Our friends aged 50+ have had the vaccine - how?

[OnlyTeaForMe]

We have friends, a couple, aged 56/59 who have been very cautious throughout the pandemic, particularly as they have her 87 year old father living with them.

DH met the husband for a walk last week, and as they were leaving their front garden said to my friend (the wife), "don't worry, we'll keep well apart!". Her husband blurted out "oh don't worry, we've had our first jab now!" and his wife shot him a look then apparently said something about it being because they lived with her elderly dad who was at risk.

We know them fairly well, and I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't qualify on the basis of any of their own underlying health conditions, although their ethnicity puts them at slightly higher risk.

Is this the case, do family members of the vulnerable get it at the same time?

Interesting chart here under point 3 : www.health.org.uk/publications/long-reads/the-covid-19-vaccine-who-gets-it-first

Shows the trade-off between the number of vaccinations needed to prevent one death and to save one year of life, by age group.

We really should be trying to get to as many of the 75+ groups as fast as possible.

Of course the Oxford vaccine will help much more with this.

I think the only controversy in all of this is who is being defined as a "frontline" health worker in the NHS.

He has covid not the vaccine.

Thebpepblem with the Pfizer vaccine is there is a limited number of times you can transport it and a limited amount of time before it goes off.
At the end of the day due to no shows there will be some left over.
The staff ring people. But the elderly that are at the top of the priority list can't just up and get down to the vaccine centre. They need to arrange someone to take them and transport. Usually at the end of the day they ring and say if you can get down here in 10 minutes we can get you vaccinated. So it really is just random people. Who ever picks up the phone.
Last week at my place of work. They were going through the list of staff who had put their names down for the vaccine. And some weren't picking up the phone. Others couldn't get down there because of some commitments. So at the end of the day it could be anyone at any level.of priority that gets the vaccine.
Again there is no guarantee there will be some left at the end of the day.

It is incredibly unlikely that they’ll have “stolen” a vaccine space from someone. It’s much more likely that there were some going spare at the end of the day and they were offered it. Nothing sketchy about it at all. If it is going and queuing up for it at the end of the day as someone said that that clearly favours admin staff over staff on wards, nurses/doctors/HCA.

@ancientgran

So Brenda from admin or Baz the security guard might get lucky. But they aren't robbing your granny. Stop judging them. My son is a nurse working with covid patients and I judge Brenda and Baz getting it before him, although a bit late now as he has it.

Very sorry to hear about your son. I wish him a swift and full recovery.

Doesn't change my view that it's better to give leftovers out than throw it way.

The Pfizer vaccine has to be given once it’s defrosted or it gets wasted. In our trust there were 20 DNAs on one day. They started ringing round wards and departments to see if staff on duty (in any capacity) wanted one. It takes many different staff to run a hospital. I’d rather someone not patient facing got it than it went to waste.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/booking-system-covid-19-vaccines-19503143

This article was a couple of weeks ago and now it sounds from this thread like non-patient-facing staff are allowed to get the vaccine.

Hospitals are certainly vaccinating at a far higher/faster rate than GPs though, so anyone who qualifies for vaccination in a hospital (NHS staff) will be getting their vaccination long before a person with equivalent priority who has to get it via their GP.

I think it's the working in healthcare. I know some nhs office staff at our surgery who've been vaccinated at the end of the day when they've had vaccines left over, to save wasting them.

I'm an unpaid carer and took my relative to have the vaccine. I was half hoping I would be offered one but no such luck!

As a frontline NHS worker with no date or time frame for having a vaccine, these kind of stories make me so angry!

The problem is if they arrange for people to queue and wait just just in case there are spares.
So would you be happy to wait between 1-2 hours with your 80 year old relative just in case there is a spare? And if they started that, number of people waiting just in case would increase. How would you decide who to ask to wait. Just anyone?
So you might have up to 50 over 80 years old waiting just in case only to tell them.
'Sorry there was no spare today'.
Where would they wait?
Then the next day only 3 spare.
How many days would you be happy to wait and queue with your elderly relatives just in case to ensure the spare vaccine went to the 'deserving people'?
They are already finding it difficult enough just to sort out the logistics of vaccinating the people booked in. Sorting out a Just In Case queue too would just cause chaos.

@robinshire

As a frontline NHS worker with no date or time frame for having a vaccine, these kind of stories make me so angry!

Why? Would you rather that a number of Pfizer vaccine were thrown away?

Or is it the number of no shows...? cos that would infuriate me too!

Op they could have been shielding at home from their work and that would be why they hadn’t been in work for a while.

I was really surprised how many of our staff ended up shielding at home during the first wave, many of which seemed pretty young and fit with no obvious medical problems, but I guess these details are private and we never know everyone’s medical history.

Those who were shielding were prioritised at our trust, as well as those deemed as higher risk eg by age, ethnicity, weight and medical conditions. The rest of us are now getting ours....

@Chloemol

Just because they have had it doesn’t make them safe. Even with the jab you are still susceptible to the virus, all it does, like the flu jab, is hopefully make the symptoms less

And in order to make sure people don’t get it you still have to follow the rules as well as continue to SD, especially with those who haven’t had the jab

Stop this!!!! We don't know yet whether the vaccines only stop symptoms or completely prevent the recipient from catching covid as there is no data yet. The latter is likely given what we know about other vaccines. How has it become enshrined in fact that the Covid vaccines don't stop people from catching Covid?

@YouCanWorkItOut

I’ve had the vaccine on 30/12 - I didn’t initially qualify, I’m NHS frontline but at that time we were only vaccinating staff who were CEV. Boss came in at 5.30 and said anyone who can get to vaccination centre within next 30 min go now, they have 15 doses which will otherwise waste. I’m imagining a mate of theirs working in a vaccination centre called them and told them something similar.

Yep. How my sister who was doing the admin (recording vaccine number is that sounds right?)

Vaccines left to be binned.

Who wants one?

I'd rather they vaccinated the person in Tesco pushing the trolley around and not just hospital car park attendants if it means they don't go in the bin.

Every vaccinated person is a step toward the exit gate.

Im a carer and would be entitled to recieve it when my parents are called up.

If you run a flu clinic, you'll book let's say 500 80 year olds in, from 10 am to 6pm. At 6pm, you realise that 30 haven't shown up. You've got maybe an hour before the Pfizer vaccine will become useless.

In these circumstances you don't want to waste it so if there are some non-frontline NHS staff who've been helping with the clinic, or volunteers who've spent all day in the cold at the carpark, of course you're going to use it on them. Phoning up the local carehome and asking them to send over a car load of the elderly right now really isn't going to work.

I know a teacher who had it because her teaching assistant was a part time GP receptionist and their surgery had a load of vaccines from ‘no shows’ that would have gone to waste.
She was called up and said if she could get to the surgery by closing time she could have the vaccine.

Everyone is offered it at the trust I work for, including purely office based staff. It's effectively first come first served. I would rather my 77 year old mum had it but I can't give my shot to her, so I'm going to have it.

Both my parents got because of no shows. My brother works for nhs and was told there were spare so he went to get them

I found a when will you be likely to get your jab site today, one of the questions was are you an unpaid carer? I assume that's why

I'd much rather random people got it than more incidents like this:

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9083373/amp/Hundreds-Pfizer-vaccine-doses-delivered-GP-surgery-Macclesfield-thrown-away.html

(Storage errors, rather than no shows.)

Derailing slightly I’m really surprised at the number of noshows though. I mean say you don’t want it by all means but just not turning up given how much people want this? Hugely selfish and creating unnecessary admin stress for those who are working hard to make sure none is wasted

No shows are often self isolating or actually have covid, so they cant be injected. Or they have contra indications which only come to light at the appointment, or they turn out not to be able to co-operate or give informed consent, especially in the over 80s not surprisingly. Or they are travelling and don't make it. We have seen what's left at the end of the day and phoned any health care professionals over the age of 50 that we could think of. Then the young guys who were manning the car park, and an aggressive old man who had already forced his way in and shouted at everyone because he hadn't got an appointment and who was still hanging about. Pfizer - so if not used that day its binned.

@Silvergreen

I'd be more worried that they think getting the first jab means they can't spread it, they can!

We don't if it stops transmission one way or the other yet!!