December 10, 2023

 

"Doctors and pharmacists are seeing a surge in requests for COVID-19 vaccines ahead of the Christmas break amid concerns about higher rates of the virus and visiting vulnerable loved ones.

 

Indicators such as sewage monitoring, test positivity rates and hospital activity suggest the virus has been circulating at higher levels since the start of November.

...

Dr Fei Sim, a Perth pharmacist and national president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, said pharmacies across the country were reporting an increase in vaccine appointments coming up to Christmas."

 

(more)

 

https://www.smh.com.au/national/we-keep-throwing-vaccines-out-i-d-rather-get-them-into-arms-20231207-p5epru.html

 

 

Note: the headline in the above Sydney Morning Herald report is a reference to the fact that the prior bivalent Moderna vaccines ordered by Australia are due to expire on December 20.

 

The Australian government has approved use of the newest monovalent COVID vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna targeting the more recent XBB.1.5 COVID variant, and those doses are expected to become available in the coming week, per the SMH.

 

 

11 hours ago, stats said:

 

the headline in the above Sydney Morning Herald report is a reference to the fact that the prior bivalent Moderna vaccines ordered by Australia are due to expire on December 20.

 

Similar headlines were seen in the US when the original bivalent was about to expire and before the updated variant booster was ready for distribution. But "we're going to throw this into the garbage if we can't get it into your arm" seems rarely good marketing. I was fully vaxxed at the time though long between boosters and concerned about imprinting so being retired, easily able to social distance and mask in closed-in social settings, I decided to wait for the update.

 

If I was dependent upon working in very social settings and a while since my last shot, I'd have taken the last of the bivalents instead of waiting for an updated shot, but I'd certainly understand someone not wanting to inject something headlined as pre-garbage into them, especially when you don't get to at least sniff it first to see if it's gone bad already.

They haven't thrown mine out I had 4 in my arm plus the flu shot.