Why is there a problem with vaccinating in care homes

[notevenat20]

I was reading www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55166292 where it explains that:

"Roll-out is also difficult. Through a combination of the need to keep the vaccine at ultra-cold storage and the fact that the jab comes in batches of 975 that cannot be split up at the moment, immunisation will only be offered from a network of 50 hospitals to start with."

But I don't understand. Why can't they be split? And why can't you take out 975 and then drive them, with a flashing blue light, to different care homes? I believe the vaccine can survive a few days at fridge temperature.

@notevenat20

The Pfizer vaccine is complex and can't be moved too many times. The journey it makes to the hospital site must be the last one - it can't be moved again.

Do you have a reference for this fact,?

It's mentioned here and on various other news sites

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55145696

I'm sure there must be a way to contact them with your solution just in case.

Although I appreciate the sarcasm, it is ridiculous in my view to just accept everything in life without at least trying to understand it.

I presume nobody here has been involved with giving injections to people with severe dementia, neurological disorders, learning disabilities and other conditions. It’s not a case of just nipping out and stabbing them all it can be quite a time consuming and unpredictable process.
There are so many issues that I think you have to just accept that it can’t logistically be done.

@notevenat20

Radio 4 were also stating the vaccine can only be moved 4 times as well

I must be missing something but I was thinking it could go like this. First, batch taken out of freezer, split into 10 sets (say) and put into 10 separate fridges. Each fridge is taken by a different group to a different care home. So each vaccine is only ever moved once.

I think you're missing the manufacturing, loading and shipping to the U.K. stages in the movement. I think you're thinking of once it's already here and in freezers but it will have moved a lot already before then.

Once it’s got to a hub it may already have been moved four times. From manufacturing to packaging and transporting it there are already various “moves”.

@notevenat20

I'm sure there must be a way to contact them with your solution just in case.

Although I appreciate the sarcasm, it is ridiculous in my view to just accept everything in life without at least trying to understand it.

Why would choosing to accept the conclusions of I'm sure hundreds if not thousands of extremely well qualified experts on this particular question mean that anyone is accepting everything in life?

@BungleandGeorge

I presume nobody here has been involved with giving injections to people with severe dementia, neurological disorders, learning disabilities and other conditions. It’s not a case of just nipping out and stabbing them all it can be quite a time consuming and unpredictable process. There are so many issues that I think you have to just accept that it can’t logistically be done.

Without knowing anything about it, I can well imagine the whole care home full might not be in a position to have it at the same time. Maybe one has a bad cold, another has had a change of heart medication and is waiting for things to settle down, another gets agitated at times. So what do you do, repeat the whole fridge moving shenanigans a week later?

So what do you do, repeat the whole fridge moving shenanigans a week later?

I was assuming you would phone the care homes before setting off from the hospital.

There’s doing some actual research into something you don’t understand, which is great. Then there’s coming across as knowing better than the hundreds of people whose actual job it is to work this stuff out and who have all the qualifications, data and experience and information you just don’t have.

I have absolutely no idea how my car engine works. I could watch some you tube videos or go on a mechanics course, while mostly just trusting my reputable garage to service my car correctly. Or I could start writing to Ferrari about their F1 car and why isn’t it faster and had they ever thought of putting a bigger engine it it and maybe chopping off the ugly bit at the back.

@notevenat20

So what do you do, repeat the whole fridge moving shenanigans a week later?

I was assuming you would phone the care homes before setting off from the hospital.

I don’t understand your point? I was trying to say that you probably couldn’t do everyone in the home at the same time so you would need to deliver vaccines to each care home more than once.

@notevenat20

So what do you do, repeat the whole fridge moving shenanigans a week later?

I was assuming you would phone the care homes before setting off from the hospital.

Phone them and say what?

It's really unfair that care home residents can't be first in line when they have suffered the worst restrictions out of everybody, continuously throughout the pandemic, and when JCVI have said they should be first.

My understanding is that the vaccine is packed in such large batches because it keeps the surface area smaller which is important for transporting it in such extremely cold conditions.

Hopefully MHRA will very soon approve ways of splitting the batches and transporting it in smaller volumes to care homes while ensuring it doesn't degrade.

We need to be patient and wait for suitable procedures to be approved. It would be terrible if we just decided to wing it and roll out to care homes first - because they should be first - and injected huge numbers of very vulnerable older people with something that had no effect because of how it had been kept and transported.

Vaccinating medical staff first makes a lot of sense to me. It should be fairly easy logistically and the gains should be significant because it protects patients who go into hospital and protects NHS capacity by cutting down the number of staff sick or isolating. Care homes are obviously a priority too but if the logistics of rolling it out in care homes means that it takes a long time to vaccinate a relatively small number of people with some vaccine wastage it probably isn’t sensible to do them first. Protection for care home residents may be almost as strong if you vaccinated workers in care homes as if you vaccinated residents anyway.

@notevenat20

I'm sure there must be a way to contact them with your solution just in case.

Although I appreciate the sarcasm, it is ridiculous in my view to just accept everything in life without at least trying to understand it.

It's absolutely fair to accept the experts' (multiple) viewpoint. Wanting to understand it is also fine as long as simplistic solutions are nor posited as obvious answers.

I presume nobody here has been involved with giving injections to people with severe dementia, neurological disorders, learning disabilities and other conditions.

I’ve taken DD for 4 injections this year - no problems! The places she’s lived, the residents will be used to injections, canulas, x rays, MRIs, EEGs, video telemetry for days....possibly CT scans, PET scans, etc! She certainly is!

@Theotherrudolph may have to steal your brilliant analogy!

OP I think it gets summed up as: it’s a lot more complicated than it would appear. This is why there’s so much hope pinned on the Oxford vaccine. The Pfizer vaccine is simply only realistically able to be used when you can vaccinate 1,000 people in one location (preferably a hospital) over a short time period.

Ignore JVT? Why would we ignore the advice of someone highly respected with a wealth of knowledge. What are your suggestions? Do you have lots of experience of administering complex injections on a mass scale?

MN has gone crazy.

Love that you think that the best medical minds in the country won’t have thought of some solutions that mumsnet have 😂

He and Whitty are thriving on this and their moment in the spotlight
Give it a year and thank god they'll be back in obscurity
Whilst the country tries to recover from the economic ruin
Remember their 4000 a day prediction, discredited??

It was a worse case prediction which they said we would avoid with restrictions in place.
They look like they are anything but thriving, under enormous stress.
What have you done to feel that you can try and make baseless claims and discredit people with an enormous amount of experience and knowledge?

Not baseless, there's a lot of disquiet about these two
The truth will out

I thougt it was the press who were saying it wasn't possible - article a couple of days ago (and thread here) saying that carehomes would no longer be top priority.

But there they still are. And Whitty /JVT aren't being that definitive in saying it can't happen. They are very committed to protecting the most vulnerable first, and although they no one underestimates the challenge, I think it's premature to write it off as impossible.

Ok post links here so we can assess the evidence.

@tortoiseshell1985 it’s very unpleasant to insinuate. Do back up your claims with evidence.

What will happen post Brexit when it is stuck in lorries waiting to get out of Dover or to get through customs at airports?