Surplus COVID-19 vaccines have been given to healthy young people in parts of England and some GPs have “run out” of eligible patients to vaccinate in the scramble to inoculate the country.
While supplies have been cut in some areas, one GP in the Midlands told the Guardian he had “hundreds of unused vaccines” which he is not allowed to use, having already inoculated all priority patients.
Other vaccination centres have taken a more liberal approach, inviting younger patients for jabs at the end of the day if they find themselves with surplus doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which has a shelf life of three days.
Currently, only four groups are eligible for vaccines in England: the over-70s, the clinically extremely vulnerable, care home residents and frontline health and social care workers.
But one 38-year-old in Sheffield in none of those groups said she was offered the jab on “the iciest day of the year” if she could get to the clinic within half an hour because of weather-related cancellations. A 24-year-old in Manchester said she’d had a spare after volunteering at a vaccination centre.
In Reading, one clinic is calling local police stations and offering surplus jabs to officers at the end of the day. Others are offering spares to frontline charity workers.
One medic in Greater Manchester told the Guardian they managed to receive their second dose of the vaccine by repeatedly turning up at their local vaccine site at the end of each day, receiving it on day three.
Source: The Guardian, 29 January 2021
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