Can the 40-49 age group now book their vaccine?

[Summergirl76]

Sister’s boyfriend (43) was able today to book his vaccine by entering his details on the national booking site (he is Derby based). Sister late 30s tried too but it said she was not eligible. Her husband tried last week and was also not eligible. Just wondered if anyone else has tried in the 40s age group and been able to book?

@Roszie
You can cancel and rebook, but be aware there's no guarantee of availability (on a date and at a location you want) if you do that. It probably depends on demand in your area.

@IWantAllTheDogsInTheWorld yay

Thank you I'll let her know.

Thanks @BunsyGirl

@ladygindiva

Am I right in thinking that being offered a second appointment that is approx 10/11 weeks after the first indicates that it will be astrazeneca? Looks like moderna and pfizer require a sooner second dose.

According to the bbc website the interval for Moderna is 4 to 12 weeks. Ive got mine booked tomorrow and the 2nd is just under 12 weeks. Its at the Madejeski stadium which does have Moderna but whether i will get it i dont know.

@ladygindiva

Am I right in thinking that being offered a second appointment that is approx 10/11 weeks after the first indicates that it will be astrazeneca? Looks like moderna and pfizer require a sooner second dose.

I had moderna today and my 2nd appt is end of June. I think they are making the same decisions that they did with other vaccines, that yes a certain amount of days would be optimal but research / experts say that it can wait a number of weeks?

Or they may bring my appt forward- not sure.

Logically, surely the NHS must know in advance which venues are getting which vaccine for the next three months, if they’re booking in second jabs at the same time? No point booking second jabs now if it’s a random allocation they won’t know about until nearer the time. But they are, so they must have some idea...?

Right. Just in case it misleads anyone, I've asked MNHQ to delete my earlier post.

Good luck to everyone on here still trying to book. I hope you get something soon (and hopefully relatively easy to get to).

Given the amount of social media ads targeting older Londoners who haven’t taken up the offer of a vaccine, I suspect that the capital is soaking up quite significant resource in terms of the cost of trying to get people through the door. Quite the opposite of being ‘last in the queue’ 🙄

To an extent it is @CallforHecate
For all the other Londoners, who do want it but have had to wait whilst efforts are made to persuade the hesitant.

There's an additional risk to people living in London (and Birmingham). They're in the frontline of international travel.

The extent of hesitancy is particularly shit for vulnerable Londoners. Vaccines are not 100% protection especially for the very elderly and possibly the immunocompromised. I wouldn't begrudge the social media adverts. If I was extremely vulnerable, I'd rather be somewhere that has less 'resources' spent on social media but higher level of vaccine take up.

It's in everyone's interest, UK wide, that effort is made to tackle vaccine hesitancy. It increases the risk of a third wave, and there is concern low take up makes us vulnerable to mutated strains.

@Tealightsandd

Sorry *@user34254356* Don't take my word for it! It's just me speculating in an overly cynical way. I'm being influenced by Sadiq Khan, who seems to think the government is treating London unfairly. Probably just political jibes.

I've no idea how it gets decided who gets what really.

From a safety point of view, all drugs can cause rare side effects. I think there was something linked to Moderna? As with AZ, extremely rare.

3 sites in london are getting Moderna out of 20 in England as I posted yesterday. I don’t know which though.

I’m not begrudging it. I’m pointing out that you’re talking nonsense.

Does anyone know if Stoke on Trent is getting Moderna?

I’m booked in but am terrified of side effects (I’m actually more scared if nausea/sickness than blood clots!)

@user34254356 im in sw and surgeries here are all different stages a neighbouring one was offering jabs early 40's / late 30's about 5/6 weeks ago
So ifs not just london
My 50 year old friend got his weeks before my 64 year old mum and live a mile away same town but different surgeries

Tealightsaand

It's in everyone's interest, UK wide, that effort is made to tackle vaccine hesitancy. It increases the risk of a third wave, and there is concern low take up makes us vulnerable to mutated strains.”

Absolutely this. Becoming increasingly frustrated too with the hyper caution over the vaccine/clot issue. A programme that will save many thousands of lives in the US is the latest to be suspended after 6 clots after 7 million vaccines (1 was fatal).
Every medicine carries extremely rare side effects, that’s why there’s a leaflet in every box.
Yes, of course, it’s horrendous for those families but people fall ill or die after taking aspirin, paracetamol or ibuprofen (which can be quite dodgy for people with hitherto unknown gastric issues) but they’re available over the counter for 39p.

For context, I have veinous insufficiency and frequent phlebitis. No concern about being vaccinated whatsoever. And I was absolutely fine.

It’s

[quote worriedatthemoment]@user34254356 im in sw and surgeries here are all different stages a neighbouring one was offering jabs early 40's / late 30's about 5/6 weeks ago
So ifs not just london
My 50 year old friend got his weeks before my 64 year old mum and live a mile away same town but different surgeries [/quote]
Yes true, it's just a postcode lottery. Hopefully we can all book soon.

It’s interesting, because in many areas, vaccine hesitancy has been addressed with sustained campaigns, but also a further rollout to younger age groups to boost the level of herd immunity within that geographical area.

It’s not quite clear what’s happened in London. A younger population and lower take up has clearly resulted in a sustained campaign to combat hesitancy, but not along with the big push to younger groups to ensure overall %S of vaccinated are raised to boost geographical concentration of vaccination....unless there have been attempts to do this and take up amongst them has also been low. London does seem an anomaly.

I agree it’s really important to plug away at the hesitant groups, especially the more vulnerable of them. Hesitancy is actually likely to be higher in younger groups so we really need the very high figures amongst cohorts 1-9. Perhaps it has been supply that has prevented much stronger parallel rollout to younger groups in London too. It’s not clear why things are different there.

Out of curiosity does anyone know which are the 3 sites in London that have Moderna? Info doesn’t seem to be available online.

Btw this thread has been an extremely useful. DH is a bit skeptical about MN but he can now see how useful it can be!

It's not quite clear what happened in London. A younger population
I think that's it! Now it makes a bit more sense.Proportionally it's a younger population - but in terms of sheer numbers, it's the largest elderly population in the UK. Presumably it just takes longer to get through all of them. Even with high hesitancy, there's still many many who do want it.

@Lalalablahblahblah

It would seem that London in particular is a region that they should absolutely have been pushing ahead with younger groups, possibly even more so that in other regions. I really don't know why this hasn't been happening. With the vaccine hesitancy, the fact that it's a travel hub and the evidence that they have a pretty big problem with varients in at least Wandsworth, Lambeth and now Southwark too, if argue that other regions who are pushing ahead with under 45 groups should maybe think about having that excess diverted to London. particularly those boroughs

We have to invite someone three times on three separate occasions before we can code them as 'declined'. This takes a lot longer than offering a vaccine to someone who'll book immediately. Only after we have offered the vaccine to everyone in a group (lots of them three times due to vaccine hesitancy) we are allowed to move down to the next group. This is why it's taking longer in London, higher rates of hesitancy.

I thought the same @Lalalablahblahblah
Hopefully there's good booking availability for 45+ in those boroughs? I've got friends in Lambeth but they're under 45 so I'm not sure how it's going. I'd say Birmingham (as the other red list international hub in England) is another priority for 45+. Also all other areas of high hesitancy.

Thanks for explaining @ExpulsoCorona
So areas with high hesitancy might be slower to rollout to 40s?

@Tealightsandd

Thanks for explaining *@ExpulsoCorona* So areas with high hesitancy might be slower to rollout to 40s?

Yes, this is what's happening. It takes so long to book hesitant people. The initial invite will usually be a text message, usually followed by another text. Then a phone call. Sometimes the phone number in the records is incorrect, people don't always notify the GP when they change numbers. Sometimes after a bit of discussion with a GP they'll agree and get booked in. Sometimes they say 'I'll think about it'. If they don't book, after a bit of chasing we can mark that person as 'declined' and move on. Once we've documented that a certain percentage of the group has been invited enough times, we're allowed to move on. In the first week of our roll-out in December, we had to call approximately 2000 patients to fill 1000 slots, this was before we had the text system. The text system has been a lifesaver. Luckily hesitancy is a lot less than it was back then but we then had to go back and book those patients in when they changed their minds.

And now similarly two streets down surgeries are racing ahead but mine is still struggling to get through the 1-9 cohorts. Hence clearly my views are coloured by personal experience.

I think there are similar experiences everywhere though, and to a large extent is due to logistics. I’ve been following these threads for far too long and a few weeks ago we were hearing about 20- and 30 year olds in London being called when in my area they were still calling the over 60s.

And to be honest, although I’m of the opinion that there is no low to which Boris wouldn’t stoop, even I struggle to imagine that “don’t give London any vaccines” is one of them.