Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

Lessons for Resilience

Consider how to initiate a COVID-19 vaccine programme
Topic:
Health
Keywords:
Public health
Content:

Vaccine programmes will need to source sufficient vaccine, notify recipients of their eligibility, and arrange processes to administer the vaccine. Vaccine wastage, recipient confusion over invitations, and inefficient processes will risk undermining the programme's efficacy. To build early confidence in vaccine programmes:

  • Agree the current aim for the vaccine programme e.g. to reduce immediate risk to life
  • Identify the priority groups to vaccinate to achieve the current aim
  • Identify individual citizens who belong to those priority groups
  • Disseminate public information on current priority groups to manage expectations
  • Explain to agencies that lobby for their staff to be given higher priority why they are currently prioritised as set out in the priority groups - and explain how this achieves the current aim
  • Establish a national register of healthcare staff who are qualified to administer the vaccine -including volunteers and other staff who have been recently trained and approved
  • Identify suitable facilities that can act as vaccine centres e.g. doctor surgeries, schools, public buildings, mass vaccine centres
  • Identify the demand for vaccine at each vaccine centre (based on estimated throughput) and ensure that sufficient supply is available when it is needed
  • Identify how the vaccine will be transported to centres and stored appropriately
  • Maintain close communication with each vaccine centre to share information, for example, on:
    • Stock levels, delivery schedules, and projected demand
    • Which patients have received the vaccine
    • Which patients have been refused the vaccine and for what reason
  • Track the performance of vaccine centres to analyse programme risks and capacities, for example, implement an inventory management system to reduce vaccine waste such as by tracking expiry dates (continued)
  • Consider future aims for later in the vaccine programme and the timing of vaccinating different priority groups to achieve those aims e.g. to re-open non-essential business
  • Seek process-related advice from countries that have already established vaccine centres e.g. Germany
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