Covid vaccination.

[StarBright]

Very pleased your wife has had her first jab spencer. It may just be what vaccine's turned up & had stock of that day or like you said a tactical

beau, just spoke to my GP & asked about family members second jab if we call the surgery or they call us. She said they call you when it's due

[beau]

StarBright, thanks for that. I have already marked out calendar for 11 weeks after our jabs. If I haven't heard anything by then I will be chasing it up.

[StarBright]

That's OK beau, that's a good plan

[StarBright]

COVID-19: All adults to be offered vaccine by 31 July under PM's accelerated plan, as ministers meet to finalise roadmap out of lockdown

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...-plan-12224309

[StarBright]

Covid vaccines - 'spectacular' impact on serious illness

Research led by Public Health Scotland found at four weeks after the first dose, hospital admissions were reduced by 85% and 94% for the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs respectively.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56153600

[nukecad]

Got my vaccination letter today so went to the website to book.

After a few questions I entered my postcode to get a list of 'Local' vaccination centres I could go to for the jab.
It offered 5 of them:

Morcambe 39 miles away. LA4 4NL
Lancaster 42 miles away. LA1 1PJ
Fleetwood 44 miles away. FY7 6HP
Blackpool 49 miles away. FY2 0JG
Blackpool 50 miles away. FY1 1HL

Distances are measured in a straight line from your location. Travel distances may vary.

Which bright spark came up with using straight line distances?

A slight problem there is that in a straight line between me and those places there are there are the mountains of the Lake District, and the large expanse of Morcambe Bay.

Lancaster is the nearest of those to travel to - unless you have a Helicopter to fly to Morcambe in a straight line.
I'd actually have to pass through Lancater to get to any of the others.

To get Lancaster by public transport I would have to pass through at least 8 towns and 1 city, Carlisle, that I know have dedicated vaccination centres open, the nearest is just 6 miles away.

So let's check the actual traveling time (by bus) on the Traveline website, one way departing after 9 in the morning.
Morcambe 6 hrs 53 mins (4 buses)
Lancaster 6 hrs 10 mins (3 buses)
Fleetwood 8 hrs 25 mins (5 buses)
Blackpool 8 hrs 18 mins (4 buses)

And that's just getting there, there is no way I could get back the same day.

The quickest, as I expected, was Lancaster so let's throw taking the train into the mix:
Walk, bus, walk, train, train, walk, bus, walk. = 3 hrs 49 mins. getting there just before 13:00.
To allow for travel delays I wouldn't book an appointment until at least 15:00, so say I'm not ready to start journying home until about 17:00.
The return journey would involve a rail replacement bus, so 4 hrs 45 mins, and I'd get home at 10 minutes to midnight.
(I've actually landed home that late once when going over to Newcastle to see my neurologist, it's a knackering days travel for a short appointment).

If you cannot travel to any of these vaccination centres, you can wait until a centre nearer you opens. More centres are opening all the time - check back regularly.

I should bloody well hope so.

[beau]

How very annoying Nukecad. No consideration for those that do not have transport. Even so it is still a long way to travel and on public transport look at the risks being taken. Could your GP help by offering you a home vaccination?

[nukecad]

I've just been doing some checking and this is the 'National Booking Service' letter.

You should ignore it if you want a more local service.

From the North Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group website, - the bolding and underlining is theirs from the website:

Please note that 'Local GP vaccination services' are your GPs working together in local areas as part of Primary Care Networks (PCNs). We have eight of these networks across north Cumbria who are delivering the vaccine from nine hubs.

People may also receive a letter from the National Booking Service, providing an alternative option which invites them to book at a Large Vaccination Centre. However as you would need to travel further for your vaccination it might be more convenient for people to wait for their local vaccination service run by their GPs to get in touch. Everyone in the priority cohorts who want to have a vaccination can do so from their local GP vaccination service.

...
...
If you want to wait to be called by your local GP vaccination service then please do not respond to the national booking service invitation.

Work is ongoing to develop a Large Vaccination Centre for north Cumbria and we will update any progress when a date for opening is confirmed.

So back to waiting for another letter.

[StarBright]

Hi Nuke,

I was just going to say to you that you don't need to go to any national vaccination centre, you just wait for your GP to contact you Everyone I know so far has received a phone call from their GP's secretary's so answer if you get a "private" number come up because most of them use that when calling patients.

I had three of those national vaccination letters one before I had my jab & two more after

[StueyR]

Here in Scotland we got a letter (not inviting) telling when and where to go to get the vaccine, you can rearrange the appointment or if house bound get it @ home, well thats what the letter say, we wait and see what happens next