Clareman wrote: » By that argument by running 2 centres for a period of time should mean that we shot ahead of the rest of the country
iguana wrote: » By what argument? It's just plain logic. Two things happened. We shut down for nearly 4 days. We fell behind. While correlation doesn't always equal causation, in this case it does. In those 4 days a lot of people in their mid and early 40s should have been vaccinated. We weren't. Now we have to wait more than those 4 days because the people in their mid and early 50s are receiving their second dose at present. And while it isn't the end of the world, there is currently a massive upsurge of cases in the region. Largely driven in primary schools. And we have the two age groups (35-39 and 40-44) that are mainly the parents of those primary school children and a huge part of the workforce, left waiting on vaccines. Ensuring the perfect conditions for the virus to spread. So sure, the move happened and the shut down for horse racing happened. We are where we are. But lets not gaslight everybody by pretending that the reason we have fallen behind, during a critical time, isn't because we shut down. It's insulting to everyone's intelligence to pretend otherwise.
A spokesperson for the HSE vaccination programme in Limerick said it had been built into their contract with Limerick Racecourse that it would be unavailable for vaccinations on five days over June and July, namely on 12, 18 June and on 4, 10 and 22 July and that the capacity of vaccinations was not being diminished or reduced at all because of this.
Cookiemunster wrote: » We could be open 24/7 and it wouldn't make a difference because vaccine supply is limited. The country should be at over 400k vaccines a week, but supply issues mean it's still below 300k a week. The portal still hasn't been opened to people in their 30s anywhere in the country. We have not fallen behind.
AlfaZen wrote: » I think the issue here is yes, the vaccines have supply issues/constraints however we should be administering the maximum we can every day weather that is 1 or 10,000. So I think it does make a difference as that one person that could have vaccinated on the Saturday but wasn't is 24 hours at greater risk than they need to be. Over a week or a month the numbers vaccinated may average out but covid doesn't wait for averages.
Clareman wrote: » Aren't vaccines delivered on a weekly basis rather than a daily basis? If (say), 24k doses are available for a week from the racecourse is there really a difference between delivering .5k a day rather than 4k a day? Surely that would mean that on Friday evening you'd have 17k vs 20k delivered and on Sunday you'd have the 24k delivered.
Clareman wrote: » Actually an important point here that I think might be missed is that just because the racecourse is being closed doesn't mean that less vaccines are being given out, there is more vaccinators than vaccines at the moment
AlfaZen wrote: » I honestly don't know the details of the supply chains. But, if they are delivered weekly I would think it would be best (in terms of protecting the public from covid) to run the centers for the maximum possible hours until the supply for that week has been fully administered. In my opinion this would give the greatest cover to people.
Treepole wrote: » That is completely impractical as doesn't give any thought to resource planning? You need to be able to schedule staff and the people getting the vaccine.
Cookiemunster wrote: » But the supply for the week is being fully administered. Even with the closure.
AlfaZen wrote: » This may be true over a week, but the question is then how quickly are the available vaccines being administered? Could they lets say get the full supply for the week administered in 4 days (Monday to Thursday) and then have no issue with horse racing at the weekend. I think it all boils down to Communication from the HSE. Last weeks issues just looked so bad (even if the impact was relatively small).
RivetingRoger wrote: » People all over the country in the 41/42 age bracket have texts received. No one in Limerick has. What's going on
AlfaZen wrote: » Okay fair enough but my question is - Is it being administered a quickly as it could be? example: 24k Vaccines available in Limerick for the week of 14th June. Do they administer 3.5k per day for 7 days or could they do 6k a day and get it done in 4 days? (Understand that there are other variables to would need to be considered) If they could get the 6k done each day you could have 10k more Limerick people vaccinated by end of day on Thursday. More people vaccinated sooner = better protection for the population. The date by which we have everyone vaccinated would not change.
Clareman wrote: » There are pros and cons for every approach, there's a reason supply chain is such a huge industry but I would have thought that having a standard daily schedule rather than a busier first couple of days would have been the best way to go about it. There's a lot of moving parts needed to get this working, vaccines need to be confirmed, those vaccinated 4 weeks ago need to be prioritized, confirmations are needed, then others contacts.
AlfaZen wrote: » There are indeed pros and cons but my thinking is just on getting the maximum amount of people vaccinated as soon as possible. I've worked in Supply Chain and Logistics for years for a large multinational. I fully appreciate what the HSE have done to date but just wondering if there could be small improvements made to what they have in place.
Clareman wrote: » Could you imagine the complaints if the vaccine centre was only open 4 days a week? Regardless of all the vaccines being given out in the 4 days that would be a PR nightmare, it would also mean that when vaccine supply increases they'll have to add extra days. At the moment they are able to schedule the workload well in advance and cater for planned issues, such as the racecourse being closed for other events.
Clareman wrote: » There is so much scheduling and moving parts here I don't think it would be possible "front load" the week and in the overall scheme of things does a day or 2 difference for a small number of patients make that much of a difference?
Jeremy Beagle wrote: » I see all the expert epidemiologists we discovered we had last year are now expert project managers too.
AlfaZen wrote: » That's why I said maximum hours instead of 24/7 like some have mentioned. There are a number of constraints besides the vaccine availability to would need to be factored in.