This week’s discussion centers on the latest trend of “Vaccine Shopping”. What’s that you ask – I had the same question. For some who are struggling with accessing appointments, worried that their appointment might be cancelled or even thinking they want to pick and choose the vaccine they get, they are booking multiple appointments. While many of us have played a “spread” the difference in this case is unlike husband and wife lining up in two different check out queues at the supermarket, when you eventually finalize your choice your duplicate is released and someone else can fill it. That’s not true with vaccine distribution with the short shelf life and friability of some of the vaccines in use. If vaccination sites have appointment no-shows there is a risk that the vaccine goes to waste or ends up being used in backup choices which may not match the intent of prioritization
Meanwhile the vaccination booking systems continue to struggle but in a picture of innovation meeting adversity Olivia Adams (@livgust) who is currently on maternity leave decided to solve the problem in Massachusetts and created an integration screen scraping site MA COVID Vaccine Appointments that goes to all of the booking sites in the state, pulls information and assembles it to a single page that people can review to find the nearest available appointment. Clever stuff!
And then finally we discuss the view that once you have received your vaccine can you now stop wearing a mask, stop washing your hands and hang out in close quarters with all your besties. The short answer is no but you can hear the details why getting vaccinated is not liberation from our NPIs.
Join Dr Luis Saldana, Fred and myself for our COVID Insights to Action Discussion webinar taking place every Wednesday at 4pm ET https://bit.ly/C19QandA
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