Vaccine Megathread - See OP for threadbans

Charles Babbage

stephenjmcd wrote: »

It was said at the health committee earlier this afternoon. HSE said AZ informed them in the last 48hrs.

165k due in on the 3rd now

You'd almost have sympathy for the HSE, The regulators only allowed AZ be used for over 60s, so they registered the 0ver 65s and now AZ won't supply enough to do these in any sort of rapid way. If they allocate any of the additional Pfizer next week to this group then they'll may end eventually with AZ and nobody to give it to. But there would be poor optics if they opened the 55-60 cohort before there has been a reasonable effort at the over 60s, so who do they use the additional Pfizer for?

sd1999

Charles Babbage wrote: »

You'd almost have sympathy for the HSE, The regulators only allowed AZ be used for over 60s, so they registered the 0ver 65s and now AZ won't supply enough to do these in any sort of rapid way. If they allocate any of the additional Pfizer next week to this group then they'll may end eventually with AZ and nobody to give it to. But there would be poor optics if they opened the 55-60 cohort before there has been a reasonable effort at the over 60s, so who do they use the additional Pfizer for?

Give it to cohorts 4 and 7 as planned?

Wolf359f

Deathofcool wrote: »

My early optimism in the vaccine roll out is definitely starting to wane. Even taking out the AZ shortfall announcement we have close to 350k vaccines currently in fridges according to the Belgian delivery numbers. We are also due a big delivery of Pfizer early this week. Yes some are required for second doses such as Moderna but we are now clearly in a position where we are not administering supply in the week that we get it or anywhere close. It looks like we will substantially miss our April target and It would be great if some journalists could ask the relevant questions as to why.

Just be careful going off the Belgium figures as they include estimated deliveries. The AZ shortfall we got/getting is not factored into the Belgium figures. Either they didn't get a reduced delivery or it's not updated with the reduction.
Also assuming Belgium didn't opt for more of one vaccine when one country didn't take up their full allotment.

But certainly going by the table of EU countries, we were in the top 6 a while ago and seem to be dropping down to the bottom 6. Certainly behind the EU average.

Valhallapt

Deathofcool wrote: »

My early optimism in the vaccine roll out is definitely starting to wane. Even taking out the AZ shortfall announcement we have close to 350k vaccines currently in fridges according to the Belgian delivery numbers. We are also due a big delivery of Pfizer early this week. Yes some are required for second doses such as Moderna but we are now clearly in a position where we are not administering supply in the week that we get it or anywhere close. It looks like we will substantially miss our April target and It would be great if some journalists could ask the relevant questions as to why.

The HSE love the vaccine shortages as it hides their incompetence.

My wife is a registered nurse with a post grad degree in oncology. She hasn’t gone back after maternity leave but offered to join the vaccination team. The HSE use cpl for hiring, the wanted to validate her leaving cert results, the parchment from trinity with her nursing degree or the parchment from ucd with her post graduate degree or a reference from the director of nursing wasn’t sufficient. Honestly you could make up how incompetent they are.

Then we have the beacon vaccination centre closed. That has the capacity to deliver more than 1000 jabs a day, I don’t condone their previous actions, but it’s a pandemic we need them delivering those shots.

Amirani

astrofool wrote: »

Brings back memories of the Savita Halappanavar case:
“It’s a Catholic thing and we won’t be able to help you.”

Though that was more oxymoronic.

Nurses aren't experts in medicine. It shouldn't be expected that they know the exact pathology of DVT and whether or not application of a drug/vaccine would be contributing to it.

A lot of people will give their opinions higher weight because they work in the area (understandable), but their knowledge and their regular work is very different from understanding vaccine mechanisms and disease pathology.

Chuck Noland

Deathofcool wrote: »

My early optimism in the vaccine roll out is definitely starting to wane. Even taking out the AZ shortfall announcement we have close to 350k vaccines currently in fridges according to the Belgian delivery numbers. We are also due a big delivery of Pfizer early this week. Yes some are required for second doses such as Moderna but we are now clearly in a position where we are not administering supply in the week that we get it or anywhere close. It looks like we will substantially miss our April target and It would be great if some journalists could ask the relevant questions as to why.

Yes the faith in the rollout across the board from everyone is waining. Supply issues etc aside we have large volumes of vaccines in storage rather then in arms and the numbers administered at weekends are terrible. Talks of just using up left over vaccines is just spin and trying to save face. Were along way off the 250,000 per week we were told we could do.

stephenjmcd

Valhallapt wrote: »

The HSE love the vaccine shortages as it hides their incompetence.

My wife is a registered nurse with a post grad degree in oncology. She hasn’t gone back after maternity leave but offered to join the vaccination team. The HSE use cpl for hiring, the wanted to validate her leaving cert results, the parchment from trinity with her nursing degree or the parchment from ucd with her post graduate degree or a reference from the director of nursing wasn’t sufficient. Honestly you could make up how incompetent they are.

Then we have the beacon vaccination centre closed. That has the capacity to deliver more than 1000 jabs a day, I don’t condone their previous actions, but it’s a pandemic we need them delivering those shots.

Asking for leaving cert results is nothing to do with the HSE or CPL to be fair to them. They're required by law to ask for them, only government can change that.

It's been said before nobody cares less how they did in the leaving cert, its silly that it's even looked for. Should the law be changed, yup it should. Would be be changed in time before the recruitment process ends, probably not so won't make the slightest difference.

astrofool

Valhallapt wrote: »

The HSE love the vaccine shortages as it hides their incompetence.

My wife is a registered nurse with a post grad degree in oncology. She hasn’t gone back after maternity leave but offered to join the vaccination team. The HSE use cpl for hiring, the wanted to validate her leaving cert results, the parchment from trinity with her nursing degree or the parchment from ucd with her post graduate degree or a reference from the director of nursing wasn’t sufficient. Honestly you could make up how incompetent they are.

Then we have the beacon vaccination centre closed. That has the capacity to deliver more than 1000 jabs a day, I don’t condone their previous actions, but it’s a pandemic we need them delivering those shots.

Your wife, as a registered nurse, will know that a lot of public service positions will require a leaving certificate as part of their qualifications even if they have many years of experience or further degrees, diplomas and certificates that show they can do the job.

Presuming your wife is a private nurse?

11521323

Chuck Noland wrote: »

Yes the faith in the rollout across the board from everyone is waining. Supply issues etc aside we have large volumes of vaccines in storage rather then in arms and the numbers administered at weekends are terrible. Talks of just using up left over vaccines is just spin and trying to save face. Were along way off the 250,000 per week we were told we could do.

Yet rewind the thread two weeks and you'll see the same people defending the rollout and deflecting all genuine criticisms towards the "supply issue".

astrofool

Chuck Noland wrote: »

Yes the faith in the rollout across the board from everyone is waining. Supply issues etc aside we have large volumes of vaccines in storage rather then in arms and the numbers administered at weekends are terrible. Talks of just using up left over vaccines is just spin and trying to save face. Were along way off the 250,000 per week we were told we could do.

We're still getting 95% of available vaccines into arms week on week, those in storage are either second shots or held up due to other issues (various AstraZeneca debacles and now J&J on pause).

If you want to be fair it's worth checking on how Pfizer rollout is going to get an idea of the efficiency of the rollout for the parts we control.

edit: or, how should I put it, it's Wednesday and the daily numbers haven't been released and the loonies are out seething and throwing temper tantrums about being in a pandemic and there's no urgency. This subsides by Saturday/Sunday and another week and cycle begins.

Valhallapt

astrofool wrote: »

Your wife, as a registered nurse, will know that a lot of public service positions will require a leaving certificate as part of their qualifications even if they have many years of experience or further degrees, diplomas and certificates that show they can do the job.

Presuming your wife is a private nurse?

Sounds like you are justifying this nonsense. It’s unnecessary bureaucracy that’s slowing things down. If you are registered and have an active registration with an bord altranais then all these things have been checked already. A nurse with 10 years experience shouldn’t be delayed helping out as she has to root out and verify leaving cert results.

No urgency or common sense shown by the HSE.

Probes

astrofool wrote: »

We're still getting 95% of available vaccines into arms week on week, those in storage are either second shots or held up due to other issues (various AstraZeneca debacles and now J&J on pause).

If you want to be fair it's worth checking on how Pfizer rollout is going to get an idea of the efficiency of the rollout for the parts we control.

edit: or, how should I put it, it's Wednesday and the daily numbers haven't been released and the loonies are out seething and throwing temper tantrums about being in a pandemic and there's no urgency. This subsides by Saturday/Sunday and another week and cycle begins.

We seem to be lagging behind now https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=population&Metric=People+vaccinated&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=FRA~DEU~IRL

Charles Babbage

Valhallapt wrote: »

Sounds like you are justifying this nonsense. It’s unnecessary bureaucracy that’s slowing things down. If you are registered and have an active registration with an bord altranais then all these things have been checked already. A nurse with 10 years experience shouldn’t be delayed helping out as she has to root out and verify leaving cert results.

No urgency or common sense shown by the HSE.

Any registered medical professional should be declared qualified for the job, anything else is a waste of time.

When the HSE get agency nurses do they ask them for their leaving cert every time or is their registration enough?

1huge1

My Dad (67) immunocompromised (takes Humira for his arthritis) got the Pfizer vaccine from his GP this morning, I'm delighted (after originally having his MVC appointment a week and a half ago cancelled).

GLaDOS

Do we have accurate numbers of vaccine in storage?

JPup

Charles Babbage wrote: »

You'd almost have sympathy for the HSE, The regulators only allowed AZ be used for over 60s, so they registered the 0ver 65s and now AZ won't supply enough to do these in any sort of rapid way. If they allocate any of the additional Pfizer next week to this group then they'll may end eventually with AZ and nobody to give it to. But there would be poor optics if they opened the 55-60 cohort before there has been a reasonable effort at the over 60s, so who do they use the additional Pfizer for?

I suspect J&J will be back in use soon at a minimum for the over 60s. So that will take some pressure off. Maybe the 60-69 group will get a mix of AZ and J&J.

Pablo Escobar

JPup wrote: »

I suspect J&J will be back in use soon at a minimum for the over 60s. So that will take some pressure off. Maybe the 60-69 group will get a mix of AZ and J&J.

Would that not be just wasting the AZ shot? Surely, the J&J would be give as 1st and only doses?

1huge1

Pablo Escobar wrote: »

Would that not be just wasting the AZ shot? Surely, the J&J would be give as 1st and only doses?

I assume he means that the age cohort of 60-69 as a whole will get a mixture of the two, not individual people.

JPup

It depends on how widely an age bracket the J&J is authorised for. If it is also over 60s then no.

But the astrazeneca vaccines won't go to waste in any case. Would go to Covax I assume.

stephenjmcd

1huge1 wrote: »

My Dad (67) immunocompromised (takes Humira for his arthritis) got the Pfizer vaccine from his GP this morning, I'm delighted (after originally having his MVC appointment a week and a half ago cancelled).

Glad to hear. Quick turn around time for rescheduling for your father

nibtrix

14k doses on Monday

snotboogie wrote: »

Yikes... That's poor

Don’t forget that the MVCs didn’t start the over-60s until Tuesday. Monday was mostly only GP clinics for over-70s and cohort 4. Should be a big jump in numbers for Tuesday.

seamus

GLaDOS wrote: »

Do we have accurate numbers of vaccine in storage?

I don't think we get up-to-date numbers on deliveries, but based on expected deliveries and administered doses up to the end of Monday, we should have;

Pfizer: ~150,000
Moderna: ~130,000
AZ: ~210,000

The AZ one is probably too high because their delivery schedules are a mess.

Are the MVCs continuing with pfizer for cohorts 4 and 7?

PhilOssophy

The whole vaccine hesitancy thing is such utter BS to me.
You are statistically more likely to be killed on the way to the vaccination centre, than you are by the vaccine. Did any of those hesitant above think "I shouldn't go, I might be in a car crash or be knocked down by a car"?
Re the blood clot above, a throw away comment by a nurse of "another one after the vaccine" is extremely unprofessional. How many did she have in the Covid ward only a month or two ago?
Also, as people presumably get blood clots all the time, and DVT is not a factor which has been detected post-AZ vaccine, it is extremely lazy to be linking the 2 and creating panic in people - surely this nurse knew this?

In unrelated news, I am not drinking any more water because some of our pipes are still lead - there's a 1 in 20m chance I might get lead poisoning. I am never getting another flight - there's a chance I could be killed. I'm never leaving the house again. Heck, I'm never getting another shower in case I slip getting out.

nibtrix

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Heck, I'm never getting another shower in case I slip getting out.

PhilOssophy wrote: »

I'm never leaving the house again.

Thank you, glad you're keeping your smelly self at home!

astrofool

Probes wrote: »

We seem to be lagging behind now https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=population&Metric=People+vaccinated&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=FRA~DEU~IRL

We're bang on average in the EU, which is impressive as we had the most logistics to sort with the AZ changes.

Honestly, this site is great with all the data to make a good judgement of what's going on, this being the most important from judging our rollout speed:

Pfizer/BioNTech - delivered/used(91%)
1,009,710
919,689
https://covid19.shanehastings.eu/vaccines/

astrofool

PhilOssophy wrote: »

The whole vaccine hesitancy thing is such utter BS to me.
You are statistically more likely to be killed on the way to the vaccination centre, than you are by the vaccine. Did any of those hesitant above think "I shouldn't go, I might be in a car crash or be knocked down by a car"?
Re the blood clot above, a throw away comment by a nurse of "another one after the vaccine" is extremely unprofessional. How many did she have in the Covid ward only a month or two ago?
Also, as people presumably get blood clots all the time, and DVT is not a factor which has been detected post-AZ vaccine, it is extremely lazy to be linking the 2 and creating panic in people - surely this nurse knew this?

For someone who is bad at evaluating risk and being vaccine hesitant, the car analogy is bad, they think they can control that risk by not using cars or driving carefully (they can't, but anyway). It's really better off being put in the form of the risk from COVID vs. the risk of something happening which we now have a treatment for and is very low risk anyway.

It also doesn't help when people blindly say blood clots as it's a very specific illness that can happen that is completely unrelated to most blood clot illnesses that occur, but now people are conflating the two and working themselves into a tizzy.

RebelButtMunch

Is there a date for when the J&J vaccine begins rolling out here?

astrofool

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Any registered medical professional should be declared qualified for the job, anything else is a waste of time.

When the HSE get agency nurses do they ask them for their leaving cert every time or is their registration enough?

The leaving cert requirement is a public service thing so any agency nurse would probably have to produce it (I'm guessing depending on the structure of the employment). And yes it is stupid, but so are lots of things in the public service which they insist on keeping in place. HCL, a private recruiting company, would be unable to change that requirement and it's probably frustrating for them that they have to ask clearly qualified individuals for results from exams that don't matter a jot.

And if you ever want to work in the public service, keep your LC results on file, or have them scanned in somewhere

Strazdas

RebelButtMunch wrote: »

Is there a date for when the J&J vaccine begins rolling out here?

Not yet : we're awaiting a decision from NIAC as to which age cohort gets it (possibly tomorrow). But as soon as that comes, the rollout could start quickly.