Illegally obtaining jabs

[Kijaji]

What do people think about lying pretending to be a carer to get a COVID jab? A friend of mine who is in their early 20's has done exactly this and is pushing me to do the same, I am so shocked that this is happening and actually disgusted at said friend for blatantly lying just to get the jab as they have holidays booked abroad later on in the year!

You can see your friend for what she really is. I would not trust her.

I did it two weeks ago. I'm late 40s in an area where they are still not doing 40s and I live with my CEV husband. I work two people facing jobs. I am not his carer but research has shown that the vaccination is likely to be ineffective for him. I was really scared. I tried theGP but didn't get past the receptionist who said it wasn't down to them, so I put myself down as an unpaid carer and got the jab. The next day the rules changed for people who live with people who are CEV and I would now be entitled to it so I don't feel as bad. It was a horrible stressful time and I'm glad I did it even though I feel ashamed too .

This could have been solved by releasing some vaccine for private purchase. I would have quite happily paid to be vaccinated early

This would have been over run with those able to pay, when statistically you are more likely to get covid in over crowded areas. It would be detrimental to the poorer people.
I’m glad they haven’t allowed this to happen.

I’m sure it will happen when the majority of people have been vaccinated.

I am pissed off at the queue jumpers. Wait your turn! I have lots of little things that don't quite put me in group 6, I'm a secondary teacher so exposed 5 days a week, and doing IVF. I'd bloody love the vaccine! All the queue jumpers mean my vaccine will be later. Selfish.

There are many genuine unpaid carers - my DH is one - who are not registered anywhere and just get on with the job of caring.

Vaccinating carers is not just about protecting the vulnerable. If a genuine carer was admitted to hospital with CV the person they are caring for may not be able to cope alone and could potentially need support from social care or admission to an appropriate care environment. So it is essential that unpaid carers who are actually caring have access to the vaccine.

That said, I have personally vaccinated a lot of young males in their twenties who claim to be carers for their Grandmas. I actually doubt a single one of them is providing personal care by helping granny to wash or taking them to the toilet. One even admitted in a later conversation that his granny worked in a supermarket. So there are a lot of liars out there and I am relieved that the national booking system has belatedly removed the facility to self-identify as a carer.

I hope genuine carers continue to come forward and would encourage anyone this applies to to contact their GP to be added to the list. We will be happy to see you.

I have no words for anyone who has lied and delayed other people from getting a priority vaccine.

I take an equally dim view of commercial organisations - nurseries I am looking at you in particular - who have facilitated lying at scale to protect their businesses.

And dare I mention volunteers? Most are amazing and we could not run the hub without their incredible support. But we have also had a few CFs who turned up for one shift, had their vaccine and haven't been seen since.

"I hope genuine carers continue to come forward and would encourage anyone this applies to to contact their GP to be added to the list. We will be happy to see you."

Unfortunately there has been the issue of GP surgeries refusing to add people to the list when it was completely reasonable that they should be. That shows how little unpaid carers are valued.

It’s a really good thing to use up vaccines at the end of the day that would otherwise be wasted I don’t know why people are even mentioning that here. They would otherwise go in the bin. There should have been a government waiting list service and resources spent to allow that to happen in a controlled way though.
It’s a horrible sellfish thing for healthy people with no particular caring responsibilities to lie and pretend to be unpaid carers. Depriving others of their turn and generally breaking the care for others that we all need to have to keep each other safe in a global pandemic. It’s being like Dominic Cummings breaking rules, basically, means it’s that much easier to break the rules for everyone because everyone thinks nobody else is sticking to them.
I also agree the government is likely to vastly underestimate the number of people who DO have unpaid and vital caring responsibilities though. You can tell that because they responded by tightening up guidelines this giving more work to GPs. And not by going ‘oh shit, let’s look under the tip of this unpaid care iceberg we’ve just found and investigate this.’
Adirondack is a clear example of where government guidelines are written by a non diverse group of privileged blokes with no experience or curiosity about how normal people live. She should have been on the list in the first place.

I dont think the unpaid carer loophole would have been there if supply had been bigger to allow them to rollout to the 40s.

I am not justifying anyone who lied to get a jab at all, but we got to a point tOnwards the end of March where clinics were told not to offer to under 50s and some places had more supply than group 1-9 people. The vaccine head to be used up. Some clinics still rolled out to under 50s despite being told not to. Others opted to call a local school or police station for the 30 or so doses they would have going. The national booking sites filled their spaces essentially with unpaid carers, until the supply dwindled to a level where there really wasn’t much for 1st jabs and then closed the loophole.

Was the loophole a mistake and they hadn’t spotted it could lead to easy fraud or was it put there temporarily , to ensure the vaccine got used but they wouldn’t yet roll out to 40s as it wouldn’t be sustainable? Hard to know really.

With a system which relies on speed and efficiency it has to be broad brush. Very thorough checks of everyone slows it down and whilst it might make it fairer at an individual level, the system has to be about efficiency and speed and that does mean sacrificing some fairness at individual level. There are winners and losers at individual level even when the system allows speed and efficiency and society as a whole wins from it. Seems to me that the 40s particularly have been the losers here. Those who wanted the vaccine and were prepared to lie were the winners. The jab was that available has gone into arms if individuals and society as a whole is benefitting from increasing numbers being partly or fully immunised.

The government is watching the bigger picture. Within that, there is a broad order system, but it is broad and not a precise queue where everyone has an exact position. Adding extra CEV people, those living with the immunisuporessed, adults with learning difficulties etc over time has altered the order and pushed some people further down as more knowledge about factors increasing risk has increased. They have to tolerate (and rightly so) the fact that some groups wait longer than they wanted and not everyone is pleased or being done as soon as they hoped, in order to drive the system with the knowledge and supply they have. Reduced supply for April came along in April and impacted 40s rollout. If it had happened in March, it would have led to a delay at 50s point probably.

Was government right to stop official rollout to 40s and instead allow unpaid careers to book and a loophole to develop? Would it have been better to allow local areas to decide their priorities which is what essentially happened with many GP led vaccine sites who did still call 40s? Should they have stopped chasing those in older grouos who hadn’t been jabbed and rollout to younger groups? Should they have started rollout to 40s and then stopped mid-way when supply dried up for 1st doses? Funnily enough the way people answer these Qs and tend to view them depends on who they are, their age and which answer would benefit themselves or their loved ones. That’s understandable. We probably will never know why the government went with the choices it did but they will have had some reason behind it which was broadly about speed and efficiency of rollout and accepted some would win and some wait a bit longer because of those decisions. Not all could be done first.

There is a lot of frothing. People froth mostly when they are still waiting or their family is. Once they are jabbed they don’t tend to pay so much interest. Lots of people have a strong sense of the ‘right’ order to jab people.....but of course not everyone agrees on this.

Wombat, in my experience it's not those in their forties that have been rolling up in their dozens having self-declared that they care for someone who would vulnerable without their input. It's been males under the age of 25.

And yes it pisses me off as you can probably tell. meanwhile there are probably plenty of actual carers in their forties who would meet the criteria but have been reluctant to come forward. ..

It's human nature I know, apparently the titanic was never the women and children first of legend, but honestly would anyone want to be in a relationship with someone who lies and cheats so readily?

Which law have they broken?

I'm not condoning it at all but its certainly not illegal. Immoral yes.

Having said that I know quite a few people who have had jabs early by queuing for end of day spares or being contacted by a GP who has spares (and have phoned around local schools). This is better than doses going to waste but I do wish that this had been formalised into a better system with a standby list system to prioritise certain groups. Instead its a lottery system which favours those in the know and the ability/time to spend trying to get one on the off chance. It is fundamentally better than actively lying to get a jab and be priortised for it. Ultiimately thats an issue that goes back to government decision making and planning. It would be immoral to waste vaccine under the circumstances and ultimately as long as its going into someone's arm at the end of a daily session rather than the bin, I think its legitimate. SOMEONE should get those doses.

There's definitely two distinct groups here. One who are actively lying and one who are priviledged and getting lucky.

I’ve had a friend do this, she even pushed me to do it, going so far as to try and book me an appointment until I told her to pack it in! Sadly I think this is very common now, very selfish and results in those who need it more getting pushed down the line. I’m happy to wait my turn, but do see some friends in a very different light now.

"Was government right to stop official rollout to 40s and instead allow unpaid careers to book and a loophole to develop?"

Unpaid carers have been listed as in priority group 6 since December. The problem is that the government have never wanted to think about them. Apart from those who get carers allowance, they are not recognised. No one in government has any idea who is doing what and doesn't want to know.

results in those who need it more getting pushed down the line.

But this is totally untrue.

ALL the priority groups have been done.

This is the difference between someone aged 25 or 45 getting it done.

Their risk is nearly identical. If a 25 year old has lied to get a jab, and that delays a 44 year old getting it, it makes not a jot of difference to the overall risk.
It’s annoying for the 35 year olds wanting their vaccine passports to go on holiday but it’s bullshit to pretend any lives have been put at risk by this.

I am a carer. My GP has no first vacinnes at the moment so I can't have one which is dangerous for my DM. I'm not pissed of about people lying but I am pissed off that there isn't enough to go round and I can't help it but I am also pissed of that people who are obese (which is mostly a lifestyle choice) are getting it before people who have no choice with their health

I know someone who did this because her DM is immunosuppressed. She is not her carer and doesn’t live with her, but wants to be able to see her without worrying so much about transmitting Covid. I think it’s fine tbh

@gottakeeponmovin

I am a carer. My GP has no first vacinnes at the moment so I can't have one which is dangerous for my DM. I'm not pissed of about people lying but I am pissed off that there isn't enough to go round and I can't help it but I am also pissed of that people who are obese (which is mostly a lifestyle choice) are getting it before people who have no choice with their health

But the jabs have been available for carers for nearly 3 months Why not get one back then, before the supply issues started?

This is the difference between someone aged 25 or 45 getting it done...their risk is nearly identical

Absolute rubbish and you know it. There's a reason the NHS does health checks at 40+.

The risk of serious illness or death rises from 40, significantly so from 45.

The recent announcements over AZ state the increased risk of covid for people in their 40s.

Lots of people in their 40s will have underlying conditions not yet diagnosed. They're also at higher risk for long covid.

Many higher risk people including those in the clinically vulnerable group now have to wait longer before full protection. The delay to first dose appointments (caused by lying healthy 20s booking as unpaid carers) means a longer wait for second dose. I know because I'm CV and had to wait several weeks for my appointment. All the slots were booked up.

If there's a system, someone will be cheating it. Now that all the vulnerable people have been offered it, I'm not that bothered.

There's also been a serious issue with unequal distribution.

The postcode lottery is very wrong.

Why do some places have so much excess supply that they can call in loads of healthy younger people on standby, whilst other (often higher risk areas) have such limited stock?

ALL the priority groups have not heard back done at all. My DC are in group 6 and cannot get booked in due to a shortage of Pfizer in our area. Anyone who has obtained a vaccine illegally should be ashamed of themselves.

@Marcia1989 I am immunosuppressed and my DC who live with me cannot get done. So it's not fine that your friend lied. Not on at all.

India and other places included 45+ in their first phase rollouts for a reason (I think it was 40 in Israel).

All the vulnerable haven't been done.
Most have only had their first dose, and people in their 40s are vulnerable (as are those in their 30s - to long covid).

@Tealightsandd

There's also been a serious issue with unequal distribution.

The postcode lottery is very wrong.

Why do some places have so much excess supply that they can call in loads of healthy younger people on standby, whilst other (often higher risk areas) have such limited stock?

This is more the issue than spares and queue jumpers imho. People don't understand why.

There are lots of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who have been called up legitimately ahead of older people in other areas. Its possible this is deliberate to keep up vaccination rates in small geographical areas due to lower uptake in older groups but I don't think this has been explained / justified.

@GappyValley that's nonsense. There will be negligible risk difference between a 50 year old and a 49 year old. But the 49 year old has a totally different risk profile to the 25 year old.

We are having work on our house right now. The two young lads working for the builder have both had 'unpaid carer' jabs. I'm old enough to be their mother and still waiting. I think it's shameful.

I wonder too about those saying they are groups 1-9 in England and can’t book. All of those have been eligible for almost a month and many far longer.

Why are you only now looking to book once supply has declined? Why didn’t you do what the advice over and over again was, which was to book as soon as eligible?

Lumpy supply means it won’t always be as easy to book and the longer people take to do it, the longer it is for official rollout to younger groups.

@Rillington do they specifically need Pfizer? Most queue-jumpers will have had az anyway.