not in frontline roles (who are priority 4) are being widely vaccinated already.

It might be your opinion that it's a "non-issue", insane as that sounds to me, but if GPs in the vicinity of hospitals are being jabbed, what justification is there to not afford the same opportunity for nursing home staff equally local?

Russman

odyssey06 wrote: »

They'll need their second dose within X days though... do they have to rely on being in the right place at the right time for that?

I would assume when they get their first shot they're effectively "in the system" at the point, and their details taken and an appointment for dose 2 given out as normal ? For example if a receptionist got a jab at the end of a department of physios, he/she would have to turn up at the appointed date/time for the second dose too with the rest of that group they were lumped in with.

lucernarian

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Do you know what a phlebotomist does?

And lab based staff are key to the operation of the hospital. Of course they are front line. Ditto admin staff that are required to work in the hospital

Yes, the term seems to be misused and departments are called "phlebotomy" - I don't want to use specific terms that might identify individual lab staff, even though phlebotomists are those taking samples from patients.

As for your claim that they are front line, please read the actual published vaccination plan. Other HCWs not in direct patient
contact are priority 4. They are by default not frontline HCWs who are priority 2.

lucernarian

Russman wrote: »

The rollout plan was never set in stone and was always a live document (hate that phrase tbh). Prof Butler said it at one of the briefings last week that when a situation arises where doses are available due to someone not showing up or not being available or at the end of the day etc., the practice is to give these doses out to people who are on-site or available. It only seems like common sense to me.
You can't expect them to say, "no, I can't give this spare dose to the receptionist because there's a nursing home somewhere that haven't started yet", although I'm not sure if thats what you're suggesting ?

Of course you can say that, if spare doses can be provided to GPs (and rightly so) how does that logic not apply to other frontline HCWs who are out in the field?

This is approaching mental gymnastics to try to defend.

odyssey06

Russman wrote: »

I would assume when they get their first shot they're effectively "in the system" at the point, and their details taken and an appointment for dose 2 given out as normal ? For example if a receptionist got a jab at the end of a department of physios, he/she would have to turn up at the appointed date/time for the second dose too with the rest of that group they were lumped in with.

So they are now effectively in the higher priority grouping as they have to get access to the second dose in the requisite time period, and the site will need extra vaccine doses to ensure it has enough to cover all such people - unless they are going to rely on 'spares' being also available for the second dose, which is unlikely.

Russman

lucernarian wrote: »

This has already happened with the second priority being bumped up ahead of the first - even proportionally the acute hospital rollout was more advanced than the nursing home rollout, but I might need to do some calcs to specify more on that. Certainly, acute hospital frontline workers along with the wider staff cohort not in frontline roles (who are priority 4) are being widely vaccinated already.

It might be your opinion that it's a "non-issue", insane as that sounds to me, but if GPs in the vicinity of hospitals are being jabbed, what justification is there to not afford the same opportunity for nursing home staff equally local?

What would you suggest they do if they have 11 spare doses at the end of a vaccination session ?
I'd suggest its easier to select 11 local GPs rather than go into a nursing home and pick the first 11 patients or staff, no ?
Plus, I'd assume hospitals and nursing homes are being vaccinated by different teams, you couldn't have a hospital vaccination team disrupting a nursing home team's plan, it'd lead to chaos.
Honestly I think you're focusing on the minutae of it all. Some sectors will be ahead of others based purely on logistics, it shouldn't be a case of we all go as fast as the slowest IMO.

Russman

odyssey06 wrote: »

So they are now effectively in the higher priority grouping as they have to get access to the second dose in the requisite time period.

Yes

Russman

lucernarian wrote: »

Of course you can say that, if spare doses can be provided to GPs (and rightly so) how does that logic not apply to other frontline HCWs who are out in the field?

This is approaching mental gymnastics to try to defend.

Why doesn't it apply to them ? I'm not getting your point here