The teenager in me can’t help but chuckle at this. 
I think the number of people one person can vaccinate is the indication of efficiency here. All of us seems to have been in and out within 30 minutes. Seems pretty standard.
But one tech jabbing 12 people an hour is not the same as one tech jabbing 100 an hour as can be done in mass vaccination sites.
That said, if the pharmacy only gets 50 vaccines to administer per day then 12(ish) per hour is just fine for them.
Sounds just like what I saw at the Javits Center in NYC. There was a sign out front that said they had already vaccinated around 7,000 people that day by the time I got there. The time from walking through the door to getting the shot was 15 minutes, plus 15 in the observation area.
100 an hour is one per 36 seconds. This is implausibly fast.
I got my first dose last week at a pharmacy in the Detroit metro area. One pharmacist handled paperwork/intake, but the real bottleneck was the other pharmacist giving the injections. He comes and gets you and brings you into a dimly-lit, poorly-ventilated hallway outside the store’s bathrooms. Then he lays out his supplies and paperwork, doublechecks your ID, puts new gloves on, jabs you, removes his gloves, updates the paperwork (including your shiny new vax card) with date, lot info and other stuff. His work takes maybe five or six minutes from when he calls one person’s name until he’s ready to call the next name. Call it five minutes, so 12 per hour, so one stabber can stab 96 people per day, not 100 per hour.
If you want to speed things up, the stabber needs a whole team of people to handle pretty much everything except the actual stabbing. But even then it won’t be 100 per hour.
For 100/hour I am assuming other people are taking care of intake and paperwork and the tech giving jabs is doing only that, administering the actual vaccine (as they might do in the stadiums that are administering many thousands of vaccines per day).
For me, the actual jab was a matter of maybe 10-15 seconds. Alcohol swab the area, jab, band-aid (band-aid took the longest).
Also, remember these things (pic below)? They can definitely get one person to administer loads of vaccines and in the past they used those vaccine guns and marched people past that person.
And while you can have other people to check the paperwork up front, and to watch as you sit for 15 minutes after, i want the nurse who jabs me to check my name, check that i understand what I’m doing and consent, ask about possible allergies or other adverse reactions, and answer any questions i might have. And i want the nurse to fill out the part of the vaccine card that says which batch i got.
That seems like it ought to take… At least 5 minutes, probably more like 15.
The place i went was a hotel ballroom across the street from a major hospital. They had 20-30 stations, and they were full with a line all three times i went (once bringing my mom) and both times my sister went. They aren’t super-efficient (the line can get long, although usually it’s okay) but they are churning through a lot of people. I know, from talking to my doctor about it, that most days they are vaccine-limited. That’s partly because when they’ve gotten more doses than they have appointments they robo-call some of their patients and invite them to call to make a same-day appointment.
My understanding is that there can be enough splash-back of blood to cross infect people, and they’ve stopped using those guns.
And there’s no shortage of people who are qualified to give vaccines. Every doctor, nurse, EMT, dentist, and vet knows how to do it, and could be trained on the details of this jab in a matter of hours. And we have been vaccine-limited in most places up to now.
Same here. No real confusion though. Separate lines for appointments and hope-they-have-some-lefts. Not even that many people compared to three weeks ago. That was a (orderly) zoo.
Here’s my experience in Beijing.
- Register online for vaccination, providing required information
- Show for appointment at clinic
- Provide identification, get temperature checked
- Interviewed by administrative nurse
- Passed into consultation room, where doctor advised us about possible side-effects
- Got jabbed–and the amazing thing is that I did not even feel the needle
- Kept in waiting room for 30 minutes to ensure no immediate side-effect
- Advised when the appointment is for the second jab
I didn’t see vaccination guns until I was processed into the navy at the AFEES center – all services – in Philadelphia. When the guy directly in front of me got his, the medic sneezed just as he triggered the gun and the poor victim got a half-gash in his arm that bled quite freely. He was pulled from the line and I saw him a bit later with a big bandage around his arm. I don’t know if he got a couple stitches or not.
Seeing the mass polio vaccination photos reminded me of getting mine. I don’t really remember the Salk vax but I remember the Sabin, mainly because of the sugar cube. It was the first time I’d seen one.
That sugar cube with the polio vaccine was the inspiration for the Mary Poppins song, “spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”.
I got the J&J vaccine on April 10th, at a mass vaccination site.
My reaction when they suspended the use of that vaccine a few days later was “Damn, I’m glad I got it before this happened”. I really wanted the one shot version.
I became eligible on April 7th. Prior to that, I had the same frustrations as the OP. I told a friend of mine, a friend that was 75 and living in another state that I hadn’t been vaccinated because I wasn’t eligible yet, and she pushed back with stories of “how she heard that some places were giving them to anyone that wanted them”. I finally just shut her down my reminding her that we didn’t live in the same state anymore and I wasn’t eligible in the state I lived in and she didn’t live in, despite her strong opinions to the contrary.
Even locally, I got pushback every time I told someone I wasn’t eligible. If I told them I couldn’t get vaccinated because I was under 65, they always knew someone under 65 that had been vaccinated. If I told them I didn’t have any underlying health conditions, they knew someone that had been vaccinated without underlying health conditions. If I told them it was because I retired, they knew retired people that had been vaccinated. I just felt like a lot of people were hearing things and telling stories and talking out of their asses.
It almost had me screaming. “I’m not 65 and even though I’m very close to 65, that’s not how it fucking works here!” There is no exception for almost 65, and the fact that I’m under 65, healthy and retired puts me at the end of the line!”
Even the woman that tipped me off to the mass vaccination event didn’t get it, when I told her I was ineligible, she started in on how they’d been vaccinating lots of younger people - of course, she “knew” this only because she’d seen young people getting vaccinated, but she had no idea of the other factors that made them eligible.
Anyway, I wouldn’t have found the vaccination event without her help- once I knew when and where it was I still had trouble finding the event, the only registration link was on Facebook.
Other than actually finding out about the event, it was incredibly smooth. I signed up and got a QR code, which was scanned several time during the process. I found it interesting that I never showed any other ID or signed anything.
I went to the event, at an exhibition hall connected to the local fairgrounds. They scanned my QR code outside of the building, then they did a fever check at the door. I stood in line for maybe five minutes, then I was escorted (herded?) into a chair in one of six “pods”. Each pod had about 50 socially distanced chairs.
First, a worker came to me, scanned the QR code and asked me several questions “Have you had any of these symptoms in the past week?” “Are you allergic to any of these substances?” - recording all answers on a handheld device. He also recorded me giving my informed consent to vaccination.
Then the nurse came by with a cart, confirmed my identity, and gave me the shot. She wrote my name on a vaccine card, which contained a sticker with the specifics of the vaccine, including a lot number, and gave me the card. This was the only time pen and paper was used during the process. And I didn’t show any ID or insurance at any point in the process. Other people I know that were vaccinated had to pay some sort of administrative charge, but this event was totally free.
I stayed in the chair for 15 minutes ( a post-vaccine requirement, one that had been disclosed several times). At the 15 minute mark, a worker told me I was free to go. I was impressed that she gave me that clearance at EXACTLY 15 minutes post shot. I was also impressed that the shot went into my arm at the EXACT TIME, to the minute, of my vaccine appointment ( I had arrived early, and I checked the time when the shot went in, because of the 15 minute thing ), although I’m sure that was pure coincidence.
But it was easy and I had no side effects except that if someone had punched me in the upper arm it might’ve hurt more than usual.
I finally got round 1 last weekend. I’d been having no luck and had kind of resigned myself to just waiting until last Thursday, when all of the waiting lists all at once send me emails and text messages “we have vaccines! Sign up!” I picked the most convenient one and got the first dose.
It was running like clockwork - no waiting, no lines, just pushing everyone through from point to point. I don’t know if there were growing pains earlier - but at this stage, they have the routine down and it was incredibly efficient.
Around here (South FL) we’re rapidly going from appointments are hard to get and sell out for the upcoming week in a few seconds to the point they’re begging for walk-ins.
Which is what we all, and the authorities, all expected would happen. The problem is it happened with about 100 million Americans saying “No thanks” or “Hell no, over my dead body.”
There is also a huge increase in production of doses. ~2.5 million shots are being given a day but maybe most of those are second doses.
Umm, that’d be all of us.
Yeah, even those of us who think “get off my dick” is a weird saying… (last guy who I yelled that at was a store clerk… he was confused, but he did climb off.)
Seriously, we appreciate the update. I kept checking back hoping you’d gotten poked.
My wife, too, had a tough time afterwards (daughter, too, both had 100+º fevers, so no sleep, then long hospital shifts the next day). I had a bad day, but I was glad, because I could feel my body making spiky cells!
Yeah, I got a txt today that Cook County (Chicago area) has 6 locations open for walk-in through the weekend.
My husband finally added himself to the state waiting list. I’m curious to see how long it takes before they contact him to make an appointment.
I’ll describe my experience, and you guys can decide if it counts as “max vaccination.”
I went to a clinic being held by my hospital in an unused section of a local college. When I arrived, I waited a bit outside the door until someone at the door said there was room to stand inside, and was asked if this was my first or second shot. Very soon after I was directed to one of many standing tables where they did intake, and I was given a number. Then I went and sat in a room with socially distanced chairs which were constantly being cleaned.
It took maybe a couple minutes before they called my number, and I was directed to another room with a bunch of long sit-down tables, each with a different tech at the end who would give the shot. I give them my paper, and they read it. They then had to check with the pharmacist on something (my reaction to the MMR shot back when I was a toddler) but said that didn’t matter and gave me the shot. It felt like when they draw blood, except it was over with really quickly. It was bandaged, and then they then wrote on the top how long I’d have to wait before I could leave.
Then I was directed to another room with chairs that were spaced, and, this time, we were all essentially assigned seating, with one nurse directing us to a seat. I waited the alotted time, and went up to a check out desk where they’d look at my paperwork once again and told me to come back at the same time four weeks from now. They then gave me a sticker and I left.
It definitely felt like I was part of some sort of vaccine assembly line. I can’s say I’ve had another experience like it. Due to my anxiety and trouble sleeping the night before, it was also a bit disorienting. But I got it done, and am ready to get the second shot–even if I am a bit anxious about the side effects.
That said, my side effects on this shot were minor: just a bit of soreness, my normal tiredness maybe being a bit worse, and eventually a knot-like bump under where the shot was that itched slightly for a bit. It really wasn’t much at all, to the point I wouldn’t have thought much of any of it even if I’d not gotten a shot.
It was 21 days after I was eligible, and 20 days after my first Moderna shot, that MyTurn.ca.gov texted to say it was my turn.