Oxford AstraZenica time

After nine days off I've returned to find we are now giving the Oxford AstraZeneca rather than the Pfizer BioNTechvaccine at the QMU Vaccination Drive Through Centre.

This does not involve any great change other than fewer potential cold chain issues, larger individual doses (0.5ml rather than 0.3ml), bigger vials (8mls or 10mls) and somewhat flimsier needles.

The Pfizer BioNTech was drawn up and administered in a basically old style fashion with medium sized needles and pretty standard 1ml syringes which were fine for both purposes. The Oxford AstraZenica comes with larger 2ml syringes with a fixed small needle which is really rather flimsy when trying to get it through the little rubber bung of the vial. It’s also a little small for intramuscular injection use but I guess this is what we have been able to source in large enough quantities to deliver the vaccination programme.

Over the last couple of days I have worked alongside a retired midwife, a former nurse who now works in administration and a retired health visitor. It’s nice to chat between jabs with colleagues about their work and life experiences as well as engaging with the public coming forward for their vaccines.

The pace is currently still quite slow with rarely more than 4 of the possible 12 cabins running at any one time. We appear to be vaccinating about 2-3 hundred people a day and I would estimate our full capacity to be about 8-9 hundred a day if all 12 cabins were up and running for a full 10 hour day.

My guess is that once vaccine supply is more assured and we begin to vaccinate both first time younger people and second time older people the pace will pick up significantly.

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