Has anyone successfully got hold of a second Pfizer dose yet?
I am now 9 weeks on from my first Pfizer dose. I had Novavax in Oct/Nov last year, was unblinded and given a letter by my trial site allowing me to get two doses of Pfizer 8 weeks apart. I was slightly ahead of the JCVI guidance as my lead doctor was happy to approve two doses of Pfizer before the guidance changed so that I could travel. First one was no big problem – I went to the vaccination centre at the hospital, got my dose, and it appeared on the app a few days later.
Fast forward, and I turned up this morning for a walk in appointment as I don’t seem to be able to book online. That should have been a warning – I was told by the trial site I could go either to the centre attached to the trial site or to the other big teaching hospital locally that they are working very closely with, but not to go to any other vaccination centre as they wouldn’t know how to make arrangements for trial participants. The trial site centre isn’t as convenient as the other teaching hospital so I turned up there this morning, queued for 45 minutes, registered and got as far as the booth, with my sleeve rolled up. The nurse tried to call up my details and enter the vaccination details, and hit a problem. Lots of waiting ensued while various people came in to try and sort it out, before eventually the lead doctor appeared and said that actually, my first Pfizer dose is treated by the system as my second (because I had Novovax, and those two trial doses are effectively now the first vaccine dose on their system) and that therefore I need to wait three months for my second dose, which will be treated as a booster. That’s another month away.
I’m not particularly concerned about antibodies at this point – I work in an academic setting where I’m exposed to people all day, I am sure I had Covid in May last year, and have had three jabs of various types, so I think I’m good for protection. But the lack of joined up thinking is really frustrating. I know there are other things to worry about but I spent two hours wasting everyone’s time, including holding up the queue for boosters this morning.
I don’t particularly mind if my next jab is marked as a booster or not – I suppose at least it means that while the world and his dog is getting boosted, I will at least be showing as having had a booster when they finally get round to it, as I was a bit worried about 2 x Pfizer taking me back to square one in that regard.
I’ve already turned down two work trips this year which would have helped my career because of this stupid vaccine situation, so this is really frustrating. On the other hand, I am really glad I didn’t go ahead and book a holiday for February on the promise from the trial site that I’d have had two doses of Pfizer by now – I was about to do it just as the Omicron news hit, so decided to hold off a little and see.