26 July, 2021
The next two days after the Pfizer was uneventful. Had low grade fever,
mild fullness of the head and fatigue, but was still able to work normally.
Still did not get arm pain.
28 July, 2021
Sent a warning to an old friend who works in a Campsie GP clinic that’s
charging around $250 for Pfizer shots that they could get into trouble because
there is an official government information page saying no one should be paying
for their COVID vaccines, even non-Medicare card holders.
Then saw news about their clinic in the headlines right after sending
the message! Around 100 people flooded the clinic’s google review and dragged
the clinic to a 1 star rating! I guess if they had charge non-Medicare holders
the normal consult fees of $70-90, they probably would have passed under the
radar. Oh well.
A Youtuber gave the analysis that there is one group of people who may
be willing to pay so much for vaccines: illegal migrants. These people want to
be invisible and do not want to leave a mark in any government-related agencies,
ie. a Commonwealth Vaccine Clinic. And yet, they are afraid of catching COVID
and want to be vaccinated. So they might fish out the $250 in order to be
vaccinated.
2 August, 2021
Monday is always a busy day for the clinic. Today, there is an
overwhelming number of people enquiring about the Pfizer vaccines, including
people who are not regular patients of our clinic. Furthermore, the rollout is
restricted to people between 40-59 years of age, though there are a few
exceptions for people in other age groups. So lots of people are being placed
into telephone consultations with doctors to assess eligibility, as we don’t
want ineligible people to book themselves in for the vaccination. However, I
found that nearly all the 30 or so people booked in for telephone consultations
today are enquiring about Pfizer. A few have kindly provided a health summary
to us from their GPs, but most haven’t, so I had to spend quite a fair bit of
time taking their histories and ask them to send us a health summary and their
most recent blood test so we can book them in for the actual vaccination.
There are also some patients who are ineligible for Pfizer but keep
trying to debate, thinking that through debating they might be able to change
their eligibility status. This type of consultation is particularly tiring and
really just feels like an argument. Some people even bring GP letters where the
GP “recommends” Pfizer without listing any contraindications to AstraZeneca
which are:
·
a history of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis
·
a history of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia
·
a history of splanchnic vein thrombosis
·
anti-phospholipid syndrome with thrombosis
·
Anaphylaxis to a previous dose of COVID-19
Vaccine AstraZeneca
·
Thrombosis with thrombocytopenia after the first
dose of COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca
·
Other serious adverse events attributed to the
first dose of COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca (these events should be reported to
the local Public Health Unit)
If a person is ineligible, the person is ineligible, and yet I have to
be careful not to sound rude when I tell them they simply cannot get the Pfizer
and will have to consider AstraZeneca if they are keen to get vaccinated soon.
It is also very straining for my eyes as I book eligible people into the
appointment slots as there are so many grids in the appointment book that I had
to be careful to not make any mistakes when I book patients into the slots.
6 August, 2021
The new case numbers continue to rise, with 291 new cases today. I
guess getting vaccinated was the right decision. The number of people enquiring
about Pfizer vaccines remain high, although not as high as on Monday. At least
I am getting some consultations which are not about the Pfizer vaccine. The
whole practice is getting quite sick of this, and one of our principal doctors
tries to encourage us about the good works we’re doing to help the community as
a COVID vaccination clinic. It is very important we stick strictly to the rules
and firmly reject people who are ineligible for Pfizer, because if we do the
wrong thing, we may be removed from the vaccine rollout program like that Campsie
clinic. We have given 156 doses of Pfizer on the first weekend began administering
the vaccines, and continued to administer hundreds of COVID vaccines to people
each week.
13 August, 2021
Developed a mystery illness. Woke with headache on Sunday 8 August, and
had diarrhoea since that evening. This unusual headache actually kept me awake
during most of the night and did not subside until Monday afternoon.
The diarrhoea continued and became acutely worse on Wednesday evening
where I was going to the toilet every 10minutes and sitting on the toilet for
5minutes each time, with severe anal pain, and also feeling bad bladder
pressure and frequency. It continued throughout the whole night so I couldn't
sleep and was worried about 1) listeria infection which can give a 50% fetus
mortality rate, and 2) premature labour triggered by gastro, as I never gave
birth before and couldn't tell whether the cramps I was having was gut spasms
or uterine irritability contractions or premature labour contractions.
So I took Amoxicillin because I was worried about listeria, and ended
up going to the North Shore Private birthing suite for CTG monitoring at 4am.
Baby was fine, but I continued to have the diarrhoea. However, I was able to
eat and appeared well, so the obstetrician wasn't too worried and I came home
at 8am. However, I couldn't work that day because 1) the hospital did a COVID
test on me as a precaution, and 2) I was still going to the toilet once every
10-20 minutes. Then at noon I finally had 1 hour of sleep as the diarrhoea
became better. Diarrhoea happened 1 hourly until the evening, and less frequent
on Thursday night so I returned to work today.
Strangely, the COVID test, stool test and urine test were all negative,
with no infectious agents found. No one around me is sick, and my husband ate
pretty much the same things as I did. My husband is now trying to blame the
Pfizer, even though this mystery illness happened two weeks after my first dose
Pfizer, which is probably a bit too long to be put down to the vaccine?
However, the lady I saw in April developed the bleed in her brain after her
second dose of Pfizer, so who knows? But I guess getting the diarrhoea illness
is still better than actually catching COVID.
Anyway, one in four eligible Australians are now fully vaccinated for
COVID 19.
15 August, 2021
If there isn’t enough bad news worldwide already, today the Taliban has
taken control over Afghanistan. Can only continue to intercede for the nations.
18 August, 2021
My husband still hasn’t cut his beard. It has grown so long that he
looks like the Taliban... and he has developed a new habit of pulling his beard
up and placing it into his mouth to chew on it.
The new case numbers have jumped straight from the 452 yesterday to 633
today… without even going through the 500s… 1 case two months ago to 633 now! Hope
it doesn’t start going exponential! However, I personally think sooner or later
this thing is just going to spread everywhere and it's just gonna be an
affliction that the whole humanity has to endure. People will probably end up
needing to get vaccinated every year. But I think lockdown does help buy some
time, so that the unvaccinated population is not hit by COVID infections all at
once.
I’ve heard an anti-lockdown person argue that argue that “it’s mostly the
old people dying and old people are the ones who usually use up the health
resources and are unproductive to the community, and having them die sooner actually
saves the country money.” However I think this argument is ridiculous. Not only
is this argument cruel/callous, but if you think about it, lots of young people
will also catch the illness too if an uncontrolled sudden outbreak hits a large
number of unvaccinated people. COVID infections have many long term consequences,
and young unvaccinated people who catch it might become unproductive in the
long run due to long term health issues. This will actually cost the country
more money.
Meanwhile, Delta’s entered into NZ community now. Don’t know if my mom
will end up having to do hotel quarantine in late September when she comes to
visit me from NZ.
21 August, 2021
The new case numbers have jumped straight from the 644 yesterday to 825
today! Anti-lockdown protesters in Sydney and Melbourne gone into the city to
protest again! Meanwhile my dose 2 Pfizer is being delayed to next week because
my colleagues are feeling apprehensive about giving me the vaccine and wants my
bowels to settle completely normalise before giving me the second dose.
Today, I took on the role of a “farmer” and started playing with the “Discovery
Garden” packs I got from Woolies in 2019. Might be good to just plant some veggies,
in case the pandemic gets so bad that food runs out! However, I’ve never been interested
in taking care of plants and most plants die under my hands… Hope these veggies
will survive.
