Well, I thought I'd share my experience getting the jab as I've now passed the 2 week mark of my second AstraZeneca jab to become officially fully vaccinated!
Apologies in advance if this is a long ramble, but I suspect some of this information may be useful for those looking to get the jab or want to know more about the process.
I'm in my early-30s and am an overseas student studying in the Greater Sydney area. I have a chronic disease as defined by Phase 1b of the
Commonwealth's rollout plan (Crohn's Disease taking Immunosuppressants) and so had front of the line access to the vaccine. Neither my GP nor specialist reached out to me but I was following this space closely and as soon as 1b opened up I was on the horn with my GP to book an appointment to get the jab (this was March 22nd IIRC). Show up to the GP's office he goes through the usual questionnaire. Initially he thought I didn't qualify for 1b, but I pointed to that document which explicitly states I'm covered and after looking at a spreadsheet on his end confirmed that I indeed qualify. We get into booking the appointment to get the actual jab and there's a hiccup: I don't have Medicare as I'm an overseas student. No worries, he tells me, there's a Respiratory Clinic in Ryde that services Phase 1b patients and can handled overseas students like myself. Great! I then check the website and notice I need to have an Australian Health Identifier (like a Medicare number but for overseas folks like myself) that can be used to track the immunization in the Australian Immunization Registry. Apply for that and a week later a letter from Brisbane comes with that magic number.
In the meanwhile I book my first appointment via the HotDoc online booking service - at that time there was plenty of availability literally anytime you want you could get your jab (likely because only Phase 1b folks like myself could use the clinic). I booked for the afternoon of Saturday April 3 hoping that by then I would receive my identifier. Fortunately enough, it arrives 2 days before the appointment. I show up to the Respritory Clinic in Ryde at the scheduled time and there's literally two patients there: an elderly person and myself with something like 6 nurses waiting to give the jab. They ask a couple questions, there's some more paperwork to fill out and I get my jab. As I wait after getting the jab, a nurse comes up to me to book the second appointment which was set to exactly 12 weeks time (afternoon of Saturday June 26). The day after the jab I had a bit of a headache and had to take that day off but otherwise all was well.
Fast forward 12 weeks and I'm back at the respritory clinic. Yours truly decided not to take transit into Ryde from where he is given the growing outbreak at that time so I biked a good 15 km in for the clinic. After waiting 20 minutes for the heart rate to go back to a normal level, I get my second jab and that was it. This time the clinic which quite busy, although ironically the COVID check in was not working. As I was in the recovery room waiting the requisite 15 minutes I check my phone and sure enough we are going into lockdown at 6 PM. I figure, I may as well celebrate this second dose before the party's over and head to Starbucks and sit there for the next couple hours until I am legally required to leave the premises and go home.
After getting the second jab, I didn't notice much in terms of side-effects (no headache) so all seems well. I'm following the present order since although I'm now fully vaccinated I can still get COVID and show no symptoms whilst infectious. When this lockdown nonsense is over, yours truly will need to head to a lab to get an antibody test to confirm that my immune system has properly learned from this vaccine along with the usual blood work that comes from have a chronic illness.
A couple of thoughts I'll share that may be of benefit to the wider community:
- The time it takes to go from first vaccination to fully vaccinated is long
- Best case (Pfizer) is about 5 weeks from the first dose with a 3 week waiting period from 1st to 2nd dose and 2 weeks after for body to mount full immune response
- Better Case (AstraZeneca) is about 10 to 14 weeks with a 8-12 week waiting period from first to second dose and 2 weeks for body to mount full immune response
- Both Pfizer and AstraZeneca are great vaccines in terms of safety and efficacy. There is no one right answer for which one to get:
- Pros of AstraZeneca:
- Readily available
- Non mRNA based (the long term effects of mRNA vaccines, particularly for the autoimmune community is unknown)
- Pros of Pfizer:
- Substantially shorter window between first and second
- Marginally safer than AstraZeneca
- Any adult in Australia can get a COVID vaccine. However, your choices will depend on which group you are in:
- Between 40 to 60 or under 40 (but in Phase 1a/1b) either AstraZeneca or Pfizer
- Under 40 (not in any priority group) or over 60: AstraZeneca
- There is a tool I highly recommend looking at (which the COVID vaccine eligibility tool uses) called HotDoc which lists vaccine clinics in your area, shows you their availability and lets you book an appointment
- Many clinics in the Greater Sydney area are offering appointments for both the Pfizer and the AstraZeneca vaccine this week, some of them are even offering same-day appointments
- The most important thing is to get an appointment. Without an appointment you won't get the jab, the appointment sets into motion a number of processes including setting aside the two doses for you
As an aside, I know some folks may chime in and say why am I arguing that anyone can go get the COVID jab when we haven't even finished up vaccinating the high priority group. I think there are at least four critical reasons why it's important for this information to get out there and for everyone to come forward with a vaccine.
First, those in Phase 1a and 1b have had ample opportunity to get the jab, we were given the opportunity to book over 3 months ago now and the fact that some folks haven't gotten their first jab is frankly their problem. In addition it is the GPs and clinics which will ultimately decide whether someone gets the jab based on a number of criteria. If they believe they should save some doses for their elderly patients they will set that aside for them.
Second, as someone in a high-risk group, even though I have my vaccine there is no guarantee I'm fully protected (not until at least I get my antibody tests back) with some others being unable to be vaccinated due to other medical issues. However, the more people we get vaccinated in our community the less potential there is for transmission and therefore for us to pick up the virus. I'm sick and tired of the media and politicians chastising certain groups for, "skipping the queue," when we've got millions of doses of the vaccine in the freezer when they could be protecting our communities. This type of class warfare is precisely why we have lockdowns in Sydney and other metropolitan areas.
Third, having an enormous uptake in vaccines administered and fully booked appointments will put greater pressure on our politicians who have been dragging their feet to secure the doses we desperately need. Imagine the moral outrage of hearing that the next available vaccination appointment anywhere in Greater Sydney is in 7 weeks? If we move all of these vaccines from the cold storage and into the arms this will put pressure on Commonwealth to do the right thing.
Lastly, and I suspect most importantly to the community, the sooner everyone gets vaccinated the sooner will advance to Phases 2 and 3 of exiting lockdown. The truth of the matter is Australia has been in lockdown since March 2020. I know the Premiers don't like to hear this pointing to the fact that things have mostly been open since then, but if you can't travel between states never mind between countries, you're in a lockdown. I suspect many of us on the forums have not seen a loved one in over a year now and the prospect of having this right given back to us in 2022 at the earliest is not pleasant to say the least.
Here's to hoping we all arm up!
Your Fully Vaccinated
,
KangarooFlyer88
. One parent just to get second AZ.
).
