It is very important that people in residential care - and their hired caregivers - are prioritized for vaccination. That's a good thing! But what about all the home caregivers and the frail seniors relying on us? Is anybody lobbying or even raising this issue with the CDC and Congress? How can we be heard?
You need to call your PCP and get their opinions--they will be the ones making decisions as to who gets vaccines.
I asked my PCP about this and he told me to reach out to my oncology team. THEY will be getting me the vaccine. If I waited for my PCP, it would be a first come, first served.
To me, the big unknown on how wide of a vaccination program can be put in place for 2021 in the US will totally hedge on IF one of the other trials show good efficacy and get EUA. The current administration totally clusterF the rollout by under ordering the mRNAs. Nuff said....
In particular IF the Janssen / Johnson & Johnson phase 3 trials are able to get EUA. For Janssen, if the #’s look good, they should know by early Feb or March at the latest. And it’s a way way way more traditional vaccine.... like single shot, regular refrigeration, shelf stable, long shelf life. It doesn’t need sub-subcold mRNA platform like Pfizer & Modernas vaccines requires; but uses AdVac platform. It could be manufactured & in arms way easier. It imo will be a game changer worldwide as super simple and straightforward.
btw I’m in the Janssen trial (aka “the Ensemble”) and my hubs is in Pfizer trial (he went on it in Aug, mine this month). We know several who also are in trials. & whether or not we “got the good juice” is unknown as they are blind trials. But I’ve got to tell you, side effects from Pfizer are very distinctive & if someone is actually medically frail I bet they will be excluded from the mRNA if there is a traditional vaccine that can be given instead; Janssen is showing way less side effects but it’s still in first mo of phase 3.
Really if Janssen or AstraZenica both get EUA, we might see enough product in the US to vaccinate HCW working in hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and folks over 70 before next Fall’s flu season 2021. Fingers crossed!
on being antibody negative, yes for both me & hubs. They do a draw &/or swab and get results back right then & there. You had to be neg to get onto study. It’s 1 of the reasons why the initial visit for our trials took basically 2.5-3.5 hrs. It technically counts as 2 “visits” for both Pfizer & Janssen trials. On hubs, his second visit (for Pfizer shot #2) took 3 hrs again but some of this time was that his syringe didn’t get done till he went thru health check and blood draw and all ok then & only then was vial removed from cold and wait 45 min or so till just right slushy to get filled. It’s a trial so has to be done this way. For the general population rollout they are going to have to have the syringes prefilled imo or it will be chaos. Which is what it looks like is happening.
A ? for you if you don’t mind, on being selected as a partner pharmacy, are you a independent compounding pharmacy and perhaps why selected? do you already have 1 or 2 up & running PHCbi units? And that’s why selected? Or do you have 1 or 2 -20C units? Or 1 or 2 medical grade 2-8C frigerators? Or are the Feds or state health Dept providing & setting up specific appliances for your pharmacy?
Do you have or are you getting an ESCO Airstream or something similar?
Btw thanks for being a participating partner. We have friends who have ind. cmpd pharmacy but declined.