Hello,

Anyone know which vaccine is being administered at the massive Zurich Hallenstadion Messe center in Oerlikon?

I've been wondering about breathing the air in smaller semi-rooms, such as waiting, recovery or administering rooms where many people have been that day before me since studies show that corona virus particles can hang in the air for up to 3 hours.

I'm wondering what they have done about that and done about air filtering?

I'm also just generally curious about the setup and process upon arrival.

Anyone feel like sharing any general experiences and information?

Thanks for your help,

MakeABigWish

I plan on going with the best N95 mask I have at hand if they call me

Pfizer or Moderna (I had Pfizer).

The vibe is somehow a bit like The Handmaid's Tale minus the religious bit. Loads of police about. Plenty of space to stay away from people. I would have loved to take pictures but it said not to so I didn't.

I was there with a friend 3 weeks back.

Pzifer is what he received.

The "rooms" are not rooms, they're more partition walls with no ceiling. I thought it was sort of cold in the Messe, there might be additional ventilation on. It's a very large area with few people in it.

On arrival they had to show the QR code from the website, either printed or off the phone.

Then they went into a long airport security type line with floor markings to ensure distance. Followed by a counter where someone went through the paperwork, into a waiting line in front of a booth, the booth had a person asking some questions on current medication and allergies.
Then onto a chair which was slippery with disinfectant for the jab.

The one place they felt they were near people was in the 15 minute waiting zone, everything is spaced out but there was every chair filled.

Remember, the people there are as likely to be carrying corona as in a supermarket or a bus, the vac center is not a hospital. You'll only be there for about 45 minutes max.

My husband had Pfizer 3 weeks ago.

In Zurich, it seems that vaccination centers are offering Pfizer - they have the cooling devices. I imagine they’ll give whatever they have though. My husband got pfizer in Winterthur at the vax center.

You are getting such weird replies!

Here my experience: https://www.englishforum.ch/family-m...ml#post3301051

I think the question was weirder than the replies TBH. The Swiss are not going to set up vax centres that force people to cram together in a small room, coughing all over each other.

As has been said, the Messehalle is huge and well ventilated, with social distancing well observed. The strictly timed appointments are designed to ensure there aren’t crowds of people all turning up at the same time. The OP really has nothing to worry about. The vaccine on offer when I was there 4 weeks ago was Pfizer. Whether they’ll get alternative types in later, who knows. But anyway, for me, the whole experience was very slick and rigorously hygienic. Nothing to worry about.

It's Moderna now as of Wednesday, it's just down to supply. When you turn up you need the date and time of your appt printed, just the QR code is no good but they have a desk that will print the termine details from QR code. No worries about being near people, theres plenty of space.

Hello everyone,

Really wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to offer their thoughts.

Helped me in various ways.

Wishing you all the best during this interesting ride,

MakeABigWish

Anyone got a Pfizer vaccine recently in Zurich or is it all Moderna now?

I heard the big places switched to Moderna but this is word of mouth and not conclusive.

CH just signed up for Moderna boosters for next year and Moderna just successfully completely trials for an effective booster for the South African variant so I think CH is heavily invested in Moderna.

Overall, despite all the various opinions, in the super big picture grand scheme of things, I think way-back-when, CH ended up doing a basically decent job of backing the right horses among the number of vaccine options they had at that particular time. I'm not an expert in this. Just my gut feel.

Difficult to judge but I wish they'd ordered more Biontech than Moderna vaccines. Despite the efficacy of Moderna booster dose according to my reading original Biontech was shown to be more effective against SA variants.

Biontech also appears to have lesser side effects (also my heard anecdotal experience):

"According to Pfizer, about 3.8% of their clinical trial participants experienced fatigue as a side effect and 2% got a headache. The side effects remain similar among young adults and adolescents.

Moderna says 9.7% of their participants felt fatigued and 4.5% got a headache."

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/coro...kdown/2508697/

We had ours done there on Wednesday and it was Moderna.
Whole process was very efficient and we were in and out in 30 minutes.
No side effects, just a sore arm for couple of days.

Moderna is produced here, there's more political security in that choice i guess.The rest seem to be minor differences, as both work way better than expectations, if we get a good vaccination rate even a lower effectiveness would be still good enough to stop a new wave.

Same for me: no side effects after the first Moderna jab, unless I actually pressed the exact place where the injection was done. Which of course I kept doing, just to see if it still hurt ;-)

I also investigated over the hotline, if it's possible to indirectly chose between Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna (still the only 2 approved vaccinations) by chosing among the offered places of application.
Answer was no, its just based on the incoming channel.

But there was the hint that now vaccinations also can be done in selected private pharmacies, where it's likely to get Moderna there, as it is easier to manage due to no need of deep refrigeration.

There came 750 000 doses of Moderna on Friday and there will come about 120 000 doses of Pfizer on Monday. So it's hard to predict which one you get in the next weak.

When I got the shot (in the SG system) they had everyone take off the mask they came with and put on a fresh surgical mask before going into the line.



Makes sense, but so much for

I guess you can put that one on top of yours anyway?