Covid And The Rest of Us

[ronandannette]

They are swans. Our geese don't really swim together like this to go from one place to the other. A goose would fly if he wants to get to the other side of the city. A swan glides
(Unscientific observation )

We had our first snow today, about 1 cm, but it will be gone tomorrow. Last few days it has been a little colder than average. Average is here is about 5-6 degrees Celsius (low 40s). It has been rainy lately, more than I want to ;-)

We are having a very unusually mild winter - it's been above freezing more often than it's been below, but nobody gave the waterfowl advance notification so they all took off in October.

 

[NFLDERS]

Only because I found this to be an interesting read, and a distraction. It lends way for a hopefulness for sure.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/edward-riche-atlantic-bloc-1.5874814

 

[elphaba91]

Tennis players and their entourages started arriving in Melbourne at the end of last week for the Australian Open. A lot of people aren't happy that they are here, thinking that they are taking away quarantine spots from Australians, although that is not the case. They were all on flights chartered by Tennis Australia and are in separate hotels booked out specifically for the Open. Everyone had to be tested before boarding their flights; one player was allowed on with a very low positive which was deemed to be historic shedding from when he had it in November, while Andy Murray and Madison Keys both were turned away (although Murray is still somehow hoping to come). Everyone then has to spend a couple of days in quarantine and be re-tested. After that, they will be allowed out for 5 hours a day to train in small groups with each group moving from the hotel to the courts, the socially distanced gym (set up in a car park), the lunch tent, etc. as a group. After 14 days then they will be allowed to join the rest of the community before the tournament starts on 8 February (with audiences).

Unfortunately though, 5 people have now tested positive across 3 of the chartered flights, and everyone on those flights, including 72 players, now must spend the next 14 days in strict quarantine and they are not happy about it; I can absolutely understand their frustrations but unfortunately that was just a risk that they took in coming and there is no other way around it. They were told the rules and can't be given special treatment because the virus certainly won't. Djokovic in particular (who isn't even in Melbourne - he, Nadal, Thiem, Williams, Osaka and Halep are all in Adelaide for an exhibition match before the Open), has posted a list of demands including allowing contact between players and coaches, reducing the length of quarantine and moving players to houses with private tennis courts. Suffice to say, those requests have been denied and our health department will not be taking advice on COVID from Novak 'Adria Tour' Djokovic!

 

[ronandannette]

Tennis players and their entourages started arriving in Melbourne at the end of last week for the Australian Open. A lot of people aren't happy that they are here, thinking that they are taking away quarantine spots from Australians, although that is not the case. They were all on flights chartered by Tennis Australia and are in separate hotels booked out specifically for the Open. Everyone had to be tested before boarding their flights; one player was allowed on with a very low positive which was deemed to be historic shedding from when he had it in November, while Andy Murray and Madison Keys both were turned away (although Murray is still somehow hoping to come). Everyone then has to spend a couple of days in quarantine and be re-tested. After that, they will be allowed out for 5 hours a day to train in small groups with each group moving from the hotel to the courts, the socially distanced gym (set up in a car park), the lunch tent, etc. as a group. After 14 days then they will be allowed to join the rest of the community before the tournament starts on 8 February (with audiences).

Unfortunately though, 5 people have now tested positive across 3 of the chartered flights, and everyone on those flights, including 72 players, now must spend the next 14 days in strict quarantine and they are not happy about it; I can absolutely understand their frustrations but unfortunately that was just a risk that they took in coming and there is no other way around it. They were told the rules and can't be given special treatment because the virus certainly won't. Djokovic in particular (who isn't even in Melbourne - he, Nadal, Thiem, Williams, Osaka and Halep are all in Adelaide for an exhibition match before the Open), has posted a list of demands including allowing contact between players and coaches, reducing the length of quarantine and moving players to houses with private tennis courts. Suffice to say, those requests have been denied and our health department will not be taking advice on COVID from Novak 'Adria Tour' Djokovic!

Sooner or later the entire world is going to have to try to normalize and I see this tennis thing as a reasonable attempt. Between the rigorous testing and quarantine requirements - frustration aside - it sounds like it should go fine and I hope you all enjoy it.

In less happy sports news, it doesn't look like the "curling bubble" is going to get off the ground for our national finals because most teams are either prohibited from participating in regional/provincial qualifiers or are declining to do so. Without play-downs, how can a field for The Briar be fairly chosen?

 

[BadPinkTink]

Big scandal here in Ireland today. On Friday January 8th 16 doses of left over vaccine were given to family members of staff at a hospital including the young adult children of the head of the hospital.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/hea...r-vaccines-to-16-relatives-of-staff-1.4460718
The hospital’s manager said he now regrets that relatives of hospital employees were vaccinated with doses left over on Friday, January 8th after more than 1,100 doses were given to frontline staff, GPs and local community health workers.

Two of the recipients are understood to be Dr O’Connell’s children, one of whom is college-going age, and is a paid part-time worker in his private medical practice. The other works intermittently in the hospital as an unpaid worker.

In response to questions submitted by The Irish Times, the consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist said in a statement the decision to use the doses already made up as part of the roll-out of vaccines at the hospital that day was made to ensure no vaccine “was wasted”.

“Had they not been used they would have been discarded. I was keenly aware of that and throughout the evening and from 9.30pm onward I personally made every effort to prioritise and identify additional frontline workers and followed all measures available to me at the time,” he said.

“In hindsight, as Master I deeply regret that family members of employees were vaccinated and for that I wholeheartedly apologise.”

The hospital said that among the 16 recipients, nine were over 70 and the remaining seven were “of varying age”. It would not identify the individuals.

 

[ronandannette]

Big scandal here in Ireland today. On Friday January 8th 16 doses of left over vaccine were given to family members of staff at a hospital including the young adult children of the head of the hospital.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/hea...r-vaccines-to-16-relatives-of-staff-1.4460718
The hospital’s manager said he now regrets that relatives of hospital employees were vaccinated with doses left over on Friday, January 8th after more than 1,100 doses were given to frontline staff, GPs and local community health workers.

Two of the recipients are understood to be Dr O’Connell’s children, one of whom is college-going age, and is a paid part-time worker in his private medical practice. The other works intermittently in the hospital as an unpaid worker.

In response to questions submitted by The Irish Times, the consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist said in a statement the decision to use the doses already made up as part of the roll-out of vaccines at the hospital that day was made to ensure no vaccine “was wasted”.

“Had they not been used they would have been discarded. I was keenly aware of that and throughout the evening and from 9.30pm onward I personally made every effort to prioritise and identify additional frontline workers and followed all measures available to me at the time,” he said.

“In hindsight, as Master I deeply regret that family members of employees were vaccinated and for that I wholeheartedly apologise.”

The hospital said that among the 16 recipients, nine were over 70 and the remaining seven were “of varying age”. It would not identify the individuals.

Bad optics maybe but it’s hardly the end of the world unless the guy contrived to have the doses reserved and coerced those administering the vaccine to inject his family members. Was there any discussion of what other viable options for distribution there were? What’s your personal opinion on it?

To avoid this very problem, our Chief Officer of Health addressed the matter in a public statement two weeks or so ago. (She does broadcasts several times a week.) There is apparently residual material left in every vial after the proscribed number of doses come out. Vaccinators here are directed to use the residuals as they go on those who are “on the list” in whatever facility they are at (currently all our vaccinations are being done in hospitals or long-term-care homes). If, at the end of the day they have vaccinated everyone in that location who is eligible and there is residual material left-over, they offer it to whomever is present and willing, whether or not they are officially eligible. It is the prudent thing to do and only amounts to a few doses per day, per location. A far cry better than wasting something so precious and I don’t begrudge anybody who lucks into a shot that way. I’d certainly take it if it were me.

 

[BadPinkTink]

Bad optics maybe but it’s hardly the end of the world unless the guy contrived to have the doses reserved and coerced those administering the vaccine to inject his family members. Was there any discussion of what other viable options for distribution there were? What’s your personal opinion on it?

To avoid this very problem, our Chief Officer of Health addressed the matter in a public statement two weeks or so ago. (She does broadcasts several times a week.) There is apparently residual material left in every vial after the proscribed number of doses come out. Vaccinators here are directed to use the residuals as they go on those who are “on the list” in whatever facility they are at (currently all our vaccinations are being done in hospitals or long-term-care homes). If, at the end of the day they have vaccinated everyone in that location who is eligible and there is residual material left-over, they offer it to whomever is present and willing, whether or not they are officially eligible. It is the prudent thing to do and only amounts to a few doses per day, per location. A far cry better than wasting something so precious and I don’t begrudge anybody who lucks into a shot that way. I’d certainly take it if it were me.

Other vaccination centres have been contacting each other if they have left overs, which is why there is such an outrage. In Ireland we are big on doing the right moral thing, so not contacting another vaccination centre is a big no no. Also the fact that family members of the head of the hospital who are not in the current priority group , got it over front line staff in the hospital is angering people.

Me personally, I think they were wrong to not contact another vaccination centre and they were wrong to give it to family members not in the current priority group. However, The Irish Health Department were wrong not to have clear guidelines for vaccination centre about what to do with left over vaccines. Its good that the vaccines were not wasted, but queue skipping like that is not ok. It doesn't sit well with me that people are queue jumping. The Irish Government have laid out a very clear roadmap for priority groups and its not right that some vaccination centre manager decides that they know better and just takes it on themselves to determine who gets the vaccine.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Big scandal here in Ireland today. On Friday January 8th 16 doses of left over vaccine were given to family members of staff at a hospital including the young adult children of the head of the hospital.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/hea...r-vaccines-to-16-relatives-of-staff-1.4460718
The hospital’s manager said he now regrets that relatives of hospital employees were vaccinated with doses left over on Friday, January 8th after more than 1,100 doses were given to frontline staff, GPs and local community health workers.

Two of the recipients are understood to be Dr O’Connell’s children, one of whom is college-going age, and is a paid part-time worker in his private medical practice. The other works intermittently in the hospital as an unpaid worker.

In response to questions submitted by The Irish Times, the consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist said in a statement the decision to use the doses already made up as part of the roll-out of vaccines at the hospital that day was made to ensure no vaccine “was wasted”.

“Had they not been used they would have been discarded. I was keenly aware of that and throughout the evening and from 9.30pm onward I personally made every effort to prioritise and identify additional frontline workers and followed all measures available to me at the time,” he said.

“In hindsight, as Master I deeply regret that family members of employees were vaccinated and for that I wholeheartedly apologise.”

The hospital said that among the 16 recipients, nine were over 70 and the remaining seven were “of varying age”. It would not identify the individuals.

This has been an issue in the states as well. A lot surrounds not wanting vaccines to go to waste but it has led to quite the chaos and I think that's because there really wasn't much guidance on what to do should you have leftover and so people just panicked and went off script (if there was one but you know the saying).

Most of the time so long as they were eligible as in they were individuals in a specific Phase for it it's not been as big of a deal but there have been times where leftover vaccine OR vaccine with a temperature sensor that has gone off has been given to people not eligible. A Walgreens in one of the states was giving the vaccine to LTC residents, had leftover vaccine due to an unintentional over ordering of vaccine amount gave it to their employees at that location and random people of the public who were there (neither groups were eligible) and the governor said later on those should have gone to the next LTC facility in line and advised this was a mistake that he did not want repeated. In this case the vaccine would not have gone to waste had that Walgreens location contacted a nearby long-term care facility.

That's been IMO part of the issue. There's a lot of panic around vaccines going to waste but that's a very generic way of saying something. Did those who were in charge of the vaccine check around to see what other places could use it with those who are eligible? Did they even think to? Did those who gave the vaccine out randomly ensure those who received it were properly tracked in the system? Etc.

 

[mom2rtk]

In Ireland we are big on doing the right moral thing,

Happy to hear it.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

A far cry better than wasting something so precious and I don’t begrudge anybody who lucks into a shot that way. I’d certainly take it if it were me.

It does depends on what a place means by wasting to me at least. In CA they had an issue where a temperature sensor went off but wasn't found out until very late. They had 2-4hrs left. That is way different IMO if you have 1-3+ days to figure it out.

One of the more rural counties in my state (they have about 40K residents in the county) had leftover vaccine after using it for their healthcare workers and whatever LTC that were not covered by the government contract. They called the state to ask what to do. The state's guidance had, according to that county, changed several times. They said "hey we don't want it to go to waste" and they went ahead and vaccinated 100 teachers of their school district. Teachers are not eligible yet. The county did the teachers as opposed to others in the next phase because of students returning to school soon. However, the state health director said he was fine with it so long as places are checking their surrounding counties to see if they need it. I didn't get the impression the state health director wanted this to happen too often but rather it's a reasonable thing so long as you're looking out for each other. In my state they are using a hub and spoke distribution process with those several distribution sites around the state so using those should help on checking surrounding counties rather than trying to call across the state to find someplace eligible.

To me a lot of this vaccine stuff is "looking after your neighbor" kind of thing. I know the usage of priority groups and who is in the priority group in different places is controversial. In my mind there's room for improvement on looking out for each other. Looking out for each other means different things to different people. To me it means at least try to find people in a reasonable distance that are eligible instead of a person going in for groceries and walking out with a vaccine (true story happened in D.C.) By the time general population gets to it it will be less necessary to do this. In my state general population is already considered first come first serve.

*A caveat because we are about to have a new president I am only speaking about things such that they are now. I don't know if any of this will change in the near future.

 

[TLSnell1981]

This has been an issue in the states as well. A lot surrounds not wanting vaccines to go to waste but it has led to quite the chaos and I think that's because there really wasn't much guidance on what to do should you have leftover and so people just panicked and went off script (if there was one but you know the saying).

They shouldn't throw out leftover doses. Too much control isn't necessarily a good thing. I have no problem with professionals making the decision NOT to waste the vaccine.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

They shouldn't throw out leftover doses. Too much control isn't necessarily a good thing. I have no problem with professionals making the decision NOT to waste the vaccine.

Of course they shouldn't throw it out. But I didn't say they should. I do know of a poster who mentioned their hospital isn't allowed to give or get doses from other hospitals in the area. That is super dumb to me. Heck my county has only gotten 3 shipments from the state with other doses from hospital systems in the area. That is looking after your neighbor. Arbitrarily deciding to limit the means to check around to other places that may need it isn't at all what I'm discussing.

When you look at the stories there's comments that say "we didn't want to throw it out" but not much clarity on if that was literally the only choice or if they could have called around, or had a contingency plan in place for finding places that need it. If your first thought is "we have to throw it out or use it on a doctor's kids" you're not looking out for your neighbor. Also like I said "not wanting to waste" is a very generic way of describing the situation. It can mean very different things.

ETA: For an example one of the main hospital systems in my metro gave my county 1,000 doses (actually they gave us 2,000 total another 1,000 was given a day later). That hospital system could have easily spun the situation with "we have these leftover doses we don't want them to go to waste hurry call up random people of the public let's go go go". Instead they gave it to my county, my county then used that for healthcare workers in the county.

 

[BadPinkTink]

Big scandal here in Ireland today. On Friday January 8th 16 doses of left over vaccine were given to family members of staff at a hospital including the young adult children of the head of the hospital.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/hea...r-vaccines-to-16-relatives-of-staff-1.4460718
The hospital’s manager said he now regrets that relatives of hospital employees were vaccinated with doses left over on Friday, January 8th after more than 1,100 doses were given to frontline staff, GPs and local community health workers.

Two of the recipients are understood to be Dr O’Connell’s children, one of whom is college-going age, and is a paid part-time worker in his private medical practice. The other works intermittently in the hospital as an unpaid worker.

In response to questions submitted by The Irish Times, the consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist said in a statement the decision to use the doses already made up as part of the roll-out of vaccines at the hospital that day was made to ensure no vaccine “was wasted”.

“Had they not been used they would have been discarded. I was keenly aware of that and throughout the evening and from 9.30pm onward I personally made every effort to prioritise and identify additional frontline workers and followed all measures available to me at the time,” he said.

“In hindsight, as Master I deeply regret that family members of employees were vaccinated and for that I wholeheartedly apologise.”

The hospital said that among the 16 recipients, nine were over 70 and the remaining seven were “of varying age”. It would not identify the individuals.

UPDATE

The Irish Health Department has released a statement that says they issued guidelines for this scenario on 12 January, 4 days AFTER this issue occurred. Vaccination centres should establish standby lists of frontline healthcare workers later in the sequence order.

They should be available at short notice and are to be randomly selected from the lists for vaccination in the event that frontline healthcare staff earlier in the sequence order do not attend or cannot receive the vaccine.

 

[Southernmiss]

9:30 PM onward was Very late in the day. Maybe they should have made other calls, but it sounds like they did try.

Those 16 getting the vaccine now, may have paved the way for 16 others down the road who may have missed out.

I don't put a lot of fault on the doctor.

 

[Heigh-Ho]

They shouldn't throw out leftover doses. Too much control isn't necessarily a good thing. I have no problem with professionals making the decision NOT to waste the vaccine.

Throwing it out shouldn't be done unless it's a last resort or there is issues with the vaccine like a temperature issue (hopefully that doesn't happen too much). Too much control is a problem but more places it's the opposite that there is no clear plan what to do so one place may choose to do something and another place may choose to do the opposite. I'm not sure what waste means but reading people's stories there doesn't seem to be one meaning used for all. If you have vials in the refrigerator couldn't you just say you have leftover and don't want it to go to waste? But would it really go to waste? That seems to be the question.

 

[Heigh-Ho]

9:30 PM onward was Very late in the day. Maybe they should have made other calls, but it sounds like they did try.

Those 16 getting the vaccine now, may have paved the way for 16 others down the road who may have missed out.

I don't put a lot of fault on the doctor.

Maybe it looks worse because it was relatives of the employees and his own child? I do agree with another person it's optics. If it was just a person in general maybe it wouldn't have looked as bad?? Don't we all want our family to be vaccinated too?

 

[Heigh-Ho]

Tennis players and their entourages started arriving in Melbourne at the end of last week for the Australian Open. A lot of people aren't happy that they are here, thinking that they are taking away quarantine spots from Australians, although that is not the case. They were all on flights chartered by Tennis Australia and are in separate hotels booked out specifically for the Open. Everyone had to be tested before boarding their flights; one player was allowed on with a very low positive which was deemed to be historic shedding from when he had it in November, while Andy Murray and Madison Keys both were turned away (although Murray is still somehow hoping to come). Everyone then has to spend a couple of days in quarantine and be re-tested. After that, they will be allowed out for 5 hours a day to train in small groups with each group moving from the hotel to the courts, the socially distanced gym (set up in a car park), the lunch tent, etc. as a group. After 14 days then they will be allowed to join the rest of the community before the tournament starts on 8 February (with audiences).

Unfortunately though, 5 people have now tested positive across 3 of the chartered flights, and everyone on those flights, including 72 players, now must spend the next 14 days in strict quarantine and they are not happy about it; I can absolutely understand their frustrations but unfortunately that was just a risk that they took in coming and there is no other way around it. They were told the rules and can't be given special treatment because the virus certainly won't. Djokovic in particular (who isn't even in Melbourne - he, Nadal, Thiem, Williams, Osaka and Halep are all in Adelaide for an exhibition match before the Open), has posted a list of demands including allowing contact between players and coaches, reducing the length of quarantine and moving players to houses with private tennis courts. Suffice to say, those requests have been denied and our health department will not be taking advice on COVID from Novak 'Adria Tour' Djokovic!

Your news, not the positive cases, but just that there are sports competitions happening, makes me really hope the Olympics happen! I'm still holding out for hope but I'm not sure in 6 months time the world will feel comfortable enough to send their athletes. As I understand it if it doesn't happen this year it won't happen until the next time meaning no more delays.

 

[nursejackie]

In our NHS Trust they've tried to book the right amount of staff for the right amount of vials opened e.g. 300 staff equals 30 vials of AstraZeneca, then anyone in the building who wasn't due to have theirs on that day were called upon to have theirs in the case of a cancellation. They may not have been due to have it just yet, but better to vaccinate someone than let precious medication go to waste in my opinion.

 

[lanejudy]

While it sounds simple, there is a lot of wasteful administrative effort involved to maintain standby lists and/or calling around to other locations which in turn would require transportation of the opened vial via non-authorized methods.

It's 9:30 pm and everyone on today's list has been vaccinated, there is residual in a few vials amounting to 16 doses, give it to anyone available. Now if we're talking entire unopened vials that can safely be saved, hold for the next day or arrange proper transport to another location - and then figure out how to avoid so much leftover in the future.

 

[mrs. magoo]

Your news, not the positive cases, but just that there are sports competitions happening, makes me really hope the Olympics happen! I'm still holding out for hope but I'm not sure in 6 months time the world will feel comfortable enough to send their athletes. As I understand it if it doesn't happen this year it won't happen until the next time meaning no more delays.

I believe many athletes would gladly sign a waiver to participate in the Olympics. Many of them get one shot to complete in them and would sign whatever you wanted them to in order to compete. Here in NY state the governor still has not made a decision on what he deems high risk sports. My senior son plays 3 high risk sports (football, basketball and lacrosse). We have no idea if he will play any of these sports his senior year. I would be willing to sign a waiver to allow him to play. I understand the risks associated with playing but again the stats do not support a continued standstill. There are very few cases of kids contracting Covid through sports competition. Most of the cases come from parties and get togethers.