River Cruisers: How Are Things Where YOU Are?

[Canal archive]

Daisi, as soon as you have your first vaccination regardless of the manufacturer your booked in for your second. We were given an approximate 12 weeks but got the call for only 10 weeks later. Now my 9 year old grandson is getting a bit miffed as he can’t have the jab as he’s the only one in the family unvaccinated. CA

[Daisi]

@Canal archive, we have our 2nd booking, but the Government has decided that they are going to advance the shots.  We have to wait 12 weeks after our first shot because we had the AZ (so if we were to advance ours, it would only be for 2 weeks, and not really expecting that to work), however they changed the Pfizer & Moderna jabs to 28 days.  We can go for the Pfizer/Moderna however we would still have to wait the 12 weeks, unlike the rest of my family that were able to get Pfizer.

 

Our biggest problem is some areas of the province have a lot of people with vaccine hesitancy, whereas our area is mostly eager to get the vaccine, so everyone is trying to get them all at once, and we aren't getting the vaccine due to them sending them to the "hot spots".  So the vaccines are going to the areas where they aren't wanted...and the rest of us wait, unless you are lucky enough to be able to travel 5 hours.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Daisi

[Ritabob]

Here in SW Ontario in our county health unit we are now able to book our 2nd jab well in advance of the original time line.  My first Moderna jab was in April with the second scheduled for the 21st of July.   Called today and got an appointment for this Friday.   Once needle is in the arm I will cancel the July one.   That means I will be fully vaccinated by Canada Day 🇨🇦🎆.  

RB 

[Bake apple]

For the first times in many many months things are looking far better here in Canada's capital city. Today we had the lowest count of new cases in 2021 at 19.  Far fewer in hospital and ICU. It is so encouraging  that I have started to look at cruises again and making a few little pencil and paper plans on the two cruises we had  cancelled.  So thankful there IS a light at the end of this long tunnel.

 

Tomorrow I receive my second vaccine shot/jab. It was accelerated from 25 July so I feel I am getting a little bit of the summer back.  Having said that it is a real dog fight to get vaccines here right now; my 2 hours plus on the phone and laptop at the same time paid off.

 

A really hot few days here as well in the City, today it hit 33C/92F. We were all advised by Public Health to stay inside as much as we could; such irony given we have been told over and over and over to do just that. I did laugh.  So nice to have something to laugh about again. 😁

 

Stay safe everyone.

Bake Apple

 

 

[Coral]

2 hours ago, Daisi said:

 

Our biggest problem is some areas of the province have a lot of people with vaccine hesitancy, whereas our area is mostly eager to get the vaccine, so everyone is trying to get them all at once, and we aren't getting the vaccine due to them sending them to the "hot spots".  So the vaccines are going to the areas where they aren't wanted...and the rest of us wait, unless you are lucky enough to be able to travel 5 hours.

We ran into this in my state also. The city I live in had the highest vaccine rate for our state. I did drive out of town to get my vaccine, to an area that I could get it quicker. In the end, it only sped up my time by one week but I didn't know that when I made the appointment. 

 

Our state was giving vaccines out proportionally to population but as you are experiencing similar, outside of 2 cities in my state, the rest of my state had low vaccine interest.

Edited June 8, 2021 by Coral

[Canal archive]

I had to go to our surgery this week for a blood test and my nurse said that the more people are vaccinated the more the people who are hesitant about it are coming out of the woodwork. We even have a narrow boat on the canal fitted out for jabbing it to try to accommodate the boaters who cannot get to a vaccination point. CA

[djh1959]

My husband and I finally got our first dose of the vaccine last night.  We had no choice but to get Astra Zenica as Pfizer is saved for younger people.  I am slightly edgy about clots, but I do know that that is quite ridiculous, and I have more chance of being run over.  Pfizer apparently has some extreme side effects too, plus the fact that there is none available.
We are booked in for our second shots in twelve weeks to the day.
Only two new cases today, all linked and all isolated, so we are praying to get out of full lockdown later in the week.
We have already been told though that there will be no travelling around the state, or visiting in private homes.  Visiting is the thing I am missing the most 😞
Time will tell what happens, but it seems to be coming under control once more, thank goodness.

[SCBarker]

12 hours ago, Coral said:

I did drive out of town to get my vaccine, to an area that I could get it quicker. In the end, it only sped up my time by one week but I didn't know that when I made the appointment. 

I did the exact same thing.  Back in March I drove 4 hour roundtrip to a city that wasn't asking any questions about age at the time.  At the time it was 60+ in the state, and I am 44.  The following week the state opened vaccines to everyone.  I didn't mind that drive the first time when I thought I was getting one up on everyone, but 4 weeks later I had to do the same drive for the 2nd shot when they were passing them out like candy in my city...

[dogs4fun]

15 hours ago, Coral said:

the rest of my state had low vaccine interest.

Similar situation here - so disappointing.

[notamermaid]

7 minutes ago, dogs4fun said:

Similar situation here - so disappointing.

What is considered low interest in the states? Is this an official figure of sorts? Something like "if people wanted we could have vaccinated x percent by now"?

 

We are nowhere near such a measurable figure yet and polls show high numbers willing to get vaccinated.

 

The month of June has the biggest delivery of vaccine doses promised so far, topping May. Things going much better at that front now.

 

notamermaid

 

[gnome12]

7 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

What is considered low interest in the states? Is this an official figure of sorts? Something like "if people wanted we could have vaccinated x percent by now"?

If you look at the CDC map of state vaccinations

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/us-states

there are huge differences from state to state. Even within states I have seen variations from county to county.

 

The US is awash in vaccines; I'm sure that their numbers could be higher than they are.

According to ourworldindata.org, while it is true that 41.79% of the US population is fully vaccinated, only 9.43% are partially vaccinated for a total of only 51.22% with at least one shot.

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations#country-by-country-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations

[Daisi]

16 hours ago, Coral said:

We ran into this in my state also. The city I live in had the highest vaccine rate for our state. I did drive out of town to get my vaccine, to an area that I could get it quicker. In the end, it only sped up my time by one week but I didn't know that when I made the appointment. 

 

Our state was giving vaccines out proportionally to population but as you are experiencing similar, outside of 2 cities in my state, the rest of my state had low vaccine interest.

 

3 hours ago, SCBarker said:

I did the exact same thing.  Back in March I drove 4 hour roundtrip to a city that wasn't asking any questions about age at the time.  At the time it was 60+ in the state, and I am 44.  The following week the state opened vaccines to everyone.  I didn't mind that drive the first time when I thought I was getting one up on everyone, but 4 weeks later I had to do the same drive for the 2nd shot when they were passing them out like candy in my city...

 

 

Unfortunately, we can't drive to other cities for vaccines, as it's all controlled through our provincial health plan.  There was a city about 2 hr from us that had a trial-run of A-Z vaccines, but they soon got flack for letting "visitors" get the vaccines over their residents.  The province controlled the age limit so if you showed up "under age" you would be refused.

[dogs4fun]

14 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

polls show high numbers willing to get vaccinated.

I wish this was the case where I live. There is a great deal of vaccine hesitancy in my state - 47% are fully vaccinated, 55% have received at least one dose. There is plenty of vaccine available but the demand has precipitously declined.

The county in which I live has fully vaccinated over 70% of its residents. Rural areas in the state are the most impacted by vaccine hesitancy and/or anti-vaxxers. 

[Coral]

19 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

What is considered low interest in the states? Is this an official figure of sorts? Something like "if people wanted we could have vaccinated x percent by now"?

 

We are nowhere near such a measurable figure yet and polls show high numbers willing to get vaccinated.

 

The month of June has the biggest delivery of vaccine doses promised so far, topping May. Things going much better at that front now.

 

notamermaid

 

My county which has the largest amount of people with education and has a ton of medical staff is at 61%. Other counties have 18% who are fully vaccinated.

 

So when my county was vaccinating those in their 70's, other counties had opened it up to anyone.

 

They are going by those eligible to be vaccinated.

[sharkster77]

The goal in the USA is 70% of the population vaccinated by July 4 holiday.  About a dozen states are already there--mostly in the northeast, west coast, and New Mexico.  About another dozen states, if they keep vaccinating at the current rate, would take over a year to reach 70% (they are currently around 30%).  They are mostly in the south.  The other half of the country is somewhere in between.  

[Coral]

6 minutes ago, Daisi said:

 

 

 

Unfortunately, we can't drive to other cities for vaccines, as it's all controlled through our provincial health plan.  There was a city about 2 hr from us that had a trial-run of A-Z vaccines, but they soon got flack for letting "visitors" get the vaccines over their residents.  The province controlled the age limit so if you showed up "under age" you would be refused.

I understand the frustration. It was frustrating to see that other counties were allowing more people. The only reason why we could drive elsewhere was because their were vaccines given to the state and then the county and then there were vaccines given to pharmacies through the US Pharmacy plan. They could go by different standards than what the state had setup.

 

I had friends who were 65 and qualified in other states and my county was doing those over 85. 

 

I wish it had been more universally done. I also don't understand in this country, why vaccines are political.

[Coral]

2 minutes ago, sharkster77 said:

The goal in the USA is 70% of the population vaccinated by July 4 holiday.  About a dozen states are already there--mostly in the northeast, west coast, and New Mexico.  About another dozen states, if they keep vaccinating at the current rate, would take over a year to reach 70% (they are currently around 30%).  They are mostly in the south.  The other half of the country is somewhere in between.  

It seems to be the states in which people are higher educated (Northeast, West Coast, etc...). It seems to be the trends.  Your state has done well. My state is not even pushing vaccines. Anyone can go anywhere and get one and they can't seem to give them away. I wish they would give people an incentive just because we are better when more are vaccinated.

[notamermaid]

Thanks everyone for your answers. That is a big discrepancy among states... I have mentioned before that we do not appear to have a bias, be it political or ethnical (none that I have heard) and as the big religious leaders have okayed the vaccines, it leaves potentially only minority religious groups with an official unwillingness to get vaccinated. There are of course people who do not want to get vaccinated for personal reasons. So far I have met very few.

 

Will see how things progress in June.

 

notamermaid

 

[Coral]

12 minutes ago, dogs4fun said:

I wish this was the case where I live. There is a great deal of vaccine hesitancy in my state - 47% are fully vaccinated, 55% have received at least one dose. There is plenty of vaccine available but the demand has precipitously declined.

The county in which I live has fully vaccinated over 70% of its residents. Rural areas in the state are the most impacted by vaccine hesitancy and/or anti-vaxxers. 

We have 44% who are fully vaccinated in my state, 5.6% partially. I just looked and my county is 62.2% so we have gone up.

 

Our rural areas also are vaccine hesitant and my state is mostly rural.

Edited June 8, 2021 by Coral

[dogs4fun]

24 minutes ago, Coral said:

My county which has the largest amount of people with education and has a ton of medical staff is at 61%. Other counties have 18% who are fully vaccinated.

Interesting how there appears to be a correlation among political affiliations, educational levels and rates of those vaccinated. 

[Coral]

1 minute ago, dogs4fun said:

Interesting how there appears to be a correlation among political affiliations, educational levels and rates of those vaccinated. 

Definitely in my state.

[Host Jazzbeau]

36 minutes ago, dogs4fun said:

Interesting how there appears to be a correlation among political affiliations, educational levels and rates of those vaccinated. 

I keep reading this - but what explains the vaccine hesitancy throughout Canada?  Can't blame any US political figures for that...

[d9704011]

Just now, Host Jazzbeau said:

I keep reading this - but what explains the vaccine hesitancy throughout Canada?  Can't blame any US political figures for that...

What vaccine hesitancy are you refering to?  Canada has the largest proportion of the population with at least one dose amongst G20 countries.

[Host Jazzbeau]

Several Canadian posters on other threads are complaining about the way the vaccine vials are being distributed.  They say it goes by eligible population, but the cities have more interest so they have lines but the rural areas have vaccine sitting around.  Sounds very similar to the US, but without the facile political explanation.

[d9704011]

6 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Several Canadian posters on other threads are complaining about the way the vaccine vials are being distributed.  They say it goes by eligible population, but the cities have more interest so they have lines but the rural areas have vaccine sitting around.  Sounds very similar to the US, but without the facile political explanation.

I see.  Me, I think there are a lot of people who complain about complicated topics with little understanding of the complexities.