Jags - And something I learned today ...
 

I saw this article and thought the anger was about "back-office" staff getting new company cars :ROFL:

Coronavirus: Anger over jags for 'back office' NHS staff
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...ice-nhs-staff/

Then I figured it must be typo, until I noticed the word is repeatedly used throughout the article.

Turns out, in Scotland, jag = jab :lol:

I never knew that!

There'd probably less anger if they were getting cars. :ROFL: I have heard a credible story about office staff getting "jags" before other, more relevant, staff especially where there has been surplus doses from an opened pack of the Pfizer/Biontec vaccine.

Probably worth mentioning the real reasons that things like this have been occurring.....

The Pfizer vaccine is, for reasons best known to Pfizer, tricky to store and handle. It comes as deep frozen (-8-ºC) batches of 195 ampoules. Each ampoule has to be manually diluted to precise specifications and officially gives 5 doses. For some reason these "must" be distributed as complete batches so vaccination centres get 975 doses at a time to deal with - in a short space of time as the vaccine life is very short once defrosted (from -80ºC). They don't always get very much notice of delivery dates either.

The logistics of assembling 975 people to inject over a 3 day window (mainly over 80 or otherwise vulnerable at this point), at short notice is quite challenging.

You get a few that don't show (though gratifyingly few in this neck of the woods). What has also become apparent though is that you can easily get 6 doses from each ampoule, sometimes 7. + 20%. Great news..... except, who are you going to give it to? You called 975 people. You can't pop it back in the fridge for another day..... and it's getting late (6, 7 in the evening and you've been at it all day), but you WILL NOT waste good vaccine......

.....So you get on the phone and call in the people you can think of who you know can just come in. Older surgery staff, carers at local nursing homes, supermarket staff from across the road. Still got vaccine left over? Call the rest of the surgery staff, surgery staff relatives.... anyone. Don't waste it!

If these people whinging think it would be better put in the bin..... to hell with them!

As experience grows and real world numbers are better understood, I reckon the targeting for the extra doses will become more accurate. Not sure whether the Astra Zeneca has vaccine has similar unknowns to iron out, but it is certainly less demanding to store and handle, so some of the pressure is removed. Meanwhile, a dose administered has got to be better than a dose wasted, no matter whose arm it goes in.

Nick

Couldn't agree more and nobody wants to hear of wasted doses , but the complaints in the story I heard came direct from medical staff who were in the hospital along with porters/paramedics etc who were in contact with Covid patients but who were beaten to the queue for the "spare" doses by back office staff.

Absolutely +++

I'm sick of all the continual bickering, political disagreements and people continually whinging about lockdown rules or trying to find loopholes. If everyone would just pull together and get on with it, we'd have this thing defeated in no time.

I used to believe that it would "take a common enemy to unite all of mankind". What COVID has taught me (to paraphrase the late, great Douglas Adams), is to "never underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools".

And by doing so they are breaching all the guidelines set in place by the manufacturers and the health authorities.

One snippet from a Public Health Scotland presentation that sums up what other documents also mention:

"This is to ensure that 5 complete doses can be withdrawn, any vaccine remaining in the vial after this should be discarded" - My bolding

If they are ignoring this significant instruction, are there any other parts of the procedures they might also be ignoring, like the "do not shake" part in preparing it, as in that case the entire vial has to be discarded?

Could be worse though. Despite Pfizer stating that the second dose should be given 'at least 21 days after' the first dose, our cousins across the pond (well, the CDC) mention the same thing, and then put in a footnote stating that 'doses administered at/after day 17 are considered valid'.

Public Health Scotland - https://www.nhsggc.org.uk/media/2642..._071220_v3.pdf
CDC - https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-1...in-summary.pdf

I had my first Pfizer this afternoon.
Found it to be really well organised.
Wigan's centre is in the hall that the annual model railway show is held in.
I arrived some twenty minutes early because of car parking problems but found that the council had suspended parking charges for covid vaccination people. The door people just ushered me in, said don't wait we can cope.
I spent 25 minutes inside and 15 of them were the enforced rest period after vaccination.
Nurses, clericals, and cleaners were well organised. It just flowed with plenty of seats.
Importantly no pain.
I took one of the dogs for an hour's walk along the canal afterwards.

No side effects except for some horse features appearing on my face, and slanty eyes.

Isn't that your normal "look" Ray? :Confused:

Agreed. Round us the biggest "boundary-pushers" seem to be dog walkers for whom the concept of "social distancing" seems to be about 50cm. We've both made a promise to go nowhere near anyone who owns a dog for the rest of the year at least, the majority just don't seem to give a damn! :mad:

I do have one exception, but that's a friend who I know is following the rules religiously and sadly acquired a new puppy recently that turned out to be totally blind. Managed to rehome it to someone who looks after similarly-disabled pooches. He and his partner are gardeners mainly so taking a dog around with them all day is not a problem, but a blind one would be.

Re: People not taking lockdown seriously.

I can't believe how much traffic is still on the roads compared to the March lockdown. I walk for half an hour every morning and it's pretty much as it was pre-Covid. Queues still waiting to get on the M1 near me.

Must be a lot of essential workers that weren't essential last time.

Lost my mum, aunt and uncle to Covid. Wife has lost hear aunt. All elderly but not mixing, didn't go shopping etc with no underlying conditions.