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Just arranged 1st jab for 10th Feb. Not front line, 67, no underlying health issues. This is a bit quicker than I had anticipated.
Disappointing to hear the Scottish Government are destroying vaccine when there remains such a vast swathe of the population to be inoculated. Their take on it is that the 2% they are destroying is better than the projected 5%. Near the end of the rollout perhaps understandable, this early on demonstrates weak logistics planning.
Enhanced travel restrictions come in a week on Monday and the road map for exiting restrictions comes out seven days later.
Don't worry I'm sure the virus will wait until we're ready for it
What wastage are other countries reporting? It'll never be zero.
Down here in W Yorks we've had a lot of disruption due to snow. They're must be a lot of Pfizer jabs past their use by date now.
Unsure what wastage other countries are reporting, but wastage is shameful this early on. Granted extremes of weather will present problems, not insurmountable ones under current drive and focus of a rollout program. Every dose of vaccine destroyed could prevent a needless death.
wastage is [s] shameful [/s] unavoidable this early on
FTFY.
Seriously, you're asking too much of governments and agencies to set up massive vaccination programmes from scratch and not to have any wasteage. Even in the best of worlds there will always be some.
Unsure what wastage other countries are reporting, but wastage is shameful this early on.
I don’t understand how you’ve reached that conclusion. The delivery into care homes is complex and difficult. Some wastage is to be expected. I personally don’t know when it becomes shameful, can you explain how you reached that position beyond, failure to hit 100% = shameful?
It might well be shameful, but I don’t personally have the information to draw that conclusion.
Hang on, not care homes. You talking about this? https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/covid-scotland-vaccine-wastage-teething-19782311
Still stands tbh, how are you defining what is and isn’t shameful?
Aye, a silly comment.
I'd describe it as shameful as that is what I'd feel if I was the person charged with its destruction. Knowing that if logistics had been better then all the vaccines should be used. This early on when supply can't keep up with demand then this situation should not be allowed to occur. Teething problems is another term for poor planning and execution with a failure to provide a back up plan to cover the eventuallaties of over provision at the delivery stations. Not sure how it is a silly comment. Maybe not a term you agree with, but I see the situation as unacceptable this early on in the rollout.
Theres no detail in that position. And reads as if you're speaking from emotion rather than knowledge.
Which is understandable and most of us are in a similar place.
My mum and dad are volunteering with the vaccine roll out and they said that some of the wastage is from people just not turning up (for whatever reason) , so completely out of their control. They try to find alternatives last minute nearly every day and sometimes that is not possible
I understand that but if they've got some left over at the end of the session and it must be used that day, can't they just grab passers-by say over 50?
My mum and dad are volunteering with the vaccine roll out and they said that some of the wastage is from people just not turning up (for whatever reason) , so completely out of their control. They try to find alternatives last minute nearly every day and sometimes that is not possible
Why can’t they implement a system whereby people who would like a jab ASAP but haven’t been called up yet can turn up at the end of the day on spec and get a jab if there are any that are about to get thrown away.
That is what they have been doing in a round about way. they both received the jab themselves last week due to some left over, but the centre is in a place where people wont be just walking by unfortunately.
Knowing that if logistics had been better then all the vaccines should be used. This early on when supply can’t keep up with demand then this situation should not be allowed to occur. Teething problems is another term for poor planning and execution with a failure to provide a back up plan to cover the eventuallaties of over provision at the delivery stations. Not sure how it is a silly comment. Maybe not a term you agree with, but I see the situation as unacceptable this early on in the rollout.
Doesn't make it right but I know a lot of Pfizer vaccines have been binned at a big hospital in London because they received extra and couldn't get them used in time
I imagine the same across the country (there's even a thread about it https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/teh-vaccination-programme-wanna-know-how-daft-it-can-be/page/2/)
I read that prevalence of UK variant is about 6% in Germany, wonder if it will accelerate there as it has here?
I've just spoken to a friend in the street who is a local GP. That is what he said was happening - fighting to backfill missed appointments at no notice.
Unsure what wastage other countries are reporting, but wastage is shameful this early on. Granted extremes of weather will present problems, not insurmountable ones under current drive and focus of a rollout program. Every dose of vaccine destroyed could prevent a needless death.
Even in a perfect logistics scenario you will still get wastage or shrinkage as they generally call it. There will always be breakages of product, transportation equipment, storage, errors in handling etc. You must also remember that you will never get 100% of a liquid out of it's container. As an example an aluminium beer keg is 50 litres or 88 pints. you will never get 88 pints out of it as you have to throw away the first pint pulled out of it due to it filling the lines, the last 1 or 2 are lost to sediment being sucked up as the barrel 'dies' plus there is always a bit left over at the end in the barrel as some of the product stays stuck to the inside surface of the keg plus that last bit that can't get up the pipe. Also don't forget that every pint you pour has to be a minimum of 1 pint, shorting is illegal so every pint should be a few ml over most likely costing you half a pint for each keg. Add in staff spillages, line cleaning etc too, it all adds up. So for a 88 pint starting point you may only get 80-84 pints out that you sell.
So apply that same set of rules to the vaccine, say for a litre where every dose is 5ml. That's technically 200 doses per litre. Every dose must be that 5ml so you always go a tiny bit over to be safe, say 5.05ml average, that's down to 198 doses per litre. Now allow for the small film of the vaccine that clings to the containers and you could lose another 1 or 2 doses. Now add in the odd failure to inject by staff (leaky syringe, dropping on the floor etc), say 1 in 100, and you're down to 196 doses. Then add wastage due to no-shows or storage time limits meaning that they can't use it all fast enough. It's easy to see how you could be down to an average of 180 doses or less per litre, a wastage/shrinkage ratio of 90% which is not hard to imagine at all if you have any experience of logistics whether that's in a shop or as a delivery driver. Don't forget this is not for every litre they receive at the vaccination centre, it's percentage of product used that leaves the factory. Apply that 90% to a million doses and you have a loss of 10,000 doses. The figures I've used may not be accurate but it does show that how small losses at each stage can have a big effect on total numbers.
I can guarantee that near-every person at every stage of the vaccination delivery process is trying their absolute hardest to get the maximum amount of people injected every day but you will never get 100% usage, especially in a system that has been hastily built using temporary facilities. This is the one part of the coronavirus response the UK has got right first time, don't belittle it and potentially destroy the hard work by all the medics, volunteers etc.
i'd be interested to know what restrictions there are, if any, on who can be called up at short notice to get a jab if there's vaccine going spare. if i got a call i could be at our local centre in about 15 mins i reckon.
it's a shame that vaccine is being wasted but it's the nature of trying to undertake something like this at such scale. put in perspective we've basically vaccinated 10m people, among whom will be the most immobile, in about a month a year on from this thing emerging as a threat. it's an incredible achievement.
The weird thing here is that each vial of vaccine has at least one more dose in it than it supposedly has. Pfizer vials counted as 5 actually have 6, Astra Zeneca 8s have 9 and 10s have 11. In fact you can get 12 out of them although the guidance is only to give 11. So the analogy to beer barrels doesn’t hold up. We received 990 doses in the practice last week but booked in 1089 as we know we can get 10% extra. So then if one or two people don’t turn up or aren’t suitable and we can’t find someone to fill that slot is that wastage? A vial with a dose of vaccine goes in the bin, but we’ve already given more than we were sent...we really hope that the corresponding batch of 990/1089 that we should get in 12 weeks to give these patients their second dose also contains 10% extra. If the manufacturers tweak their bottle filling machines we will be in trouble!
There will always be the odd unavoidable power supply issue that affects a cold chain somewhere, and I don’t know what’s happening in the big centres, but it seems like the local clinics are managing really well to avoid wasted doses.
Peter Sagan tests positive - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/55962302
Also, each wasted vaccination isn't an extra death, it is perhaps 1/10,000th of a death, or is it 1/50,000. Quite a small number anyway.
My mum has just had her covid appointment through the door, she's getting the injection next week which is surprising as she's only 65, walks 15 miles a day and has no health issues at all. This is in Galloway btw.
Very surprised at the comments about shameful wastage. Supply chain difficulties aside, its quite a snowy winter out there in places, theres lots of things can cause wastagebbeyond the organisers control.
Someone had contacted the local BBC news the other day wanting to know why the queue at a vaccination site had been made up entirely of police officers when he'd come out after his. The BBC established that at 1am in the morning they'd not been able to find anyone else who could get there for that day's Pfizer jabs so had contacted the emergency services.
They really are trying to get this thing right.
Aye, my parents (60s good health) have got appointments for theirs too. That's Fife.
Most places are already nearly finished on the 70+ population, apart from the trickier ones (Ill, home bound, etc) and are moving to the 65+ to fill their gaps. It’s a good thing imho.
"They really are trying to get this thing right."
As hard as it is to grasp this concept given the government's track record, they are in fact getting this right. Who'd have thunk that Matt Hancock, the man who was handing PPE contracts out to his mates would actually be both ahead of the game with regards vaccine procurement and let the NHS and local authorities roll out the programme instead of serco or some other nefarious chancers.
I read a Guardian article which described how Hancock was obsessed by a disaster movie about a pandemic that focused on the politics behind the rush to procure vaccines, he used the film as a meme throughout meetings to make sure everyone was focused on the issues coming down the line. Reminded me of when G W Bush became obsessed by a book about the 1919 flu pandemic and pestered everyone about it until they let him set up the pandemic response team. Reminds us that even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Having my daily look at figures, looks like we're just these last few days back to pre Christmas ballpark, in terms of new infections and +%.
6 weeks plus to get that sorted, what a mess that was.
Having my daily look at figures, looks like we’re just these last few days back to pre Christmas ballpark, in terms of new infections and +%.
6 weeks plus to get that sorted, what a mess that was.
Yep. All these folk shouting about how the figures have come down and it's time to relax restrictions really need to take a good look at how high they were and just how far they still have to go to get back to Autumn 2020 levels.
As hard as it is to grasp this concept given the government’s track record, they are in fact getting this right.
To be honest, I think it's the NHS getting this right, and the government claiming the glory. Happy to have my cynicism proved wrong. I suppose they got the initial vaccine order in early.
she’s only 65, walks 15 miles a day
Fair play!! I think 15 miles would kill me!
Yep. All these folk shouting about how the figures have come down and it’s time to relax restrictions really need to take a good look at how high they were and just how far they still have to go to get back to Autumn 2020 levels.
It's not helped by all the papers printing headlines and stories about how 'Summer is Saved!', the adverts everywhere encouraging holiday and cruise (of all things!!) bookings now to avoid disappointment and the general theme of 'We've passed the peak, back to normal!' that seems to be shouted around. I completely get wanting to see normality again, god knows I'm desperate for it, but people really have to realise that we have a massive battle on our hands for the next 6 months that we need to win otherwise next winter is going to be just as bad. If a new strain pops up that bypasses our current vaccines (which I think will happen at some point) we are in real danger of going back to square one incredibly quickly. It took me a long time to explain to my parents that while figures are dropping we are still 10,000 above the number of people in hospital compared to the peak of the first wave and that we have the same amount of work to do as we did then still to go.
TiRed's posts give me hope that we are winning the fight but then you go outside or on social media and see the high levels of ignorance from the general public and realise that a lot of work and effort still has to be done to get us to where we want to be.
TiRed’s posts give me hope that we are winning the fight but then you go outside or on social media and see the high levels of ignorance from the general public and realise that a lot of work and effort still has to be done to get us to where we want to be.
Had a look at some reports on israel today, makes our compliance levels look positively communist.
Reminds us that even a broken clock is right twice a day
Unless the hands have dropped off.
Unless the hands have dropped off.
The absence of Cummings thankfully saved us from that.
To be honest, I think it’s the NHS getting this right, and the government claiming the glory. Happy to have my cynicism proved wrong. I suppose they got the initial vaccine order in early.
I would say that's pretty true. Amazing what happens when the Tories leave people to do jobs they are good at.
Everything reluctantjumper said… I second.
I am on the Shielding List, and live in the NHS Tayside region. At a daily Breifing this week the Scottish Health Secretary said to call the NHS Scotland Covid Vaccination Hotline if an appointment hasn't been received by the end of this week.
We didn't get any post on Thursday or Friday, and I was hoping the letter would come today. It didn't, so I phoned the Hotline. The first fella could only read me a scripted statement, but said to phone back and press "1", to rearrange an appointment, and they would be able to help. I redialled, but the lady couldn't find me in the system. It turns out the National Hotline doesn't cover Tayside!. I called the NHS Tayside general line, and the lady said there was no information for me, and no-one to forward my call to, but that I should call my GP.
The GP website has a big red banner saying "Don't call with Covid vaccine enquiries".
I don't want to come across as a dick, but do want to make sure I haven't been missed out. WWSTWD?
Everything reluctantjumper said… I second.
Thirded
Interestingly I went to a different Aldi to do the weekly shop. We are in between two, one in a fairly "interesting" former industrial town in one local authority area, the other in a slightly "rougher" former industrial town in a different local authority area, with a noticeably higher infection rate. The difference in attitudes to social distancing and using sanitiser at the entrance between the two stores, if typical of attitudes across the areas, probably explains a lot. Though mask wearing was pretty good I have to say, can't remember the last time I saw someone in a shop without one.
Have a look for contact details for Tayside?
scotroutes
Full MemberYep. All these folk shouting about how the figures have come down and it’s time to relax restrictions really need to take a good look at how high they were and just how far they still have to go to get back to Autumn 2020 levels.
Yup. That's a recurring problem isn't it, "things got slightly better, time to relax". When the 7 day deaths average is still higher than it ever got in the first peak.
I don't see a hope in hell we will lock down as long as we should do.
Then full on on summer/autumn, then return to lock down next Winter... So people can return to complaining that "lockdowns don't work" all over again without a hint of irony.
@Nobeerinthefridge As I said:
I called the NHS Tayside general line, and the lady said there was no information for me, and no-one to forward my call to, but that I should call my GP.
The GP website has a big red banner saying “Don’t call with Covid vaccine enquiries”.
I would add, she said that they'd been inundated with Covid Vaccine queries all day.
Surprised that people have been less active over the last 10 months, I would have hoped that this pandemic would be a wake-up call for us all when it comea to our health and fitness
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/feb/06/inactivity-is-an-ongoing-pandemic-the-life-saving-impact-of-moving-your-body?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1612608209