60 is the new 80 where vaccine is concerned, for now

Jeff Green | Mar 10, 2021

To say the COVD-19 vaccine rollout has been messy in Canada would be an understatement. Supply problems in January and February have now given way to confusion over who will be able to be vaccinated, where they will be able to get vaccinated, and which vaccine they will get.

I'm sure I am not alone in never considering who made the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine that my kids were offered or the flu vaccine I was offered. I thought it would be the same with the COVID-19 vaccine, but it isn't.

When I turned 60 last fall, I did think it might put me ahead of the 50-59 crowd when it came to vaccines, but not that I would be ahead of the over 80 crowd. In fact I never thought that, until last Thursday, when it was announced that the first group of people who will be offered a vaccination in their own communities would be people aged 60-64. At the same time, I learned that it was going to be used as part of a pharmacy based pilot project that is underway in only 3 regions of the province, which is divided into 47 regions. One of those regions, the smallest one and the only located in a green, low COVID jurisdiction, is KFL&A. A day later, while sitting at my desk writing up a story on the vaccine rollout, my wife Martina called to say she had just seen a post about an app, from the Sharbot Lake Pharmacy, asking people to fill in an online registration form, to get in a virtual line for a vaccine.

I talked to the pharmacist and she said that they were going to be receiving 500 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, that it would be arriving as early as Tuesday (March 9), and the vaccine was going to be used on 60-64 year old people, and had to be used up by April 1st.

The rest of the rollout was left to the pharmacy to figure out. She was taking Zoom seminars on how to handle the vaccine, and she and the rest of the staff had been given appointments on Friday at the Invista Centre to receive a Pfizer vaccine because only people who have been vaccinated can administer the vaccine.

Other pharmacists I have talked to since then have had even less advanced notice, and still other pharmacists have only heard they were not getting vaccines to administer at this time, and no one knew why some had been chosen and others hadn't.

There is logic behind what is going on here. The AstraZeneca vaccine is not recommended for people over 65 because it has not been proven to be as effective in older people, although research is ongoing. The next youngest group is people between 60 and 64, and the vaccine has a limited shelf life so it must be used up soon. So while the over 80s are starting to have the opportunity to travel to Kingston to get a vaccine, and those between 65 and 80 are waiting for the call, I might be able to stroll over to my local pharmacy this week to get a shot. But it might change.

It might not be the best vaccine, and I might not get a call for a couple of weeks when the vaccine is approaching its best before date, but I am used to that.

At the Mike Dean's grocery store across the street, I bought 6 red peppers, and a big bunch of bananas last week from the fast sale section for 99 cents and made spaghetti with a rose sauce that night. It was delicious, and cheap.

I don't need a new Mercedes when my old Honda Civic gets me back and forth to work each day, so who needs a space aged rdna vaccine when an old school AstraZeneca hair of the dog vaccine will do the trick, most of the time.

From the start of this pandemic, one year ago, most people in our communities, especially rural communities in our region, faced only a minimal risk from COVID. But we could be part of the chain of infection that would result in the more vulnerable in our communities becoming very sick. So, we followed the protocols, have been wearing the masks, staying away from crowds, essentially doing what we have been asked to do because we are part of a larger society.

I know some people have skirted the restrictions, out of necessity in cases and in cases just because they wanted to, and most of us, myself included, have not done everything right. I also know some people have called the restrictions an over-reaction, and defied them as a political act.

But here we are a year later, and during that year the vaccines have been developed. And most of us have decided that when we are told that it is our turn to be vaccinated, we will get vaccinated.

We thought it would be a lot more straight-forward, but it isn't.

If I am asked to go to the pharmacy this week, I will. If the protocol is because Ontario decides to give the current batch of AstraZeneca to 70 year old people instead, I'm fine with that. If I have to go to a pop-up clinic next month or to Kingston in May to get a shot, I'll do that.

A lot of people are working hard on this. There are political as well as logistical factors at play, and institutions and the people who work for them are fallible.

It looks like we will all be offered a first dose of vaccine within the next three months, in time for summer.

This strange time could then begin to fade away.

In the meantime, it is time to place pharmacists and pharmacy workers at the top of our list of COVID heroes.

They have been putting up with bureaucratic neglect and unreasonable expectations, and are struggling to do their part and deliver vaccines, without any financial or logistical support.

Don't call our pharmacy this week, even if you are 60-64, or a keen 59 or 65 year old.

Let them figure it out.

On Monday, I talked to a pharmacist named Sana who works in Sydenham, who put the whole thing into perspective.

She has offered to help out delivering vaccines in Kingston during her days off, but the system is too rigid to accommodate her working schedule. She is frustrated that the pharmacy that she manages is not part of the roll-out and also about the fact that the announcements, about pharmacies delivering vaccines, was made before the pharmacies were even told about it, or given an opportunity to learn how they need to proceed. She said it was all being done “from back to front instead of front to back.”

But she also said that she has worked as a pharmacist for 30 years, in Syria and in Kuwait before coming to Canada in 2008. She is originally from Lebanon, and she lived and worked through 4 wars before coming to Canada. Once she was the only pharmacist in a hospital that was dealing with war casualties.

“Things aren't really that bad here,” she said.