Apparently they are giving the pfizer shot to people like me (58, type 2 diabetes). But I won’t know until I get there.
Astrazenica appears to be widely available. My pharmacy had a sign up that they were accepting immediate walk-ins for AZ, and there was no one there to get it. I think people have been scared away from it, or are holding out for a slightly more effective vaccine.
In Saskatchewan the drive-through clinics are down to age 51. Regina clinic has run out, since Saskatchewan seems to be pretty efficient at using the doses they get.
Ontario is lowering the age for AstraZeneca to 40 as of Tuesday:
Eligibility for all venues, both the drive-throughs & walk-ins as well as the scheduled appointments is now 48, with the exception of the Regina drive-through which is 46. I would expect that to drop again tomorrow, as the wait times at the Saskatoon drive-through are around an hour today, down from 4+ hours yesterday and Friday. Unless they really are short of vaccine, but according to COVID-19 Tracker Canada - Vaccination Tracker we should still have 40k doses on hand.
Ontario is now offering the Astrazeneca vaccine to people 40+. I signed up today! Technically it’s not available until tomorrow and some pharmacies don’t allow you to sign up until tomorrow.
Sign up if you qualify!
Do you have evidence the EU’s slow vaccine rollout is due to bureaucracy? Or is it just, ya know, a lack of vaccines? Because in Canada, the problem is a lack of vaccines.
I mean, this just seems silly to me. “Other countries have problems? Gotta be that darned bureaucracy!” No, it’s probably not, Sam. It’s not hard to vaccinate people.
Which is a shame. AZ now is way, way better than Pfizer/Moderna later. I want it ASAP.
The blood clot issue is, to be honest, absurd.
Larger provinces have been between 70 and 81-82 percent delivery for quite some time now. Saskatchewan had to shut down drive through clinics due to vaccines not being available. I don’t know about other places but in Ontario, the distribution capacity is nowhere near tested.
My doctor is ready to vaccinate people, as is my drug store, but there aren’t any vaccines for them to use. Every vaccine is assigned already.
Yeah, I definitely spoke too soon in that regard. At the moment Saskatchewan is back up to 87% administered, and several other provinces aren’t far behind. I was looking at the vaccine tracker website and it looked at the time I posted that everyone had significant extra vaccine, but over the weekend that’s changed a lot. Saskatchewan so far has done zero distribution via pharmacies, so far as I know, and over the weekend our drive-throughs burned through all the doses not designated for appointments. Another Moderna delivery delay isn’t helping of course, but we should perhaps try not to be too critical of the pharma companies struggling with production issues, as it’s a major miracle that we have several effective vaccines being produced in massive quantities less than 18 months after the disease was even identified.
I had a quick call with my GP to verify my best vaccine option this morning due to my somewhat complicated medical history. His advice to me was to get the first vaccine I could and don’t shop around.
I’m now booked for an Astra vaccine at Costco tomorrow which I am very much looking forward to!
Which I don’t understand, unless that is only for the ‘at risk’ populations. According to the Ontario COVID site, it still won’t be until July that people under 59 are eligible.
That makes no sense. I don’t know the numbers for Ontario, but Saskatchewan has given first doses to 86% of people over 80, 83% of people 70-79, 65% of people 60-69, and 39% of people 50-59. Our demographics aren’t that different, and Ontario isn’t that far behind in administration rate of vaccines that you shouldn’t be approaching eligibility of people below 59 imminently. Unless Ontario has been vaccinating a lot of younger people based on other eligibility criteria? Saskatchewan has been doing very little of that. Health care workers in contact with covid patients, LTC workers, and just recently “clinically vulnerable” i.e. medically at risk with a doctor’s letter. Otherwise, strictly by age. Oh, and the far north has had significantly laxer eligibility, but there aren’t that many people up there so the numbers don’t have much impact.
It’s my understanding that the AZ vaccine is on a totally different stream in Ontario. It’s the only one going out through pharmacies there, with Pfizer only at the mass clinics. The feds said “provinces are perfectly welcome to lower their age threshold for AZ, it’s Health Canada approved for over 18”, so Ontario did. The pharmacies are a free for all, the mass sites still focused on Ontario’s target populations.
Thank you. That fills in some of the gaps in my knowledge. Now, I have to decide do I try for the AZ shot ASAP or wait for the Pfizer/ Moderna option.
I have been home for this so far and I can wait a little longer but vaccine jealousy is a thing.
Also, even if you are comfortable isolating remember there are chances you won’t be able to. What if you have to go to the hospital for something else (or the dentist)? What if you need emergency repairs to your home? What if a friend or relative has an emergency you have to help with? I am of the mind that we all need to get ourselves vaccinated ASAP.
No, I think there’s two issues.
Really shouldn’t toss stuff like this around. The clotting happened mostly in women under 60, so that demographic is higher than 1/300,000. Kind of like your chance of getting hit by lightning is different if you live in Texas rather than Alaska.
Of course, those same women might well have taken birth control pills, which are WAY likelier to give them blood clots, and for some reason no one ever raised a fuss about that. (Oh right, because it only affected women.)
Whatever the specifics, it’s REALLY unlikely. I’m on a few notification lists to get it.
See, that’s another thing that gets tossed around. How many brain blood clots do birth control pills cause?
I believe for most people, taking the AZ vaccine is the choice to make but we shouldn’t be bullshittng about the risks.
Who’s bullshitting? The risk is EXTREMELY low. There is no bullshit in that.
You are bullshitting when you compare blood clots caused by estrogen based birth control, that usually happen in your leg, with blood clots caused by AZ and J&J, which are most frequently in the brain. How was that unclear given the article I linked?