Vaccine Megathread No 2 - Read OP before posting

The UK has flip-flopped on a lot of things.

As for the rest of your post, rubbish would be the kindest thing I could say

50-59 year olds are eligible for walk in clinics now at some centres

MVCs opened up officially to 50-59s from tomorrow.

I am getting my third shot tomorrow, 5 months and 3 days after my second shot. Speaking to others that I know, this seems to be the norm

Michael Martin's comments about booster reluctance accounting for the missed appointments not aging well...

THE HSE HAS advised people not to attend a walk-in Covid-19 booster clinic for those aged 50 to 69 this morning as more than 200 people queued to receive a jab.

https://www.thejournal.ie/queues-booster-clinic-covid-5624556-Dec2021/

Nothing really, the booster is a half dose (and some people like to stick with one type of vaccine). Some EU countries stopped using the full dose version on young people but it was more out of an abundance of caution and plentiful supply of Pfizer (which is a similar story for AZ and J&J only lesser so).

An absolute mess .My friends all 65-69 have no appointments yet and still the HSE are saying its open for 50-59 . The queues are massive for walk ins and its freezing cold out there

There does seem to be a determination from Donnelly anyway to head off any kind of criticism of the booster plan and to just keep announcing different age groups. What they and everyone else are forgetting is how carefully and slowly each specific group was managed through the original vaccination system, even when we had enough supplies. Now it is a veritable free for all and the system clearly can't cope with it and is in a mess anyway.

They might take a little bit of flak for doing a pause older age groups to take care of the over 60s and any other vulnerable cohorts but it might help to get the system back on track.  TBH I'm not sure what the point of these walk-ins are at the moment as all they seem to do is encourage long queues. 

@Wibbs

By pot luck I was assigned Janssen in early June.

To get the booster by Christmas, I will need to try the walk-in City Hall, Cork on Saturday.

So If it is Moderna, so be it. Must Pharmacies I checked are booked out till after Xmas.

Thats the HSE and our Govt hard at work, to busy blaming the public and spinning all bad news into good news.

Paul Reid gets 8000 euro every week, yes 8000 euros every week to lead this fiasco, 100's turned away today from walkin clinics, but M. Martin blaming the public for 50% no shows when its the HSE Windows 95 computer systems that cant talk to GP's or pharmacy's in real time?????

Think for a minute of your own paycheck, imagine 8000 a week for getting on radio and RTE and spinning all bad news into good news, never mind the lies covered in spin?

We are all fools for putting up with this.

Mum got her Moderna booster yesterday in a very busy, disorganised with walk-ins and appointments (mum had an appointment) being managed.

She got a phone call this morning from a very apologetic guy from the clinic telling her that she accidentally got a double-dose and wanted to check if she was ok. So far she's grand, just the usual sore arm. He told her to ring her GP straight away if she starts to feel anything.

Are there any potential side effects from a double-dose?

Can someone tell me what the vaccine is meant to achieve for the majority of the population? I'm currently sick with Covid and have to quarantine for 10 days; why did I bother getting a vaccine if I can contract the disease anyway and experience symptoms and also have to quarantine? I'm just not getting it.

You're less likely to get infected, although that protection seems to wane faster (hence boosters) than the below protections.

If you get infected, you are less likely to have a severe dose and more likely to clear the virus from your system faster - thereby making you less likely to spread it.

If you get a severe dose requiring hospitalisation, you're less likely to end up in ICD or dead.

And if by majority of the population you mean say people under 65 without underlying conditions, they can still end up in hospital with covid or dead, and the vaccine reduces this chance further.

There's indication some of the population have a genetic vulnerability to covid, so even though you don't think you are vulnerable you could be... as noted in below article about the death of a healthy guy in his 40s from covid;

People with variants on the chromosome 3 region alone were up to twice as likely to develop severe Covid as someone without that genetic mutation. Chromosome 3 mutations are carried in about 10% of people of European ancestry, meaning that such people have a 10% chance of being twice as susceptible to severe Covid infection.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/30/life-tragic-death-john-eyers-fitness-fanatic-who-refused-covid-vaccine?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB