Seriously thoughtful The Covid Vaccination Poll

[ownedbycats]

In the northern parts of Canada, they can only use one of the vaccines because the other ones have specific storage requirements (I don't remember the exact details) that they can't do reliably up there.

EDIT: Correction: I misremembered what i read. There's only one they can't use (Pfizer) because it needs to be stored in freezers.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

In the northern parts of Canada, they can only use one of the vaccines because the other ones have specific storage requirements (I don't remember the exact details) that they can't do reliably up there.

As far as I am aware, the Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Astra Zeneca vaccine are going to used in YT, NT and NU. The only iffy one was the Pfizer vaccine where, if I recall correctly, Yellowknife and Whitehorse are the cities where the needed freezers can be found. By some standards, cities with 20K to 25K population are probably not considered cities.

[ownedbycats]

Ah, I misremembered what I read in this article:

Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil said the provinces agreed in December that Moderna vaccines would be used to help deal with supply issues in Northern Canada since the storage requirements of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine would make it difficult to transport and store in the North. The Pfizer vaccines must be stored between –60 C and –80 C.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Almamida

The thing is, they might have protocols and logistic for flu shots, to make sure everybody who needs / want it can get access to it, why not use this existing resources?

Probably by early summer they can do this. It's the storage that is a problem. Most pharmacies don't have the special freezer needed. J&J doesn't require a special freezer.

[PeterT]

There is a request from Pfizer to change the storage temperature.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7651176/p...peratures/amp/

...
The companies have submitted new temperature data to the FDA to support an update to the current label that would allow vials to be stored at -25 to -15 degrees Celsius (-13°F to 5°F) for a total of two weeks.
...

[DiapDealer]

Got an appointment for Saturday. My eligibility (50+) begins in my state tomorrow (3/11). I actually had a choice between the Moderna tomorrow, or the one-dose Johnson & Johnson Saturday. I chose to be done two weeks from Saturday.

For the record: all the online registrations, mobile apps, and countless voicemails left didn't do me the least bit of good. Even the brand-new statewide registration website is still stuck on the previous age-group's phase for eligibility. A word-of-mouth phone-number for an adjacent county got me a human and an appointment inside of 5 minutes. Go figure.

I paid it forward and got several family members and neighbors signed up via that number as well.

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Got an appointment for Saturday. My eligibility (50+) begins in my state tomorrow (3/11). I actually had a choice between the Moderna tomorrow, or the one-dose Johnson & Johnson Saturday. I chose to be done two weeks from Saturday.

For the record: all the online registrations, mobile apps, and countless voicemails left didn't do me the least bit of good. Even the brand-new statewide registration website is still stuck on the previous age-group's phase for eligibility. A word-of-mouth phone-number for an adjacent county got me a human and an appointment inside of 5 minutes. Go figure.

I paid it forward and got several family members and neighbors signed up via that number as well.

Yeah - the same thing happened with me - I signed up on many lists in multiple counties, on various websites, voicemail messages, etc. Never got contacted or a call back. Just got lucky one day - was online when someone cancelled their appointment and I nabbed it.

[haertig]

I got a notice in email the other day that said they'd "be contacting me in the upcoming weeks" to schedule me. This was from the same outfit that already gave me the vaccine 1-1/2 months ago. That was after an urgent call from them saying, "Hey, can you get here in 15 minutes? We have spare vaccine that we'll have to throw away if you can't." So I rushed over there. I guess they forgot to remove me from their list after that.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by haertig

That was after an urgent call from them saying, "Hey, can you get here in 15 minutes?

One of my co-workers got that call today, but it least the hospital gave her 45 minutes.

[OtinG]

It seems like the Emergency Management systems in place in my state, and apparently a lot of other states, as well as in place on the federal level, has put almost all their thought into designing responses to natural disasters and terrorism, but didn’t put much thought into responding to a major medical pandemic. Hopefully we can correct that for the future and put a better plan on the shelf for when we need it.

[mlewis78]

I got the 2nd Moderna shot today at Walgreens. Got there early and didn't have to wait, except for one person checking in ahead of me. When it was done, I asked whether I should wait around for a while and they said I could leave if I wanted to, so I did.

[alee]

Originally Posted by OtinG

It seems like the Emergency Management systems in place in my state, and apparently a lot of other states, as well as in place on the federal level, has put almost all their thought into designing responses to natural disasters and terrorism, but didn’t put much thought into responding to a major medical pandemic. Hopefully we can correct that for the future and put a better plan on the shelf for when we need it.

At the Federal level, there was a pandemic response plan that was started under by G.W. Bush after he read a book about the 1918 flu pandemic, and continued by Obama, but it was largely ignored by the last administration. Part of this was the national stockpile of things like PPE and respirators, though I remember reading that budgets passed by Congress have neglected to refresh that for several years. The U.S. CDC also had people stationed at China's CDC to keep up on disease outbreaks in China, but they were pulled in, I think, late 2019, to save money.

[BetterRed]

John Hopkins U and The Economist published a Health Preparedness survey in 2019.

It looked at Prevention, Detection, Response, Health (treatment), Norms (financing, adherence to standards etc) and Risk.

The United States of America was ranked #1 (by quite a long way) and the United Kingdom #2 ==>> https://www.ghsindex.org/

BR

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

John Hopkins U and The Economist published a Health Preparedness survey in 2019.

It looked at Prevention, Detection, Response, Health (treatment), Norms (financing, adherence to standards etc) and Risk.

The United States of America was ranked #1 (by quite a long way) and the United Kingdom #2 ==>> https://www.ghsindex.org/

BR

Obviously both the US and UK fell flat on their faces with their respective responses to this pandemic, so it takes more than preparedness plans. They need to prepare the politicians as well. Poor execution by the executive branches can lay waste to the best made plans, as we have witnessed over the past year.

[DiapDealer]

As terrible and frustrating as the process was just to try and GET an appointment; kudos to the rural county health department I used for perfecting a mass drive-through vaccination clinic. It was a well-oiled machine. I was back home in an hour, and the trip itself was 20 minutes (one way).

Not a huge clinic by any means, but 300 or so people scheduled with arrival times spread out between 10am and 1pm.