Coronavirus in Massachusetts (home, public schools, gated)

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

On a bright note for me personally, my child (in the 20-29 demographic) texted me their vaccine certificate yesterday. Very surprised (but pleasantly)--they do work for one of the larger hospital complexes in Boston, but are by no means considered front-line personnel!

Despite some bad PR, many MA hospitals are handling the phase 1 distribution fine and are already working towards immunizing lower risk staff. Effectively anyone who interfaces with clinical staff, which includes some admin positions in teaching hospitals.

[jtolpin]

FWIW - for those playing at home....

My middle daughter with multiple food allergies, T1D, and Celiacs, is getting the vaccine Saturday (got a job at B&W-Boston). Wife spending the time three, iwaiting in case of anaphylactic reaction.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by BostonMike7

I'd be surprised if the general pop was being vaccinated in large numbers by June. I think the numbers will drop like they did last year late spring/early summer, but unless vaccinations speed up, and many people actually get them vs refuse, next fall will be like this fall.

I forsee 2021 being exactly like 2020.

See you in 2022. I'll host a BBQ. You're all invited.

We vaccinate half the country with flu vaccine every year. There is no mystery about how to vaccinate people. This is a manufacturing scaling issue. The two mRNA vaccines are rationed. As more vaccines are approved and the supply scales up, the problem goes away.


I'm still incredulous that Trump was offered a bunch of Pfizer vaccine beyond the 100 million doses (50 million citizens) in early December and turned it down.

[porterhouse]

The new interactive dashboard is hot garbage via ios. The functionality is great from a traditional computer, but if less people can easily access the data it’s an L.

[yesmaybe]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

We vaccinate half the country with flu vaccine every year. There is no mystery about how to vaccinate people. This is a manufacturing scaling issue.

There is no shortage of the vaccine right now because of how slow the distribution is going. I've mentioned how far NY is willing to go on threatening prosecution over vaccinating people not in the tier despite hospitals having plenty available.

Also the Feds did buy another 100M doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

Edit: So far MA has vaccinated 148k, 50k in the last 7 days. The Feds have given them 320k. So they are sitting on 172k doses. Obviously there's no need to ship more if they aren't going to use it.

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

Edit: So far MA has vaccinated 148k, 50k in the last 7 days. The Feds have given them 320k. So they are sitting on 172k doses. Obviously there's no need to ship more if they aren't going to use it.

I suspect that number will drop quite a bit when 'first responders' begin immunizations at scale. There's plenty scheduled, but not yet implemented.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

I suspect that number will drop quite a bit when 'first responders' begin immunizations at scale. There's plenty scheduled, but not yet implemented.

Anecdotal but a large northeast corridor hospital where my fiancée has staff has drafted everyone with a license to do 5 4-hour days of vaccinations in Q1. Flu vaccination is a very distributed process. Every pharmacy and physician’s office does flu vaccinations. Because the COVID vaccines are rationed, the number of physical locations doing vaccinations is very limited and it causes a scaling problem. Once every pharmacy and doctor’s office has the vaccine, the scaling problem goes away.

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Anecdotal but a large northeast corridor hospital where my fiancée has staff has drafted everyone with a license to do 5 4-hour days of vaccinations in Q1. Flu vaccination is a very distributed process. Every pharmacy and physician’s office does flu vaccinations. Because the COVID vaccines are rationed, the number of physical locations doing vaccinations is very limited and it causes a scaling problem. Once every pharmacy and doctor’s office has the vaccine, the scaling problem goes away.

This has been my anecdotal experience as well. Institutions with existing vaccine protocols and infrastructure are distributing the available vaccines to staff with limited issues (MGH perhaps not quite so smoothly as other regionals).

The state apparently left distribution up to local FD/PDs (according to an FF in my town) which, unlike a large regional hospitals, don't have the qualified staff or existing infrastructure. I think this has, rather unsurprisingly, caused a bit of a scramble and A LOT of confusion as these departments try to navigate the logistics.

Hopefully ... hopefully, things can be learned from this and phase 2 and phase 3 rollouts can be much smoother. Like you, I believe when smaller county and town healthcare facilities began to inventory the vaccines most or all of the existing problems go away. Then you're back to basic qualification and gating; i.e., your grandma is gated ahead of you.

[bohemka]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

There is no shortage of the vaccine right now because of how slow the distribution is going. I've mentioned how far NY is willing to go on threatening prosecution over vaccinating people not in the tier despite hospitals having plenty available.

Also the Feds did buy another 100M doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

Edit: So far MA has vaccinated 148k, 50k in the last 7 days. The Feds have given them 320k. So they are sitting on 172k doses. Obviously there's no need to ship more if they aren't going to use it.

I guess we're lucky only 320k people live here.

[yesmaybe]

Originally Posted by bohemka

I guess we're lucky only 320k people live here.

That's what I mean. The Feds could send them millions but there isn't any point if they aren't going to use it.