Sunday 5 December 2021

Boosterism

 With the Omicron variant spreading rapidly, there's an understandable push to press on with the booster jab program. I've been waiting for my call-up for weeks, so I was relieved to get a text advising me that slots were available at my local vaccination clinic. I called the number and was arranged a time and date to get my booster. When I arrived, however, they had no record of my booking. Apparently this wasn't the first time that day that the third-party call centre handling the bookings hadn't passed on the relevant details to the clinic. As a consequence, there was no slot available for me - even though I was there, ready and willing to have my jab. I even had my vaccination history with me. I was offered no option but to go home and call the number again. This being a weekend, though, I won't be able to get through until Monday, at which point I'm back to square one.

9 comments:

  1. Here in Seattle, we've had similar problems getting a vaccination for our 11-year-old foster kid. So far we've had four cancellations for various reasons, although we did manage to get him shot #1, and, with luck, he'll finally get shot #2 today.

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  2. I booked mine through https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/coronavirus-booster-vaccine/, hopefully it will happen. It was difficult to get a slot, though, it took a few goes before the displayed slots at my selected location disappeared before being selected.

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  3. Thanks, Greg - hope it goes well.

    The plot thickens here. I called the same number again, explained what had happened, and their system says I was most certainly booked in and should have had my jab at the intended time. In fact, they could see that I was now shown as having "not attended"! They were helpful and apologetic but couldn't really explain how there had been an error, other than suggesting the fault was with the vaccination clinic. In any case, I've been given another slot so will chance my luck again.

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  4. I'm pleased to report that I got my booster (Moderna) without problems, although no explanation was offered for the previous muddle.

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    Replies
    1. would you like your fans to supply you with explanations?

      i'm of the mind the first phone call was actually received by people at least three days in the future. two days later you went to your appointment. they didn't have a record of it, naturally. after three days passed you managed to call the group who had previously been three days in your future, but now were occupying your current spacetime. they don't believe in time-travel, even for information exchanges and message retrieval, and so could not give you a proper explanation, which you now have.

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  5. Seems to be very hit and miss in the UK. I'm 40,and received an sms from my GP a week ago. I followed the link and got my 3rd jab on the same day. I live on the Wirral.

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  6. You'd think it would be easy to schedule an appointment, what with the relentless push to get people boosted and the holdouts vaccinated in the first place, but when I scheduled my booster in early December, the best they could do was give me a slot 3 weeks (!) later.

    I had the Pfizer shots in April and opted for Moderna as the booster because of the studies showing Pfizer's quickly-waning protection, although who knows?

    Sadly we're not through with long, dark winters of COVID and death. This sucks.

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  7. Oh and by the way, I'd love to hear your take on the James Webb Space Telescope.

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  8. I'm excited and anxious about JWST. If it works, it's going to be quite remarkably powerful. But as the critics will point out, there are an awful lot of cheaper science missions that could have been done for the cost. I do think we have to shoot for the moon occasionally.

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