We're far away from that point, I think. Over here, you don't make appointments yourself. You get sent a letter with the time of an appointment that has been made for you. That's pretty much for any preventative procedures, unless you have symptoms of something and your doctor refers you. But all women 50 and above get mammograms every 5 years I think? And you get a letter in the mail telling you it's time for your mammogram and as far as I know, you go when they tell you to go. All the vaccines have been like that for the kids. If the time really doesn't work for you, you can call and they will give you a new appointment, but the health department travels around and they give you an appointment based on when they will be where. So if one of the vaccines is given the year you turn 14, at some point in that year, you'll be sent a letter telling you the date, time, and place. You go there and stand in the line with all the other hundreds of people who got their letters. There's a book you get when your kids are born and you bring that with you and they stamp it and record that you've had the immunization. The time blocks are like 15 minutes long, so there will be hundreds of people there who either have your same time slot, or the one before or after yours, and they are done in large conference halls where there might be 20 tables set up so they can do 20 vaccines at a time. It's like a large assembly line....sit, roll up sleeve, alcohol rub to clean the injection site, stab, bandaid, NEXT! It literally takes like 30 seconds to a minute per person and you're out of there.
With the Covid19 vaccine, they are doing it by groups. They did care home residents and staff first, then did 90+ age group, then 80+, etc....and they've also gone by province. So they did all the 90+ in Brabant first, because that was the area with the most cases. Then they moved on to the next province...probably Holland or North Holland and did all the 90+ there. And they moved steadily northward, where it's less populated and there are fewer cases. Once they got all the 90+ done, they moved on to 80+, again starting in one province and when that province was done, they moved on. Right now, they are apparently still on 70+, or maybe even 80+, because my in-laws haven't gotten their letters yet and they are in their 70s. I'm in my 40s....we started in January, so they have been doing vaccinations for exactly 4 months today and they still aren't even through the 70+. AND they have stopped using the Astra Zeneca vaccine because of trombosis linked to it. They were using it and had a few cases, so they suspended its use, then went back to using it, but only for 60+, now they've stopped using it completely again. So the vaccination is going to go even more slowly. They had originally said that everyone should be able to get at least their first shot by the Summer vacation, but I don't think it's looking good for that.
