Simon Gets His Jab

 

On 25 February France announced that 50 - 64 year olds with certain comorbidities were eligible to be vaccinated by their GPs with the Astra-Zeneca (Oxford) vaccination. Unfortunately our GP, like 50% of his peers, opted not to administer the vaccine. And the vaccination centres near us, in Loches, Le Blanc, Chatellerault and Amboise were concentrating on the over 75 age group, and getting them vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccination. 

Simon met the criteria to be vaccinated, but we had to approach a GP in a neighbouring village, who agreed to vaccinate him once she understood the situation. He was booked in for Saturday 13 March, but she rang on the Friday to say he should come in at 5.30 pm instead. She must have had some cancellations, maybe due to the announcement the day before that the use of Astra-Zeneca had been suspended for a fortnight by certain countries while they investigated cases of people developing blood clots after being vaccinated. His second jab is booked for 3 June and he now has a vaccination certificate, which the doctor told us to guard carefully. It will be important if France decides to go down the vaccine passport route.

I don't know when I will be eligible for my vaccination. I don't have the right sort of comorbidities to qualify yet. Pharmacists are now authorised to administer the Astra-Zeneca vaccine, so I expect I will get it done there.

Update: France is now amongst the countries which have suspended the use of the AZ vax. They did so yesterday (Monday 15 March) after I had already written and scheduled this post. The suspension is for 24 hours initially, until the European Medicines Agency pronounces on whether they think the blood clots which have been reported are connected to the vaccine or would have happened in those people anyway. The general opinion seems to be that the numbers of blood clots reported is within normal population limits and unlikely to be connected to the vaccine. An announcement this afternoon (Tuesday 16 March) is expected about whether or not vaccinations with AZ will be resumed. In the meantime, everyone with an appointment for today has been postponed and is once again in limbo.