Covid Vaccine Distribution

[Amethyst]

We have high speed internet.

Some of the issues are:

The governor opened up vaccines to anybody over 65, which is nearly the entire population of Florida. (People in old folks' homes are a separate distribution where the vaccine is supposed to be brought in - they don't have to scrap for it).

Each county was told to figure out for themselves how to distribute their allocation. Ours chose this method, which was a guaranteed cluster.

There is nothing to stop people from one county from poaching another county's vaccine distribution. Or even people from other states.

What a cluster, so people without high speed internet just wait to the end?

 

[Aerides]

The governor opened up vaccines to anybody over 65, which is nearly the entire population of Florida. (People in old folks' homes are a separate distribution where the vaccine is supposed to be brought in - they don't have to scrap for it).

Each county was told to figure out for themselves how to distribute their allocation. Ours chose this method, which was a guaranteed cluster.

And in some of these counties - that's a whole lot of people. 400k over 65's in Palm Beach County. So if you have even 300k of them pounding the website every morning for 5000 appointments, there ya go. The phone lines were abandoned in a few days.

Nothing is built for that kind of demand without a lot of planning. It's like having amazon confirm 300,000 orders for $19 instapots on black friday, if amazon was just built last weekend.

 

[MrsHaloFIRE]

Read a pretty good article on TPR (Texas Public Radio) that the loval Veterans Affairs district was going to commence vaccine clinics on Saturdays something like 9-3. They were prepared to do something like 2k vaccines per day if the demand was there. They were starting with over 75, appts preferred but you could just show. If you were under 75 you coudl still show up and hang around for any unused doses. NO guarantees. And based on how many over 75s they have affiliated in the area, they expected to do ALOT of Saturdays ebfore the lowered the age bracket for the next round. Well this past Sat was their first vaccine clinic day. ANd I noticed on their FB page that they put out the all call for 65 and under around 11am, about 2 hours into the day there. SO sounds like word was slow to get out and the demand just wasnt there. I wuld have DH straphang and wait for an available dose but they are doing pfizer only there and I think i want him with moderna. Im reading about less chance of anaphalysis on that one, please chime in if Im incorrect.

So to give this context, this is a huge city with a HUGE demand. REWAHOO posts regularly about all the slots filling in a couple minutes etc etc. And the VA clinic seemed to be hurting for people willing to get shots on Saturday. Interesting. Also lots of local concern for those without transportation, what they are calling Abuelita at home (Im reading this on comments on local new articles online) which I take to mean shes not very mobile, the shots wont come to her, but its difficult to et her to a shot even if they got her a slot. These things I hope will shake out in the near future.

 

[W2R]

My 78-year-old brother, who volunteered for the Pfizer vaccine trials, was finally informed today that he was in the vaccine group, not the placebo group. So he doesn't have to sign up for vaccination after all since he has already BTDT.

This floored him, because he had paid for the antibody test to be done at the appropriate interval after his vaccination, and it came out negative. So he thought all along that he was in the placebo group! But no.

Anyway, he says it is great to know that he is vaccinated for COVID-19. He had zero side effects. Today he happily went shopping at multiple stores, with his mask on and social distancing. Of course he could have done all that before being vaccinated, as it is all within the permitted guidelines, but feels safer about it now. There, like here, the restrictions remain essentially the same before and after being vaccinated.

 

[Music Lover]

Nothing is built for that kind of demand without a lot of planning. It's like having amazon confirm 300,000 orders for $19 instapots on black friday, if amazon was just built last weekend.

Poor analogy. Vaccinations have been around for decades, not just since last weekend, and they've had several months to prepare.

 

[Aerides]

Poor analogy. Vaccinations have been around for decades, not just since last weekend, and they've had several months to prepare.

It's clear they squandered the months to prepare, and just propped up these sign-up processes in a few weeks. We're all trying to hammer these sites and phone lines that aren't built for the demand.

That vaccinations have been around for decades was the parallel with Amazon. Amazon is old (tech wise) and can handle big surges of demand. Local-health-dept dinky website is small and new and can't handle 500 hits per hour, let alone 300k.

 

[REWahoo]

My 78-year-old brother, who volunteered for the Pfizer vaccine trials, was finally informed today that he was in the vaccine group, not the placebo group. So he doesn't have to sign up for vaccination after all since he has already BTDT.

Many thanks to your brother and all the others who volunteered to test the vaccines.

 

[Music Lover]

I don't know if there's a reason why it wasn't done, but couldn't signups have started months ago to prevent a backlog at the last minute?

 

[blueskyk]

Just received notice that vaccinations are open for 70+ starting next Monday. So far, a little over 3% (about 110K doses given so far) of the population has been vaccinated. I’m a little surprised the method to schedule the vaccination is a phone call to the local health department. Seems like pairing this with a means to make an appointment online would be helpful and perhaps this will come along in short order.

Near as I can tell, everyone here seems to be working hard to get things done.

 

[garyt]

So you want to punish all the citizens of a state with poor distribution management 2 weeks into this by denying them the vaccine? .

How would you be punishing them? If their state already has a backlog they're not using not giving them more till they catch up isn't punishing anyone.

 

[sengsational]

Opening up available slots at a specific time and having the quickest on the draw get the appointment is really a dumb idea. Why not have a casual "registration page", where if you were ready, willing and able for a vaccination in the next three days, you'd fill it out. You randomly select "winners" and SMS or email them. If they don't confirm, the slot goes to the next guy. And just like the airlines, overbook by a percentage to cover no-shows. You'd match throughput or supply, whatever your bottleneck.

 

[JoeWras]

Opening up available slots at a specific time and having the quickest on the draw get the appointment is really a dumb idea. Why not have a casual "registration page", where if you were ready, willing and able for a vaccination in the next three days, you'd fill it out. You randomly select "winners" and SMS or email them. If they don't confirm, the slot goes to the next guy. And just like the airlines, overbook by a percentage to cover no-shows. You'd match throughput or supply, whatever your bottleneck.

I was going to send my private thanks by hitting the button, but I'll do it in public instead.

Thanks! Great post!

It baffles me that this hasn't been done like this. Hell, our country was able to do something similar in a complete reverse manner. It was called the draft lottery.

 

[Amethyst]

With respect to my crummy experience - considering somebody snapped up 3 days' worth of vaccine appointments in 9 minutes, the web site obviously could handle the demand. Just not my demand.

It's clear they squandered the months to prepare, and just propped up these sign-up processes in a few weeks. We're all trying to hammer these sites and phone lines that aren't built for the demand.
.

 

[ivinsfan]

I don't know if there's a reason why it wasn't done, but couldn't signups have started months ago to prevent a backlog at the last minute?

Is this a serious question? Explain how that would have worked..Do you remember what happened to the IRA website when EVERONE tried to log on at the same time because they were impatient about their free money?

The IRA website is way more robust then these local entities.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

My MIL (78) tried calling the line to register for the vaccine via the Fairfax, VA county health department. She says she redialed over 200 times before she got through, and by that time they were closed to new appointments. She is writing a very stern complaint letter, of course.

 

[Chuckanut]

It's been reported that because of manpower issues many communities are doing very little to verify employment or age requirements for vaccines and are using the honor system, assuming people are reporting the correct information. I'm sure more than a few are willing to lie to jump ahead.

I heard an interesting comment today from a member of Biden's CV Advisory Team. He thinks that various rules and regulations on who gets the vaccine when are just causing delays and confusing. His recommendation was simple. Do it by age. It's easy to verify, and hits 90%+ of the most vulnerable people.

KISS.

Edit: The above was to be done after the front line workers are all vaccinated.

 

[JoeWras]

I heard an interesting comment today from a member of Biden's CV Advisory Team. He thinks that various rules and regulations on who gets the vaccine when are just causing delays and confusing. His recommendation was simple. Do it by age. It's easy to verify, and hits 90%+ of the most vulnerable people.

KISS.

I'll ask my 40 something physician friend working the front lines what she thinks about this and get back to you.

 

[Chuckanut]

I'll ask my 40 something physician friend working the front lines what she thinks about this and get back to you.

I forget to include the part about getting the to vaccine front line workers first. It's hard to argue with that. Full disclosure - I have a family member who works in a Covid Ward. She has had both her shots. I now sleep a lot better.

 

[Aerides]

I'll ask my 40 something physician friend working the front lines what she thinks about this and get back to you.

While there are bound to be many POV's, the "age- down" approach is defined based on who is most likely to survive a bout with Covid. Those over 70 are leaps and bounds higher risk of death, than those in their 40's - unless there are very severe co-morbidities.

One can definitely argue that those actually providing care to covid patients should also immediately qualify (and they mostly already have) because society cannot afford them being out sick - even if their survival rates are far closer to 100% than those over even 60. But unfortunately we've all read that most hospitals and health care facilities have already stretched the definition of front line, giving the vaccine to admin-back-office only folks.

I think we can all agree that it's a mess, still, and no one solution is ideal for everyone.

 

[ivinsfan]

I heard an interesting comment today from a member of Biden's CV Advisory Team. He thinks that various rules and regulations on who gets the vaccine when are just causing delays and confusing. His recommendation was simple. Do it by age. It's easy to verify, and hits 90%+ of the most vulnerable people.

KISS.

hindsight 20/20 but I always thought there was way too much fine tuning at work here.. The more you tune, the longer it takes to get stuff done. Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

However everyone including the Biden group was in agreement before the vaccinations started.

 

[cathy63]

Locally, we have a new vaccine super-center at Petco Park that can do 5K vaccines per day: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2021-01-11/covid

It's still only open to healthcare providers and you need an appointment and proof of employment, but it seems like progress.

 

[Gumby]

hindsight 20/20 but I always thought there was way too much fine tuning at work here.. The more you tune, the longer it takes to get stuff done. Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

However everyone including the Biden group was in agreement before the vaccinations started.

Precisely so. A wild west free-for-all is unworkable, but so is micromanagement. Let's all keep our eyes on the prize - getting a vaccine in every arm in the shortest amount of time. In all things we should be striving for efficiency and speed.

 

[Another Reader]

My 78-year-old brother, who volunteered for the Pfizer vaccine trials, was finally informed today that he was in the vaccine group, not the placebo group. So he doesn't have to sign up for vaccination after all since he has already BTDT.

This floored him, because he had paid for the antibody test to be done at the appropriate interval after his vaccination, and it came out negative. So he thought all along that he was in the placebo group! But no.

Anyway, he says it is great to know that he is vaccinated for COVID-19. He had zero side effects. Today he happily went shopping at multiple stores, with his mask on and social distancing. Of course he could have done all that before being vaccinated, as it is all within the permitted guidelines, but feels safer about it now. There, like here, the restrictions remain essentially the same before and after being vaccinated.

Vaccinated but no antibodies That's concerning. I would think the result of a vaccine that is designed to produce antibodies would be...antibodies! I might make a call to Pfizer to discuss this before heading out to the stores...

 

[Sunset]

IL has been holding back 1/2 the doses, so they can do the 2nd dose for folks. While the Feds have been only shipping 1/2 the doses for the same reason...

Cook County had the website up to register, so 40K people did, only it was supposed to be just for health care workers, and was not clear about that. Lots of regular people signed up.

Very disappointing and confusing, and I have zero clue to even guess when a shot will be available, really hoping by next Summer.

 

[W2R]

Vaccinated but no antibodies That's concerning. I would think the result of a vaccine that is designed to produce antibodies would be...antibodies! I might make a call to Pfizer to discuss this before heading out to the stores...

Of course he did discuss this with Pfizer, at his appointment where he found all this out. They said it was a false positive antibody test, and he said they didn't seem too surprised. I guess the antibody tests are not as reliable as one might hope.