But don’t all those million still need a second shot? I heard the second dose is already set aside, and that’s where the bottleneck is right now. But eventually as production ramps up and they’re giving out large numbers of first and second shots, the availability and facilities and personnel could become the limiting factor.
I agree that personnel and facilities will be the next bottleneck. Some of that can be alleviated by setting up distribution in large parking lots, redirecting nurses and hiring temp workers to do the non-nurse stuff like paperwork. It’ll be fast if we have the will.
Our own @BippityBoppityBoo has told of being a nurse during one of the bad flu season mass vaccination exercises. This shout-out might summon her to share some in-the-trenches perspective on the last time we all did something like this.
Basically, this is it. Small tweaks, depending on the vaccine. The protocol for blood born pathogen safe disposal would have the jabber handle the used syringe though, securing it safely on biohazard container, rather than handing it off. That is at most a 5 second motion though, so hardly a bottleneck.
Haven’t read the fine print on the current vaccines yet. It is possible that breastfeeding mothers may be advised to hold off on receiving it til the FDA has cleared it for pregnant and nursing moms. Mom and baby can still be protected by masks (for mom), distancing, handwashing and the other non-pharmaceutical mitigation’s practiced by those around them.
That would be me. HINI vaccine clinics for a county health department. I’d say 12-15 vaccinations an hour is reasonable for a nurse/jabber. Finely-tuned, maybe a few more. According to my license though, I still have to personally review the documentation and make certain it is accurate and complete and confirm with the recipient about pertinent medical history, allergies and previous reactions to vaccines, then sign off as the vaccine administrator. Jab, safely dispose of bio-hazard syringe, strip off gloves, disinfect my hands and work area, then re-don new gloves and prep work area, this all takes a few minutes added to actually poking the right needle into the right spot on the right person in the right amount of vaccine in precisely the correct technique and then observe for reaction and response to the injection. Hopefully doing a little patient education at the same time. Teamwork and trustworthy colleagues can make all the difference in efficiency here.
Fun bandaids (a few seconds to slap that on too). A sticker and lollipop and we’re good to sit in a well-ventilated, distanced observation waiting area for 15 minutes or so, with trained observers and first responders. Perhaps some business-community provided snacks and beverages offered by volunteers to make the waiting more pleasant.
Thank you. I stand corrected.
I’ve been through DoD mass vax events where one person checks your papers, then somebody else jabs you with item 1, the next nurse jabs item 2 elsewhere, then the next nurse jabs item 3 elsewhere again then you go stand or sit over there for a few minutes before leaving.
Throughput was large; ceremony and individual attention was small. But there was plenty enough medical expertise in the room that had anyone had a crisis, adequate help was immediately to hand.
Of course DoD tries to keep everybody vaccinated for “everything” all the time, but whenever a short-notice surprise popped up that needed a lot of people in a big hurry to a place with weird disease(s), they had to play catch-up for at least a couple hours. Not a fan of gamma globulin.
Thank for the information @BippityBoppityBoo
2020 has been such a difficult year for medical professionals. The first half of 2021 isn’t looking too good either.
At least the vaccine offers hope that covid can be beat.
As a nurse, many of my best experiences were staffing clinics for the Reserves and Guard in my state. They always killed me kindness and virtually fought over who got to load and load my car. The “ma’ams” were fun too. Of course, the lollipops I always brought didn’t hurt.
Don’t forget that neither of the vaccines is approved for children under 16 in the US, and at the moment there are 73 million children, very few of who are 16 or 17.
Thanks, Boo, for the authoritative information. We can always count on you! I’m hoping there are ways we could speed up that process. At least this from the CDC should help a bit:
Gloves are not recommended for most vaccination administration and are not required for the COVID-19 vaccine unless the person administering the vaccine is likely to come into contact with potentially infectious body fluids or has open lesions on their hands. If used improperly, gloves can increase the likelihood of spreading germs.
Staffer A’s only task is to reaffirm next patient’s name and birthdate*.
Meanwhile, staffer B disinfects the work area.
Staffer C swabs the arm.
D’s rotate: while one jabs and disposes, one washes their own hands while the third is drying her own hands.
E applies bandaid and disposes of wrapper. Not sure if she’d have to wash hands between patients if she’s only touching swabbed area with clean hands.
F hands patient post-vaccinations info/instructions.
I’m sure my breakdown is faulty, maybe terribly so, but with enough staffers (only one of whom needs any real training), why couldn’t we speed up the practice to inoculate exponentially?
*If name and DOB are on a label included on the form, the patient could apply the label to her shirt so at every step, the patient’s ID is checked swiftly.
I don’t think we have to get to whacky. Slightly better than normal flu vaccine rollout should be fine as a pace.
I think the limiting factor, at least for several months, is going to be the vaccine supply, not the labor to jab people. So I expect the actual jab to be pretty ordinary, like a flu shot at a corporate flu-vaccine event.
Watching ABC nightly news. They report the goal is 200 million vaccinations by the end of March.
They want 20 million by years end. That’s probably not going to happen in the remaining week. Maybe they can get another 2 million done. I know locally a lot of our Nursing homes have Moderna vaccinations scheduled for next week. That’s probably scheduled in many other states too.
The timing might very depending on the target recipients. The paperwork for nursing home people should have been done in advance by the institution they are at. The same for hospitals. Any linked group of people should fall into this process such as the military.
Where this changes are groups who are not part of an institution or groups who cannot be processed easily ahead of time.
In my state we have 960 nursing homes and the Governor said they will all be inoculated by the end of the year. I don’t know if they will include the 800 assisted living facilities but either way that has to be a fair number of people. In one of the Governor’s briefings it was stated that it is up to the nursing homes to be ready when called upon to schedule vaccinations.
Hopefully things go well and we adapt to what is learned from the process and tweak it for faster distribution in the future.
Like, in the next 5 days??
The smallpox vaccine was usually given with a special needle, with which the vaccine was scratched into the upper layers of skin. Some places did use a jet injector later on; the smallpox vax does not work as well when injected into deeper skin layers.
The bifurcated needle actually wasn’t invented until the 1960s; they just used a regular needle before that.
They probably give more than 100,000 flu shots this time of year, so from that angle, it’s NBD.
Most of the time used in vaccination of any type is the paperwork.
The last time I got an injection from a re-usable glass syringe was probably 1970. 1969 for sure, but that was penicillin from a doctor. Sometime after that I have a memory of nurses sterilizing needles in an open flame, and I’m not sure if that was 1970 or later.
That’s what it sounded like on the radio but I can’t find it in print so I’m going with no. I’ve only seen March mentioned in print. There’s been some confusion on the start dates. Apparently most of the nursing homes opted for the Federal program that is administered through CVS, Walgreens, Absolute Pharmacy and PharmScript and that approval was supposed to start 12/21 for Pfizer and 12/28 for Moderna. But Ohio got approval for a handful of them to start on 12/18. It would have been a small number.
Is there some sort of tracker web site that gives us a count of how many people have been given the vaccine?