Covid Vaccine
Guess what? I got vaccinated! And it was stress-free, easy, and quick. For all of the naysayers who are giving New Zealand a hard time for the vaccine rollout, I’ve got to say that the process was seamless. We might not have a ton of vaccines in the country, but those that are here are being distributed with extreme efficiency.
I called the vaccine hotline at 0800 282 926 at around 5:30 in the evening to get an appointment. For some reason this number is hard to track down and isn’t plastered all over the government’s vaccine website. It is buried in the Auckland DHB website if you want Auckland or Northland specific information. However, my husband, who is in Group 3 thanks to his heart, had it on hand from when he made his appointment. As his support person in his bubble, I was able to get an appointment, too, though TBH, no on ever asked me why I was calling for an appointment. It appeared to be very much a “scout’s honour” kind of process.
After confirming my identity and address, the extremely helpful woman on the other end of the call gave me a selection of vaccination locations to choose from. I chose Mt. Wellington as it is a large centre and I thought there might be more appointments available. I didn’t realize how right that was. They had available appointment slots starting at 8 am the next morning. I was shocked as I was expecting to have to wait for weeks. While I was on the phone, I was told to bring a mask and we went ahead and scheduled my second shot for a few weeks later. Before I was off of the phone, I already had a text message with my booking reference and appointment time and location.
Later that evening, Jon and I realised we had a scheduling conflict for my appointment the next day. We were both so flabbergasted that so many appointments were available that I hadn’t actually checked my calendar. Fortunately, in the aforementioned text message there was a link to change my appointment if necessary. Within a minute, I rescheduled my appointment from 11 am to 9 am in the next morning. Done.
I wasn’t entirely sure about the location of the clinic or how it all worked, so I arrived early, around 8:35, to scope out the parking situation. As I entered the parking lot, a worker asked me if I had an appointment and if so, at what time. Since I was all set to go, he waved me on to the next attendant who pointed me to a parking spot. I followed the arrows on the ground to the entrance of the building where people were waiting for their time slot to be called. Around 8:45 they called for the 9:00 appointments, so I lined up and got a name tag after they confirmed I was at the right location at the right time.
There were huge posters explaining the process outside. The whole thing was broken down into six steps, and the building was organised and extremely well run. First stop was a check in station to make sure we were (once again) at the right place at the right time. (Side note: I noticed they were also keeping tabs on how many walk-ins they had in addition to those of us with appointments.) Next, I followed more arrows to the second station, a quick health check and temperature scan. I was asked to fill out a form with my name, address, basic contact info, and NIH number, and sign a consent. The process was so quick that I didn’t have a chance to finish the short form before I was at the desk of one of the workers for the third station who confirmed all of my contact information was correct. I hurried to fill everything out before moving along to the fourth area, a waiting area pre-shot. Everyone sat in rows of chairs and people were called in order. Someone was called in about every 20 seconds or so as there were a lot of vaccinators on duty. After about five minutes, it was my turn.
A lovely nurse took me back to room 7 where she verified my identity and health information, asked me if I had any questions, went through things to watch out for and what to expect, and filled out my vaccine card. In a rather anti-climactic moment, I got the vaccine and a fresh bandaid. Then I was sent along to the observation area where I arrived at 8:59. At 9:19 my name was called. A nurse came to check on me and make sure my arm looked ok, and I was sent on my way. It took just over half an hour and was extremely professional.
New Zealand is ramping up vaccinations and has about 500,000 fully vaccinated now, about 10% of the population. If you look at the anticipated vaccines distributed, the country is just above plan, with an anticipated big push and acceleration at the end of the month.
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-vaccine-data
Interestingly, Auckland is at 92% of its vaccination goal and is down over 41,000 vaccines from plan. Part of me thinks this might be why they aren’t checking carefully as to who is receiving the vaccines. They’re desperate to get as many jabs in as possible. There is only one other area (Wairarapa) that is doing worse percentage-wise. The population of Auckland is so much larger, however. that this is the biggest miss in meeting vaccination goals in the whole country.
I’m hopeful the process of getting my second vaccine is just as quick as the first. The vaccine roll out hasn’t been the fastest, but it feels like all of the kinks within the process have been smoothed out over the last few months. And since there isn’t a daily threat of catching covid here, there simply isn’t the pressure to get as many people vaccinated as fast as possible like in other countries where people have been dying daily from the disease. A fast and furious vaccination plan doesn’t need to take place here because we’re living in our little covid-free bubble and carrying on like normal.
If you’re in New Zealand, have you gotten a vaccine yet? Was your process as simple as mine was? I’m curious to know if this was a bizarrely good experience because I’ve heard so many grumbles about it.
