Vaccine queue jumping making me feel angry

[Snog]

SIL has been vaccinated already- she is a healthy 40 year old, works from home, no caring responsibilities.

It's made me feel surprisingly angry. I'm not clear how she managed it at this point. On a personal level I like SIL so am pleased for her but god I feel angry at the injustice.

I know some people have picked up "spare" doses but surely even the spare doses should be managed according to health priorities? Eg at least finding someone in groups 1-9 to vaccinate if not in groups 1-4.

AIBU to feel angry about this?

@Snog

Surely it's the case that her vaccination may have some at the cost of someone else's life?

Don’t be so ridiculous.

@Cornettoninja

Every vaccination administered benefits us all at the end of the day. No you don’t get the individual protection but the more people vaccinated the less hospital admissions (which aren’t easily predicted in otherwise ‘healthy’) people and the closer we are to softer restrictions.

Concentrate on the bigger picture.

100% this. Any vaccination is a good vaccination at the end of the day! Try not to be frustrated and think about the benefits of the spare doses being given to people rather than ending up in the bin.

(Also if it was a spare, she hasn't exactly jumped the queue...)

@TansyViolet ahhh makes sense. Finally got mine booked for next week! I'm 36 but CEV

Are you maybe a bit bored and finding things to get annoyed at.

Why did they give her the spare dose exactly?

Op,,aibu
Mn yes
Op, no I’m not, someone will have died because of it, died I tell you!!!!!!!

Many thanks to everyone who replied who wasn't rude or insulting, I feel calm again now, I really had not expected to feel angry but for a couple of hours that's exactly how I did feel.

This is why I'm worried about having the vaccine when it's offered, likely to be in the next week or so. I'm 43 and appear healthy but I have an underlying condition. I know if people find out, there will be raised eyebrows and judging. I don't want to share my medical history with anyone but suspect I may end up having to, to justify myself to some people

Seriously I think the bitterness about it all is mostly on MN. If you're worried then I just wouldn't tell anyone you've had it, your vaccination record is no more their business than your medical history. Every person vaccinated is one less person waiting for a vaccine and that's a good thing. I feel delighted everytime someone tells me they've had theirs, not sure if that makes me a bit weird or I'm just grabbing onto every bit of good news to fuel some optimism to get me through lockdown. I say this as someone who won't even be considered for vaccination until all priority groups are done.

Loads of people in my area have been vaccinated as they work at a place that is responsible for supplying one of the materials needed for the vaccine. Everyone - receptionists, window cleaners, IT support who is employed by this particular smallish company has been offered it. I personally don’t see how that is an issue - it’s incredibly difficult to prioritise the ‘right’ people once the most vulnerable are vaccinated.

If the vaccinations had been prioritised in a completely different order like working age first.

Then an 80 year old had "jumped" the queue you would still get someone complain.

Every person vaccinated helps the bigger picture and is better than the bin, there is bound to be some unfairness involved, wanting a perfectly fair rollout with take longer and will cost lives, soon we will be at the point where levels 3 and 4 are close to finishing do we move on to 5 and 6 before mid feb or slow down to complete the top 4 groups?

I totally agree with you OP - Covid has exposed lots of piss takers across the board.

As a healthy mid forties I find it really depressing that I won't get it for months and months as I don't have friends or family that work in a GP or hospital and I have a fulltime job so cant volunteer to help at vaccine centres or drive ambulances. BUT I do console myself that every healthy, young, queue jumper, who will soon be out and about, is one less person to give it to me in the supermarket, or wherever.

Nobody's suggesting staff at the vaccine centres should be going through lists, but it must be possible to have a relatively simple IT solution where people can register an interest in a last minute vaccine and the system notifies them of available doses in order of clinical priority

You going to design this relatively simple IT system them? And administer it? Be the person that spends an hour phoning round when you have 20 minutes to get people in and vaccinated?

All this stuff has been thought of. It was actually tried with track and trace, and people simply couldn’t be contacted and got to a test centre in a reasonable time.

Lists and orders take time and money to administer. We need the vaccine out as quickly as possible with as little wastage as possible. There simply isn’t time to fanny around with administration.

Thing is, it's easy to see how this could happen. All you have to do is be in the right place at the right time - say waiting for a relative to have theirs or passing by the vaccine clinic in a hospital 10 mins before it closes.

Everyone who is vaccinated is helping to drive down the infection rate, whatever their age, and I think we can all agree that it's better to use that dose for someone - anyone - than to bin it.

My understanding is the jab has a short shelf life. It’s probably better to give it to someone and not waste it rather than waste time waiting for a high priority person

@Snog

My point is it's not hard to find someone in groups 1-9 for a spare dose.

Off you pop then OP, give Matt Hancock or whoever a ring and offer your services as Covid Vaccine Rollout Ninja as you clearly understand how it should be working far better than the professors, doctors, Army and everyone else who set the system up.

All because you clearly dislike your SIL and are jealous she got a jab.

Wind your neck in. You are being fucking ridiculous.

At the end of the day I think a combination of lockdown, BBC hype, and lack of our 'normal' lives are really skewing how people are thinking and feeling. It's hard, and we've all made sacrifices for so long. Just try and feel happy when anybody who really wants to be vaccinated gets the chance to be. Your chance will come OP and like others have said, it probably helps improve the overall picture. Hope you feel better soon.

They could easily check people's id to see if they were over 50 i.e group 1-9

Trying to get some elderly, CEV people to get ready & out of the house is like trying to get an aircraft carrier to turn round on a tuppence. It can’t be done quickly. (My Mum, well & Dad - although he is in a care home now - take forever to get ready & out of the house). Having her on a call list for a spare vaccine dose would have been laughable.

Just yesterday I took her to the doctors for her Oxford 1st dose. Arrived at hers at 11.15am, had to get her wheelchair out, check the tyre pressure (she only uses it if she goes out as she can’t walk far). Tyres flat. Switch chair to horrible small wheeled one which is bloody hard to push (I have my own disability).

Put down back of car to fit it in, help Mum out of house & into car. On stick so slow going. Finally get to Docs for jab at 11.55am, get chair from car, put the foot plates on, adjust to right height, get Mum from car, into chair & into the Surgery.

Total journey time, 8 mins, 3 miles away.

They can’t just jump up & be out the door lol!

She’s only been out twice since Feb 2020, one regular cancer clinic appointment (she’s in remission, thankfully) in Sept & yesterday. It’s like taking a little mole blinking into the sunlight.

I couldn’t give a fruit if a spare dose gets given to anyone, if the other option is binning it. If it had been at the end of the day & there was a spare dose, of course I would’ve accepted it.

Managing spare vaccine isn't as easy as people make it sound.

Aside from the logistics of managing waiting lists or on-call lists - which take staffing resource - there's also the fact that vaccinators have to be trained.

In case people still don't know it - the NHS is on its knees. Finding enough staff to cover everything when we have our own list of people off with COVID or isolating is incredibly, incredibly hard. And vaccinators need to have the appropriate (and vaccine-specific) training as well.

So magicking up a vaccinator to be in the same place at the same time as an ad hoc person from a waiting list isn't easy. Preventing vaccine wastage is the top priority, and that has to be managed within the constraints of what is possible. Elaborate schemes will be far less efficient in reducing wastage than shoving the vaccine into the nearest available arm and then doing the paperwork.

Stop moaning.

Here staff are taking people off the street at the end of the day to use up vaccine. Should people be saying no to this?

They should be (easily) checking that they are over 50 or turning 50 this year imo - I'm surprised the government aren't mandating this - then its all contributing towards their stated target which they would get to crow about earlier.

Wasn't it Chris Whitty who said in one of the recent briefings that using spares in this way was the sensible option. But I guess he's wrong too...

These vaccines have a certain one they need to be used within, so any spares are going to people they know can get their quickly to have it, rather than chucking it in the bin. SIL having it V going in the bin? 🤷‍♀️ Which is more beneficial?

It’s a bit annoying. My nearly 70 yo DMs much younger colleagues are all getting vaccinated today with spares (I assume, local hosp has phoned to say they can have them today so not sure how it all works) because they are supposed to be public facing (think counselling/social work type jobs). However they are all working from home for the foreseeable yet she’s one of the few having to go into the building.

It’s like taking a little mole blinking into the sunlight.

Not all oldies are like this though. My DPs (72 and 77) could literally nip out to the car, drive to the surgery and be there in no more than 15 mins. Depends how old/how healthy they are.

I've got my first jab soon and I don't feel worthy (working at home but a frontline mental health care worker.) I see mine as a step forward to face to face work, which is better for many people. I feel teachers deserve it more as they are with children and colleagues now. However I don't make the rules and my jab will hopefully mean one less link in the transmission chain. However the vaccine programme is done someone will not be happy. It cannot be perfect.