COVID-19 Vaccine Talk

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

BC govt is not ready for the bad pr coming their way. No online booking until April, and the call center that opened at 8am had received 1.7 million calls by 940am. We're 3 weeks away from the 80+ cohort is fine, and they've given no info on dates for any other age cohort


Edit: for perspective, only those 90+ years old are allowed to call starting today. There's only about 90,000 of those and many of them got their shot when LTC was done. Next Monday those older than 85yo may call

Don't worry about it, the phone-in system is working great so far. Vancouver Coastal Health Authority managed to book a whopping 207 appointments today:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1369097727699644416

[Tron_fdc]

Originally Posted by chedder

Pretty sure BC is same as Alberta. Same household only. Not that the rule has been enforced in either province in the least.

It’s not the same.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/he...__NOTIFICATION

6 per table, nothing about same household.

[chedder]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

It’s not the same.



https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/he...__NOTIFICATION



6 per table, nothing about same household.

No wonder people don't know or care when governments are so contradictory. The link below is the bc govt website that has the actual order you quoted. The text says same household then the actual order makes no mention.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/s...t/restrictions



PHO order on restaurants, pubs and bars

In order to limit the spread of COVID-19, people should only be visiting restaurants with their household. For people who live alone, this should be with a maximum of two people they regularly interact with (core bubble).

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by chedder

No wonder people don't know or care when governments are so contradictory. The link below is the bc govt website that has the actual order you quoted. The text says same household then the actual order makes no mention.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/s...t/restrictions



PHO order on restaurants, pubs and bars

In order to limit the spread of COVID-19, people should only be visiting restaurants with their household. For people who live alone, this should be with a maximum of two people they regularly interact with (core bubble).

The order is maximum of 6 per table, the "ask" is for single household only. But yes, it's confusing

[looooob]

Originally Posted by GGG

Those are Sunday doses. We did roughly 15 sat/sun and over 50k during the week. We usually get vaccines Thursday or Fridays per the tracker. We currently have about 30k left. So we appear to be still using them as fast as they arrive.

Can we ramp up to 30k per day over the next 4 weeks? That will be challenging but doses remaining / doses given never really exceeds 7.

https://covid19tracker.ca/provincevac.html?p=AB

If you look at the “gap tracker” I don’t see any concerns yet so I wouldn’t see the 7 today as limit of capacity it is a planned amount of injection.

Outside of Saskatchewan I think we are the next best province.

I realize I ended up sounding a bit petty, and I know those were Sunday doses, but a few days in a row of 7k is just starting to bug me (between Pfizer, Moderna and AZ I believe 150 k arrive this week??). there are so many people (front line- very front line) even within the hospitals not vaccinated- who cares that its Sunday, roll into the large hospitals in Calgary and Edmonton and finish those off (as an example) , yup I get those are officially 2C but still - Alberta is getting over 800 000 doses in next 6 weeks- while you are figuring out ways to ramp up to the over 65s, or next phases, keep finding arms and jab them

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by looooob

I realize I ended up sounding a bit petty, and I know those were Sunday doses, but a few days in a row of 7k is just starting to bug me (between Pfizer, Moderna and AZ I believe 150 k arrive this week??). there are so many people (front line- very front line) even within the hospitals not vaccinated- who cares that its Sunday, roll into the large hospitals in Calgary and Edmonton and finish those off (as an example) , yup I get those are officially 2C but still - Alberta is getting over 800 000 doses in next 6 weeks- while you are figuring out ways to ramp up to the over 65s, or next phases, keep finding arms and jab them

Out of all provinces, I can say with some good authority without giving any inside information, that Alberta is the best set up to ramp up (at least through pharmacy).

[looooob]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Out of all provinces, I can say with some good authority without giving any inside information, that Alberta is the best set up to ramp up (at least through pharmacy).

Despite my rants to the contrary I do believe you and truly I think we will see the payoff soon

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by looooob

Despite my rants to the contrary I do believe you and truly I think we will see the payoff soon

Years ago the Alberta Government partnered with Pharmacists and gave them expanded scope of practice to do injections, then prescribe, medication reconciliations, etc. Part of that was integrating supply chains and Electronic Health Records (EHR).

For example with flu shots, pharmacies actually order their flu vaccines through their normal distribution wholesale networks. The government buys the vaccine, then gives the pharmacy wholesalers the vaccine and pharmacies order only what they need, with regular shipments and the amounts used and sitting in fridges can all be tracked and cold chains all maintained. When a pharmacist gives a vaccine, it gets added to the provincial EHR and can be tracked to see who got what vaccines easily.

Here in BC I write on a piece of paper how many flu shots I need and then fax it to the local health unit to a single person, who then randomly decides how much they'll give me. It is then written on a piece of paper at the health unit how much each pharmacy, Dr's offices, etc got. I grab a cooler with some ice packs and drive myself down to the health unit and pick them up. At the end of the season I fax the local health unit how many I used by age group, as that's the only way the government can track what's been given by pharmacy as our EHR's aren't integrated.

Now think about the complexity of the cold chain requirements for the COVID vaccine (freezer storage), and ensuring correct records are kept so both patient and government have accurate information on who has recived which vaccine and when.

Alberta is already using pharmacies to vaccinate and their capacity is huge. Shipments are coming from federal stock straight to pharmacy through existing supply chain networks straight to Alberta pharmacies, and BC still hasn't really even said anything publicly if they'll even use pharmacies at all.

[Hockeyguy15]

Interesting info. Thanks for sharing.

[looooob]

with a late data dump from the NWT (a weeks worth of data I think) a new record high in the vaccine tracker today (but not the 100k I predicted- and I realize these are never really a reflection of that day (or the previous 24 hours) but I thought 3 days from BC and strong numbers elsewhere would push today over 100k


essentially but not quite blown past 5% that will happen tomorrow with Ontario or Quebec's early morning numbers. still lets call it tonight. the last 1% from 3 to 4% took one week, this one took 5 days from 4% to 4.994%

[Street Pharmacist]

I believe the big shipments don't really start until tomorrow (Pfizer is Tues/Thurs I think?), then need to be distributed locally. I'd expect bigger numbers by end of this week and then much better next week

[EldrickOnIce]

Since Covid, pharmacies (who jab most of flu vaccines in the here in the US) have required online scheduling of appointments. I expect that made it relatively easy to include booking covid vaccinations in their online portals.
Does a similar system already exist at Canadian (AB) pharmacies? Assuming so, should really streamline the process when they start delivering covid doses.

[Ryan Coke]

Not sure how widespread it is, but I used an online booking tool with Shoppers drug mart for our flu shots this winter.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

I am not entirely sure how it worked, but my parents (80+) had no hope in navigating the online system those first few days and walked over to the Co-op pharmacy and they helped them get booked for March 10. Those pharmacies should be a big part of the ramp up, and I can't thank Co-op enough for giving my folks the help to get jabbed.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

I am not entirely sure how it worked, but my parents (80+) had no hope in navigating the online system those first few days and walked over to the Co-op pharmacy and they helped them get booked for March 10. Those pharmacies should be a big part of the ramp up, and I can't thank Co-op enough for giving my folks the help to get jabbed.

They will be. So far it's is limited to only Edmonton, Calgary, and Red Deer pharmacies but that covers about 2/3 or more of Alberta's population so will go a long way.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

Not sure how widespread it is, but I used an online booking tool with Shoppers drug mart for our flu shots this winter.

Seems to be all booked over the phone for the time being except Co Op.

For Shoppers Drug Mart:
https://covid-19.shoppersdrugmart.ca/

Rexall
https://www.rexall.ca/covid-19/alberta-vaccine

Co Op
https://www.calgarycoop.com/pharmacy...-vaccinations/
There's an online booking but doesn't work in Edge or Safari

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

They will be. So far it's is limited to only Edmonton, Calgary, and Red Deer pharmacies but that covers about 2/3 or more of Alberta's population so will go a long way.

Because of Pfizer's more onerous storage requirements they're limited to a few pharmacies. Moderna is being shipped this week and will roll out shortly to many, many more pharmacies

[RogerWilco]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Since Covid, pharmacies (who jab most of flu vaccines in the here in the US) have required online scheduling of appointments. I expect that made it relatively easy to include booking covid vaccinations in their online portals.
Does a similar system already exist at Canadian (AB) pharmacies? Assuming so, should really streamline the process when they start delivering covid doses.

Yeah, I booked my flu shot this year online through Rexal.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Barnes

Seems to be all booked over the phone for the time being except Co Op.

For Shoppers Drug Mart:
https://covid-19.shoppersdrugmart.ca/

Rexall
https://www.rexall.ca/covid-19/alberta-vaccine

Co Op
https://www.calgarycoop.com/pharmacy...-vaccinations/
There's an online booking but doesn't work in Edge or Safari

The countdown to being able to book has started for me.

Yay being old balls.

[opendoor]

Johnson and Johnson has warned the EU that they might not be able to meet their Q2 obligations:

Johnson & Johnson has told the European Union it is facing supply issues that may complicate plans to deliver 55 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the bloc in the second quarter of the year, an EU official told Reuters.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN2B11KY

Given the EU's export controls and the US likely not exporting anything, that probably means we can't count on much of anything from J&J in the near term. Though maybe we can shake loose a couple of million doses from somewhere.