Delays in rolling out vaccine

EasilyAmused said:
Less than 10,000 AstraZeneca received by the HSE last week. It really is time to ditch AZ and focus on Pfizer, J&J and Sputnik V.
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Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
We had stock last week due to the delay and if the EU can come to some agreement with producers today we might see an improvement.

Where did you get that figure from btw.
 
I also find this part of the letter telling healthcare staff that they are closing the portal for vaccine applications staggering.....

"As of March 21 over 204,000 frontline healthcare workers had received their first dose vaccination. We have now significantly exceeded the original estimation of this group by more than 50,000 and are now in a position to begin to close out dose 1 vaccinations for this group"

How do they exceed the expected number of frontline healthcare staff by 50,000??? That should have been the cohort that was the easiest to manage numbers as it could be easily checked against employment records to have an estimated population size. Whatever about a couple of thousand, a mis-calculation of 50,000 on the size of the cohort suggests they either haven't got a clue or a very significant number of people who are not frontline healthcare staff got vaccinated.
 
Sunny said:
I also find this part of the letter telling healthcare staff that they are closing the portal for vaccine applications staggering.....

"As of March 21 over 204,000 frontline healthcare workers had received their first dose vaccination. We have now significantly exceeded the original estimation of this group by more than 50,000 and are now in a position to begin to close out dose 1 vaccinations for this group"

How do they exceed the expected number of frontline healthcare staff by 50,000??? That should have been the cohort that was the easiest to manage numbers as it could be easily checked against employment records to have an estimated population size. Whatever about a couple of thousand, a mis-calculation of 50,000 on the size of the cohort suggests they either haven't got a clue or a very significant number of people who are not frontline healthcare staff got vaccinated.
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Carehome workers are included in that figure as far as I know and other community based health services.
 
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Paul O Mahoney said:
Carehome workers are included in that figure as far as I know.
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Some of them are but most were covered under Cohort 1 where instead of just vaccinating residents over 65 in nursing homes as planned, they vaccinated all residents and staff in nursing homes. But again, getting clarity is difficult. Are we really saying that we under estimated the size of the cohort by 25%??? This wasn't a slight mis-calculation. We are talking about 50,000 front line employees that they weren't expecting. And remember that supposedly they didn't even start (I stress supposedly) healthcare workers not in direct patient or service user contact who weren't providing essential services. If this cohort was so difficult to control, wait until we start moving down the list.....
 
Sunny said:
Some of them are but most were covered under Cohort 1 where instead of just vaccinating residents over 65 in nursing homes as planned, they vaccinated all residents and staff in nursing homes. But again, getting clarity is difficult. Are we really saying that we under estimated the size of the cohort by 25%??? This wasn't a slight mis-calculation. We are talking about 50,000 front line employees that they weren't expecting. And remember that supposedly they didn't even start (I stress supposedly) healthcare workers not in direct patient or service user contact who weren't providing essential services. If this cohort was so difficult to control, wait until we start moving down the list.....
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No country has put figures on individual cohorts. Don't forget the HSE has a significant amount of contractor's, I know of someone who works in a HSE facility and is in contact with general public everyday and got his first jab.
Then of course there are cleaners etc again mostly contractor's and they would be in need of vaccination too as they are in hospitals and other medical facilities.
At the end of the day the objective is to vaccinate everyone and there was always going to be issues like this.
 
Paul O Mahoney said:
No country has put figures on individual cohorts. Don't forget the HSE has a significant amount of contractor's, I know of someone who works in a HSE facility and is in contact with general public everyday and got his first jab.
Then of course there are cleaners etc again mostly contractor's and they would be in need of vaccination too as they are in hospitals and other medical facilities.
At the end of the day the objective is to vaccinate everyone and there was always going to be issues like this.
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I don't want exact figures for cohorts but I want some sense of things are being controlled. If the HSE are telling us that they have given out 50,000 extra vaccines to a single cohort, I want to know if that is because they completely under estimated the size of the cohort or the vaccines are not being distributed in the way intended. The frontline healthcare workers is a relatively simple cohort to control. There are other frontline workers like Gardai perfectly entitled to ask how many of those extra 50k doses went to non frontline healthcare staff simply because they worked in a hospital or the HSE. There are plenty of people who are more at risk of covid than an 21 year old working in hospital accounts office (remotely) like my niece who has been vaccinated.
 
Over 200000 people working in frontline healthcare is an staggeringly high percentage out of a workforce of 2.3 million
 
Sunny said:
I don't want exact figures for cohorts but I want some sense of things are being controlled. If the HSE are telling us that they have given out 50,000 extra vaccines to a single cohort, I want to know if that is because they completely under estimated the size of the cohort or the vaccines are not being distributed in the way intended. The frontline healthcare workers is a relatively simple cohort to control. There are other frontline workers like Gardai perfectly entitled to ask how many of those extra 50k doses went to non frontline healthcare staff simply because they worked in a hospital or the HSE. There are plenty of people who are more at risk of covid than an 21 year old working in hospital accounts office (remotely) like my niece who has been vaccinated.
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Fine, but the cohort is named healthcare workers (HCW) and its a standardised category across the EU reporting system.

I frankly fail to see an issue, if a person works in the health system, at any level,do they not satisfy the definition of being a health care worker?
 
Group 2 is frontline healthcare workers

group 6 is other healthcare workers.

The priority given to “frontline” health care workers is absolutely correct. But given the numbers currently vaccinated under this category it is possible that workers in group 6 have been prioritised also.
 
Paul O Mahoney said:
Fine, but the cohort is named healthcare workers (HCW) and its a standardised category across the EU reporting system.

I frankly fail to see an issue, if a person works in the health system, at any level,do they not satisfy the definition of being a health care worker?
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Group 2 is FRONTLINE Health service workers and those providing essential services. Other workers in the health service are not even supposed to be registering for vaccines yet as mentioned above because they are in Group 6. Frankly, you might not see an issue with someone in their 20's being vaccinated simply because they they work in the health service but there are plenty of at risk front line workers in other sectors who might.
 
Sunny said:
Group 2 is FRONTLINE Health service workers and those providing essential services. Other workers in the health service are not even supposed to be registering for vaccines yet as mentioned above because they are in Group 6. Frankly, you might not see an issue with someone in their 20's being vaccinated simply because they they work in the health service but there are plenty of at risk front line workers in other sectors who might.
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In the overall strategy of vaccinating 3.76 million does it matter?
And who decides what is essential?
 
RedOnion said:
You don't have a vulnerable parent in their 80's that hasn't been vaccinated yet I guess?
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I do (81) and he's going in next week my mother 77 the same . Their GP retired and the new GP has had a few administration problems.

What do personal circumstances has to do with this discussion?
 
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“And who decides what is essential?”
It appears to be the HSE rather than the government, who after all, drew up the group guidelines.
If we have over 200000 frontline workers, how many other healthcare workers are left in group 6. Are 10% + of workers really working in healthcare
Group 6 is still ahead of the Cabinet, Gardai who are tasked with the job of breaking up parties etc. or other frontline workers
 
Paul O Mahoney said:
What do personal circumstances has to do with this discussion?
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It doesn't. Given the usual high standard if you posting here, I was surprised by your suggestion that it doesn't matter what order people are vaccinated if the aim is to vaccinate everyone eventually.

With that attitude, you could ask what's the point in having cohorts at all - they should give the vaccine to whoever gets to the queue first every morning.
 
RedOnion said:
It doesn't. Given the usual high standard if you posting here, I was surprised by your suggestion that it doesn't matter what order people are vaccinated if the aim is to vaccinate everyone eventually.

With that attitude, you could ask what's the point in having cohorts at all - they should give the vaccine to whoever gets to the queue first every morning.
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I simply take a pragmatic view I wish we had millions of vaccines every month and we were vaccinating en masse.
But we don't and while there is much to criticise on many levels but once vaccines are in people's arms I find that's good news.
The cohorts were provisional and put together in early December on presumptions that supply would be even and sufficient the reality has been demonstrably different.
 
Paul O Mahoney said:
I simply take a pragmatic view I wish we had millions of vaccines every month and we were vaccinating en masse.
But we don't and while there is much to criticise on many levels but once vaccines are in people's arms I find that's good news.
The cohorts were provisional and put together in early December on presumptions that supply would be even and sufficient the reality has been demonstrably different.
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If we had millions of vaccines and everyone was going to be done in weeks I would agree... just roll it out asap.

But when the rollout will take months we have to ration the vaccines and that is the intent of the priority groupings. We shouldnt be leaving vulnerable people exposed.
If frontline HCW are vaccinated and the vaccine prevents transmission there is even less reason to vaccinate support HCW. The frontline vaccinated staff even though they may have contact with support staff are protected - like a firewall.
 
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odyssey06 said:
If we had millions of vaccines and everyone was going to be done in weeks I would agree... just roll it out asap.

But when the rollout will take months we have to ration the vaccines and that is the intent of the priority groupings. We shouldnt be leaving vulnerable people exposed.
If frontline HCW are vaccinated and the vaccine prevents transmission there is even less reason to vaccinate support HCW. The frontline vaccinated staff even though they may have contact with support staff are protected.
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I agree with a lot of that but I think there has been "reclassification " going on .....I have downloaded the ECDC figures from week 7 and I can see for example the carehome figures reducing today week 11, I think carehome workers were reported in that and are now HCW.
As I said when you posted the estimated cohort figures from the Sunday Business Post they were the best we would ever get......and would change.
I'll hazard a guess and say those cohorts aren't accurate
 
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