The flaws in the Vaud vaccination system against Covid

"Several young and healthy people were easily able to get vaccinated against Covid in the canton of Vaud, after going online and making a simple phone call, an RTS investigation revealed on Tuesday.

"I do not meet any of the criteria to be a priority, I am in my thirties, I do not live in the canton of Vaud and I do not suffer from a disease that would make me a patient at risk", testifies Stéphanie * Tuesday in the 19:30 news emission.

Stéphanie, who lives in the Neuchâtel region, was able to get an appointment in a Vaud medical establishment and get vaccinated without any problem. Concretely, she spotted on the web the hospitals that had vacancies, then she called and, to her surprise, she was told that she could come to be vaccinated. “I didn't expect it to be this easy,” she explains.

Several cases

This is surprising when you know that there are currently not enough doses to immunize everyone. However, the RTS investigation reveals that she is not alone: several other ineligible people have also claimed to have been able to be vaccinated.

Thus, a 40-year-old Genevan testifies: "I allowed myself to telephone to make an appointment, a lady answered me, she asked me if I was over 75 years old, I said no, she asked if I was healthy, I said yes. (…) And then we looked together for an appointment. ""

https://www.rts.ch/info/regions/vaud...-le-covid.html

I did have a chuckle with the google translation of the last sentence. It came out as
"And then we looked together to have a date."

Really?! I have a friend from Valais you showed up at CHUV yesterday with a chronic condition that put him at high risk, a letter from his cardiologist (who works as CHUV) saying he needed the vaccine and an appointment booked a month in advance, and they turned him away because he was from Valais and not Vaud.

I'm not too surprised. The Swiss do like to jump queues ;-)

Harsh- said on a site where people say they are prepared to travel to UK or USA to get the jab, or to register in multiple C/Kantons. I must say I don't know anyone who has even tried to jump the queue here.

OH is 75 and at high risk, and got his second jab last week. I am 70 and at risk too, and getting my first today.

It wasn’t just in Canton Vaud. The whole vaccination programme ended up having to be set up in a big rush once the Pfizer vaccine was approved earlier than expected and there were a few teething problems.

There were several cantons in the news a while bag which had had to tighten up their registration process as they had been relying on people’s integrity when filling in the online registration forms and lots of people who weren’t in the highly vulnerable categories were getting vaccinated ahead of people who had higher priority.

That’s why they started implementing the medical certificate rule.


In Neuchâtel it was pretty much impossible to jump the queue as registration for the highly vulnerable people could only be done via the GP.
Some younger, less at risk people did get the vaccine early but only because they were in the right place at the right time and benefited from a spare dose which would otherwise have been thrown away.

Two of my colleagues, both under thirty and with no health conditions, got their first dose in the last month. They simply called and got an appointment. Considering that my 85 yo grandmother still hasn’t got her first dose I was a bit surprised...

I know some people who called, gave a lot of blah blah about caring for a vulnerable family member and got the vaccine. I heard in some areas they're ahead of schedule and would give vaccine to those in lower risk groups. I heard also that some vaccine sites aren't so busy or many people cancel or don't show up in which case they give it to whoever asks for it.

The vaccines are perishable so ideally instead of throwing them away, better to administer them to anyone. That said, misrepresenting facts just to get a Vx is completely not ok.

According to my diabetaloge, in Geneva they are experiencing a very high no-show rate. Over 10% and they are not certain why, everyone with an appointment gets an email both a week before, and a day before. Some cliniques have literally been dragging people in off the streets to not waste jabs.

Wow. And others can't get their vaccines....some people are really spolied.

My neigbbour is a nurse who volunteers at a vaccination centre in Zurich. She also says many people have not turned up for their appointments, but as they have only been administering to people 75+ so far, they have expected that some of these people will be “unreliable” in making their appointments. Hopefully the turn out rate will improve.