All over 18 year olds in the UK are encouraged to vote in a 12 hour period. Surely then people could be vaccinated in a much shorter time frame?

[Fatherbrown]

This occurred to me earlier.
On polling day the entire adult population of the UK is encouraged to turn out and vote. Schools, libraries, community centres are all turned into polling stations with volunteers manning the stations.

Voting papers are delivered to each station in time for people to vote, the electoral roll is used to mark off each person who has voted.

All of this is delivered in a 12 hour period.

Now, surely, if enough vaccines were prepared, delivered to each ‘station’ and every HCP, nurse, doctor, pharmacist was asked just for one day to commit to administering the vaccines they could get HUGE amount of people vaccinated in one day?

If this country can organise and roll out a mass voting programme a couple of times a year then surely something as important as a vaccine can be delivered quicker?

Well, yes, in theory. But when people crowd in to vote, in long queues, they pack together quite tightly.

Vaccination needs consent, adminstration and post-vaccine monitoring, alongside 2 metre distancing. Not so easy.

Also, the Pfizer vaccine is really fragile, so can't be stored easily or transported easily, and the Oxford vaccine hasn't been produced in large enough numbers yet.

They couldn’t get enough supplies of the vaccine to do that. And who looks after patients while all the doctors and nurses are doing it?

I’m guessing the vaccines need a little bit more effort in terms of preserving, disposing of and in terms of medical staff to administer them rather than paper and ballot boxes. I’m guessing they have to be performed in a medical environment in case of reactions?

Gosh dead simple you should be in government running this

@Lougle

Well, yes, in theory. But when people crowd in to vote, in long queues, they pack together quite tightly.

Vaccination needs consent, adminstration and post-vaccine monitoring, alongside 2 metre distancing. Not so easy.

This..people need to hang around for 10-15 mins after a jab in case of any bad reaction. Not like in and out of a poll booth.

Yes, but you need a supply of 50 million doses of vaccine distributed to the right places. The supply is the rate-limiting factor. The logistics of giving the jabs are complicated but manageable, and if vaccines were as easy to produce, store and distribute as ballot papers we could do it this way, but (a) they’re not and (b) you have to have access to the medical equipment and trained people to respond if someone has an allergic reaction.

I know there are logistical differences but it's a good point overall. With the right organisation, it could be done really quickly.

Everyone’s an expert

Handing out pens and paper can be done by anyone, jabbing drugs into people needs to be done by someone qualified.

Fuck sake.

You can source printer ink and paper quite easily, and councils have procurement procedures, plus they can use petty cash and pop to Staples if their regular supplier fails.
The main difficulty with the vaccine isn't getting in into the people, it is getting it made and distributed.

If only distributing the vaccine was as easy as distributing a wodge of paper, a few packets of pencils and some glorified cardboard self-assembly booths.

If only the necessary skills for safely administering a novel drug by injection were as easily gained as the skills required to to read your name and postcode, cross it off a list and give you a piece of paper.

If only it was as easy to monitor a room full of patients, mostly elderly, with underlying conditions and already on a fuckton of drugs that could possibly interact, as it is to keep an eye on a box with a slot in it.

If only we could vaccinate people by post.

I don't think the vaccine can be supplied quickly enough for that to work, even it it was otherwise logistically possible.

Er...no! bringing everyone out of their homes within a 12 hour period is madness (ie the opposite of lockdown)?

According to the government dashboard 557,441 Covid tests were done yesterday. I don't know how many were done at home, but even if it was one third, that's still 368,000 that were either done at a site, or supervised at a site.

Having done both in a previous life, I'd say it was simpler to give an injection than to take throat and nose swabs and certainly to supervise people taking their own swabs.

Obviously the whole process takes a few moments, specially for the older and infirmer, but most of the preparation and aftermath (sit here, explain procedure, remove coat, roll up sleeve, reverse the process) can be done by a non-medical person. A vaccinator can nip in, give the injection when the patient is ready and leave, wash hands/change gloves and move on to the next prepared patient. Other HCPs can be around to keep an eye out for side effects.

So, with enough stock, enough vaccinators, enough sites and enough non-medical help, surely we could match the test numbers - ie 300,000 to 500,000 per day. Including pharmacies would seem like a smart idea - they manage flu jabs very efficiently.

Even ignoring the fact that polling stations are open for 15 hours, not 12, a substantial proportion don't bother to vote and many vote by post, this is a terrible idea.

It takes a lot longer to vaccinate people than it does to vote. You have to wait 15 minutes after the vaccine to check for any allergic reactions. Plus they don’t have enough doses for us all to get it in one day.

@Jetatyeovilaerodrome

I know there are logistical differences but it's a good point overall. With the right organisation, it could be done really quickly.

Yes. I think so too.

I'm a qualified nurse. It's taken a day to do the training required to be a vaccinator!
Do you want yours from someone that knows what they are doing, or not??

Oh and a lot of staff vaccinating also have another job in the NHS and need to try and keep that service going too....

There is currently a world wide glass shortage - meaning that just having enough vials is going to be a challenge

Except the electoral process does not happen in a 12 hour period. Local authorities have electoral staff working year round to deliver elections. They have well honed processes and procedures.
It's not just a case of shoving a few volunteers in polling stations with pencils and a packet of blue tac.
Having staffed a polling station with about 10 minutes 'training', that's the easy part of the process.
I'm quite sure I would need more training to stick needles in people's arms safely

My understanding is that the main hold up in the system at present is a shortage of vaccine doses, with a lot awaiting the required quality testing.

Isn't it something like only 35% of the population that can vote bother to vote? Something crazily low like that. There are also millions of people who aren't eligible to vote (obvious one = children but also people in prison, people who live in the UK but are not UK citizens, people with severe learning disabilities). Also a lot of people don't vote on the actual day - postal votes etc.
You can't really compare an election and a mass vaccination. Totally different scenarios. Totally different amounts of people.