"The people's growing demand for influenza vaccine injection and the backward supply of vaccines."
Zhang Liang used this sentence to summarize his experience of seeking the first batch of influenza vaccine appointments for more than a week.
"From September 25th, citizens can start making appointments to receive self-paid influenza vaccines, and they can be vaccinated before the end of February 2021." On Thursday, September 24, the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention issued an announcement entitled "The Beijing Flu Vaccination Work Full Launch", announcing that the influenza vaccination work in Beijing this winter has started.
In the context of preventing and controlling the new crown, with the continuous appeal of experts and media, the domestic public's willingness to get flu vaccines has increased significantly this winter, but accompanied by it is still a "old-fashioned" plot with tight supply and chaotic processes.
This makes "influenza vaccine" a matter of "no unified rule, it feels like it's a big fortune".
Anxiety is getting worse day by day.
You must meet the national luck as soon as possible
"Zhang Liang and others" anxiety is one month earlier than in previous years.
8, "encouraging influenza vaccination" was recommended as one of the main measures for the prevention and control of the new crown epidemic in autumn and winter. Top domestic experts such as Wang Chen, Zeng Guang, , Zhang Wenhong, Lu Hongzhou, and other national and local CDCs have pointed out to the public that reducing the incidence of influenza can significantly reduce the damage and screening difficulty of the attacks at the same time as the new coronavirus, and it will also reduce the potential risk of cross-infection and reduce the load of medical resources for fever clinics in autumn and winter.
In an exclusive interview with the health community on August 31, Lu Hongzhou, Secretary of the Party Committee of Shanghai Public Health Center, even suggested that the country can consider paying for the influenza vaccine for the whole people, "because once symptoms appear, including quarantine and nucleic acid screening for the new crown of the whole people, it will actually cost more money."
free has not been included in the discussion for the time being, and it is precisely the call for "early vaccination" that has fired the "starting gun".
In fact, in recent years, the situation of "hard to get a shot" of influenza vaccines has repeatedly appeared. The official explained in 2019 that this phenomenon was "a regional shortage, which was caused by crowds of people to receive vaccination." In November 2019, the health community investigated that it was difficult to get influenza vaccinated in Beijing. ("Why is it so difficult to get a vaccine in Beijing under the flu!" Click the blue word to read)
What is the situation this year? The health community conducts experiential surveys through multiple channels.
Online appointment: The probability of flash sale is similar to that of
has made people "used" lazy online appointment registration and prepaid, which only plays a "comfort" role for buyers.
As early as late August, the author ordered a prepaid influenza vaccine on , Tmall and Alipay. He needs to register detailed personal information, and can register the vaccination date. After arriving at the seedling, the buyer will be notified in turn. , but no commitment is made on the vaccination time, and Beijing's vaccination institutions cannot specify it.
As of September 28, under this product with tens of thousands of sales, sellers from Guangdong, Shanghai and Chongqing said that there is still no "moment". At this time, two days have passed since the author chose "September 26 vaccination" when purchasing.
On a public account called "Yomiao", the only influenza trivalent vaccine that can be reserved is also shown to be "full" before October 19, which has been opened.
non-official channels are not reliable. Around September 25, the author looked for channels for online reservations at the self-paid vaccination sites in Chaoyang and Dongcheng District, Beijing. Among them, a well-known high-end private hospital in Beijing, the first batch of 500 places were quickly snatched after it was opened.
. At a community vaccination site near Beiyuan, Chaoyang District, I experienced an unforgettable experience of "no one answering the phone call - running to the site to see paper notifications - registering a mini program online - starting the alarm clock at 9 o'clock every day - mini program stumbles, crashing and even maintaining it for a long time."
The sourness lies in the fact that the system crashes a few minutes before the number is opened every day. After 3 minutes of the number being released, everything will be the same. People will always print out the same four words - "No source for the time being".
Phone appointment: At least this year, I can connect to
Everything is back to the beginning.
Since Beijing and each district do not have unified procedures. Therefore, every vaccination site in the city has its own appointment method.
Compared with the health industry survey last year, the phone call access rate during my consultation this year has increased significantly, but after contacting Chaoyang, Haidian , and Tongzhou community health service centers, the other party's answer did not have a positive "scent": "I still have to wait for notification, I am not sure when I will start vaccination", "I don't know when I will arrive, and I can't make an appointment now", "I'm useless to make an appointment."
Until September 24 and 25, the health community called several community health service centers again. In addition to the reply "not received notice", there was finally some "hope": "Call to ask after the National Day" and "Call to call again next week".
On-site appointment: "Don't give up" may really be a miracle
September 24, the author began to try to make an appointment directly on site. At multiple vaccination sites around CBD in Chaoyang District, the responses were still "cannot be vaccinated" and "I don't know when I can get the vaccine."
The health service station I tried last on the same day. Because the roads were closure caused by the epidemic, the author finally found the preventive health care department outside the station for nearly half an hour, and successfully made an appointment to get the influenza vaccine on September 28. saw his name registering, and at that moment, it made people feel "not daring to take it seriously".
This vaccination site has 50 people vaccinated every day, and the first batch of 2,000 vaccines are almost completed. During the vaccination, I heard the staff reply to the phone consultation: "It is now scheduled to be November 11th." It is reported that another nearby vaccination site has lined up 6,000 people.
Figure: At a vaccination site, the way staff make appointments for influenza vaccines is still to manually register the information in sequence.
. The author’s colleague got the news the afternoon before that he took an emergency taxi to a private hospital in Chaoyang District to "rank" the whole family. The so-called "ordered" requires full payment, registration of ID card, and waiting for notification at any time. There is no order of appointments. The only way to notify is "Follow my official account at any time. If you see a tweet, come and call me quickly." In less than half a day, the hospital urgently stopped the first batch of more than 600. The appointments from Haidian District, were rejected on the spot, "we must pay close attention to the appointment in this district first."
htmlOn September 27, the hospital of opened its first batch of injections, implementing "injection by the mobile phone's last number": if the last number is 0 or 5, arrive at 8 o'clock; if the last number is 1 or 6, arrive at 9 o'clock...
For more than a few days, the author has also received "bombing" from relatives and friends: "Where can I make an appointment? Where can I get a fight as soon as possible?" No matter what area you don't care about, it's okay to even cross the area from Haidian to Chaoyang and Xicheng , as long as there is "scarved seedlings".
has been running for vaccines for many days, but the author cannot briefly point them a "bright way".
Require leave or tossing may not be possible. For office workers who are more prone to cross-infection, it is not only because they are "working hard enough" to get it, but they really need some luck.
Figure: On September 29, at an influenza vaccination site in Beijing, appointments need to complete the system reading and information verification of their ID card information before they can get a single shot
supply cannot catch up with the "will"
In fact, Beijing is at the forefront of the country in ensuring the supply of influenza vaccines. Because the free vaccination population covers local "old and young" (citizens over 60 years old and primary and secondary school students), the interests of this group are fully protected in the reality that vaccines are in short supply every year.
According to statistics from the popular science V and vaccine expert Tao Lina, Beijing has prepared 1.7 million units for "one old and one young" this year, an increase of 200,000 units from last year. According to incomplete statistics, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Xiangyang, Hubei and other places have also expanded the coverage of free vaccination for young children and the elderly this year, all with an incremental level of hundreds of thousands or even millions of them.
This is just a free crowd.What about the whole society? Data released by Sichuan Province on September 28 showed that the total number of influenza vaccine purchases reported by cities (prefectures) across the province this year was 6.28 million, 6.66 times the average of 940,000 in the past year. The province plans to supply 4.555 million units. Don’t forget , this is just the reported planned purchase volume, which may not fully reflect the people’s willingness to vaccinate.
According to media reports, data from China Food and Drug Inspection Institute , as of September 20, the cumulative batch issuance of influenza vaccines this year has reached 22 million, which is close to the total volume of 28 million in 2019.
Tao Lina once wrote an article to estimate that even if the national vaccine supply this year can be nearly doubled compared with 2019, that is, to about 50 million units, there is still a huge gap in overall demand. Because this year's public enthusiasm for getting flu vaccinated has been "unprecedented".
The author also consulted other regions on this. A community vaccination site in , Zhongshan District, Dalian, Liaoning said: "There will be some left in the last year. There are many appointments this year, and I can't make appointments at all." In a community in Jianghan District, Wuhan, Hubei, staff rejected the author's request for "ranking numbers" because before the seedlings were seen, there were already 8,000 people registered for vaccination.
After returning from the long vacation, many people will continue to be anxious in a new round of waiting and search. (Zhang Liang is a pseudonym in the article)
Comment: Insufficient supply is not a reason to torture people
According to the 2019 survey by the health industry, what affects the supply of vaccines mainly include the procurement plan of the disease control department, the maximum production capacity within the cycle, and the public's willingness to vaccinate that year.
influenza vaccine belongs to the non-immunization program vaccine stipulated by the state, namely the second type of vaccine. Its plan is to be centrally purchased by provincial disease control agencies after summarizing the needs of the region.
The contradiction is that since influenza vaccines are often only targeted at the epidemic strains in one winter, this causes the public's willingness to vaccinate rapidly in the second half of each winter, which will cause some vaccine waste and subsequently financial waste. Therefore, the disease control department is more inclined to "relatively conservatively report plans."
What's more, even if it is not "conservative" this year, grassroots health institutions in big cities still face two very realistic problems: how many people are actually living in your jurisdiction and who are they? How many of them want to get vaccinated this year?
Anyway, the author and his relatives and friends (hundreds of people always have it), no one has been counted. If the vaccination site is manually numbered, reported and included in the plan, how accurate can you ask the disease control department to report it in a timely manner?
Some people will say that regardless of statistics or not, considering that the epidemic strain is determined too late every year, domestic production capacity in just a few months will not be able to meet the public's vaccination needs. This is the main reason why the most prominent contradiction between supply and demand for influenza vaccines is the late autumn and early winter every year - the peak demand "hits" the production limit. But the problem of "production cap" has been going on for years and will continue in the visible future. This means that market regulation alone cannot resolve supply and demand contradictions.
So, under the premise that many experts have called out early (Zhang Wenhong called out as early as April), the intervention of government authorities in production, supply and vaccination services is particularly important.
More importantly, the more prominent the contradiction between supply and demand, the more scientific and transparent the distribution should be.
As the author sees, grassroots community workers are patient and dedicated. When you see the densely written appointment registration card and the phone receiver you can't put down, you will wonder, is there no better way?
If the grassroots services are full and the people still have a weak sense of gain, does it mean that there is something wrong with the system?
at least in Beijing. Due to the opaque information, non-standardization and cumbersome offline processes, making appointments and registrations have brought great unnecessary consumption and anxiety to vaccinators.
A friend laughed and said, "If you are working like this, can you screen out who is "really wanting to fight"? Will you not "know" the gap in supply and demand at a glance?"
instead of previous years, it can still be attributed to the lack of ready-made tools. But this year, it's really different.
For example, since the fight against the new crown, the "integration of human code" health code has been tested for a long time, but such a weapon has not been used by the official to count the public's willingness to vaccinate and make an appointment to register...
Obviously, influenza vaccine anxiety is not just a problem of yield or technical issues. Then, what else is the problem?
Source: Health World
Author: Zhang Xiaochen
