I agree. When my friend’s 99-year-old mother in Austin got vaccinated recently, the nurse went ahead and also gave it to the woman’s caregiver and a relative who happened to be in the room. Why not?
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In NJ they will vaccinate you if you are a smoker. I suggest anybody with a condition not on the approved list (like Diabetes type 1) just say that they smoke. (Yes, I know I am encouraging lying, but I think Diabetes type 1 should be on the list before smoking).
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Basically the tradeoff between having a very detailed definition and verification of “health care worker” and other priority groups that would require more administrative overhead to do versus using simpler definitions of “health care worker” and other priority groups in order to get the vaccines out more quickly.
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That surprised me, too…smoking is clearly a choice, and now the smokers get priority? This whole honor code thing is ridiculous. As selfish as so many in the U.S. have been during this pandemic, there might as well not be any priority groups at all once the 1A group is completed.
The new variant is predicted to be the dominant strain by March. By that point, things will be really really ugly if the U.S. hasn’t figured out an efficient vaccine administration plan.
I’m a patient in the UCSD system. They have received vaccines for seniors and are notifying 500 over age 65 patients at a time about scheduling. The other local health systems (Sharp, Scripps, Kaiser) had not as of earlier today received vaccines for seniors.
I happened to have a video visit with my doctor today to review labs. I learned that they have some kind of point system for their over 65 patients based on such criteria as hospitalizations, diagnoses on record, etc. Then via a kind of lottery, they are identifying 500 patients at a time to offer the vaccine. My husband is guessing that lottery is within point ranges. They are basically saying don’t call us, we’ll call you.
I’m over 65 with diabetes and high blood pressure (both under control via medication) and my doctor says I do get some points for that - huzzah! I know there are plenty of seniors much more in need than me, and I don’t plan to make major changes to how I’m leading my life just because of vaccines.
I surmised to my doctor that I expect to be offered the vaccine by March and she thought that was realistic. She agrees that California has been slow. I’m also sure every county is handling this a bit differently.
Oh, the nurse said the vaccines were being administered at the super station at Petco Park, not their regular parking lot outside the hospital where I had my COVID swab in the spring and my flu vaccine in the fall. So when offered, I will take a short scenic drive into the city.
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Of course, people will still complain and hold grievance about the vaccine distribution process being too slow, too unfair (or insufficiently protected against queue-jumping), or some of both, no matter what. That is the consequence of having a dog-eat-dog competitive society.
The Maine CDC director sounds so frustrated. He said they assumed that the new policy about first vs. 2nd doses meant the total allocations would be increasing. State CDCs were told that there were second doses on the shelf that could be released quickly. Turns out that’s not true. The states are annoyed, to put it mildly. Allocations are going to be flat. The state has to make sure they have SECOND doses for people who have been vaccinated once. So some of those “unadministered” doses are second doses being held in reserve. Dr. Shah said that up to this week, the state was able to supply enough doses of vaccine as requests came in. If a group said, “We can use 400 doses,” they got 400 doses. He said starting this week, they aren’t able to fulfill all requests.
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That complex of a system that California has is more than likely the reason the state is towards the bottom of getting their citizens vaccinated.
@ Mainelonghorn Did he say how long one can go after getting the first dose til they get the second without reducing overall effectiveness? In other words if they recommend getting the second shot in 3 to 4 weeks yet it takes 9 weeks, is it still 95% effective overall?
Pro-tip for NYers: Go on very late at night or early in the morning. I was able to get a spot farther away and then one more convenient for my parents (of course I cancelled the first appt.) At one time, I probably had 20 tabs open and was checking each one for updates. It’s crazy. How many people have the time for that? There is no way my parents could have navigated that system.
Smoking is on the list as a condition in IL too. I happened to notice that and did a double take when I saw that. Unfortunately, people who have many unhealthy habits by choice, are going end up being moved to the front of the line for the vaccine. If that helps the rest of us great, but maybe it will help these people consider it’s an opportunity to get healthy.
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Also, presumably if the unhealthy among us get Covid, it will take longer to heal and perhaps much more expensive treatment will be required. At some stage we will have to pay for all of this so maybe treating the smokers and others that are unhealthy due to poor decisions is the best option…
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True good point, except the health care costs of those people in general even without covid is outrageous to begin with. But that’s for anyone that has health condition. That’s why prophylactic and preventive healthcare is so vital.
Think of all the people that are overweight but borderline “pre” diabetic and told lose 5lbs and you will not be pre-diabetic any longer. They don’t do anything, and then wind up with diabetes and other health issues. Yet had they only listened to their provider to begin with, they would never have had this issue.
Bottom line, we need to nip this anyway we can. I just read an article this morning about how Israel is doing and how cases are way down as a result of people just getting the first dose. Cant’ wait until we start to see a difference here too.
Presumably the overall poor health of the US is one of the many reasons we have been hit particularly hard by Covid and I fully agree it is very expensive to treat many that would not need treatment if they paid a bit more attention to their health.
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A million vaccinated in the first month in Texas. Still enormous unmet demand, but it is a start.
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I also don’t understand why the roll out is so bad. Last week my college kid volunteered at a firehouse in MA to administer the vaccine. There are a lot of people who are capable of administering this vaccine besides doctors and nurses, such as dentists, pharmacists, nursing/med school students, EMTs and more. A lot of these volunteers would be happy to work nights and weekends to protect people. We just need to get the vaccines in their hands.
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As far as I have seen, it IS med students, nurses, pharmacists/pharm students etc that are giving the vaccines.
While I concur that the process could and should be better, As usual it is easy on the outside to not realize all the logistics of getting vaccines administered from safe and roomy venues to finding those who will volunteer their off time to covering the time of those who should be doing their day job (like dispensing drugs) to be available to give vaccines. Right now many states are focusing on the 65 and over crowd- many of who will not want to go out at night to get a vaccine. Or in the winter weather.
Many many factors
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In 1947, NYC vaccinated 600,000 in one week to prevent a smallpox outbreak. Really, the logistics should be able to be managed these days.
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The Maine CDC Director also stated that states were led to believe that there would be: 1. An IT Gateway that would connect all 50 states so that people could get vaccinated even if they weren’t in their home state; and 2. A nationwide scheduling platform. NEITHER of these came about. So states are scrambling to set up individual platforms. There is a lot to it, because they need to keep track of pre-registrations, registrations, appointment times, billing, and consent. He said it’s tough coming up with a stable platform, but Maine is working hard on it.
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Why are states scrambling to set up an online registration system when VAMS-CDC is available, and works well (from my experience)?
Also, I know two nurses, two different states, who volunteered to administer these vaccines. One hasn’t been contacted at all in three weeks. The second was asked if she had received the vaccination, and because she is not working, the answer was no. They told to call back when she had received both shots🤦🏻♀️. Now…why wouldn’t they have immediately signed her up for the vaccine so she could then help with administration.
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One reason the rollout is not as rapid as everyone would like is that the long term care facilities were first up. Immunizing this group, who of course, were unable to travel to a large vaccination site, is very inefficient. One analogy might be a doctor making house calls.