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It's not even leftovers in some places. This sounds a lot worse:
Frustrated medics say they are beginning to run out of patients in the government’s top four priority cohorts to vaccinate and fear that lives will be lost unless they are allowed to immunise more people immediately.
Doctors at the Francis Crick Institute in London say they are providing first doses at a rate of 100 a day when they have capacity for 1,000.
I’m not keen on getting involved, but I did want to say that I think this statement is a bit unfair (for lack of a better word). My understanding of Lynx’s reasoning for his vaccine suggestion is that there are doses potentially going to waste because of various reasons but mainly administrative ones that need sorting out. Your centre has found uses for the surplus, but he found a centre that was content to apply the vaccine to a walk-in. Is it more morally questionable to allow a life-saving medicine to be lost, or to try and find a use for it even on one’s self? He’s not exactly cutting the queue, and his reasoning was sound enough that the centre staff agreed with it.
I’m not saying one moral choice is preferable to the other, I’m just saying that there’s a valid argument to be made for both, and his reasoning isn’t necessarily stupid or fraudulent. His suggestion may be misguided in that we should all be locked down, but it’s in response to an actual moral and administrative insufficiency.
Do the centres have a list of less-at-risk people who are 100% committed to dropping whatever they’re doing at 4pm and going to get vaccinated from the surplus doses? It’s a job for the GPs, but perhaps that’s a way to minimise spoilage.
Adding: I wouldn’t recommend following Lynx’ suggestion, please register your interest with your GP instead.