Great Western Coffee Shop

Nigel Harris in the same edition of RAIL as the  'Losing GRIP' article, asks why local stations with all their unused rooms ( think Temple Meads!) could not be used as vaccination centres, and also why couldn't the mothballed IC125's be repurposed as utilised as mobile vaccination centres ( take out the seats, put up some screens.....). Just the sort of imaginative thinking we need in these insecure times.

Because there are other, far more suitable facilities which don't need to be totally adapted first?

Also, isn't there a limited number of people who can give people a vaccine? I thought there was a current shortage of nurses, and I'm not sure this is something you can just recruit people to do, though happy to be corrected on that.

It ha been reported that the St John Ambulance are going to train up people to administer vaccinations

WI too.......they're practising with knitting needles 😫

Never Never underestimate the power of the WI...

I'm sure most GP surgeries use healthcare assistants for most of their routine injections, though for a big campaign like seasonal flu it's a matter of all (qualified) hands turning out. My flu jab was done by an HCA this year, by appointment, as I was due a dose of shingles as well.

There are arguments going on about whether HCAs get enough supervision when doing this, since it's a job with no requirements for entry and qualifications are all modular. They are trained in the physical skill of injections, but not un reading and understanding medical documents. For a mass injection campaign, that wouldn't be an issue. I can't find anything to say how many there are with the qualification, or what the capacity is to train a lot of people in a rush.

As has already been said, an existing building is arguably more suited to use as a vaccination center than a train.
A train might be worth considering for remote areas, staff and supplies could remain on board as the train visits numerous stations.
A shortened HST would be ideal, perhaps three first class vehicles and a buffet for staff refreshments.

The vaccine that only needs refrigeration could be stored in one of the existing fridges.
If the vaccine that needs storage at minus 70 degrees is to be used, this would need to be stored in a dedicated vehicle with the windows removed or broken, or the doors removed.

A train with all the required supplies, welfare facilities, and staff on board is almost certainly easier to arrange than transporting everything required to numerous isolated locations.

For an urban area, a large existing public building is almost certainly the answer.

I'm not sure if even in remote areas there are enough sidings left to park the thing out of the way of operational services and accessible to the stream of people coming in for their jabs. UK comment - may work elsewhere in the world.

But having written that ... 3 days each at Thurso (bustitute the line), Lairg, Invergordon, Achnasheen (timetable changes to avoid crossing at these places), Kyle of Lochalsh, Mallaig, Glenfinnan, Oban ...


Or a trolley to allow for social distancing?  ;D

Blimey you even managed to get a buffet into this subject!

How about a Vaccination special Pullman.....the nurse could creep up behind diners and slip the needle into the buttock during the main course (rump steak?) You wouldn't feel a thing! 😂

Yes but the buffet would be only for the medical and support staff, to enable provision of light meals, chilled soft drinks, and hot drinks.
Not available to the public, so does not count as a "broadgage approved Buffet"

Nothing wrong with a bit of thinking outside of the box of course, but this thread sounds like a solution looking for a problem.

Indeed. Talking of boxes, why does everyone think that the low temperature storage is such an issue? For one thing a day's supply can be kept in a fridge, since it lasts a few days like that. Distributing what are hardly bulky new supplies won't be a big issue either. Storage for more than a couple of days comes down to supplies of dry ice. We've got enough of that, haven't we?

Not only do Pfizer have small insulated boxes that can maintain the required temperature of -70^oC for as long as ten days, but I've got one that could do three days. It was made ages ago, to store freezer contents for a couple of hours during defrosting. Filled with 30 kg of dry ice, it should last for 72 hours before that all sublimes. And that was cobbled together from a removers' box, a smaller inner box, some expanded polystyrene sheets and glue, and loft insulation to fill the gap between inner and outer box!


Mind you, there is a big question still unanswered about that low temperature  - why?

The low temprature, possibly indicates, there is some form of living, er virus in it, which has to be stoped from replicating, until in the body?

The very low temperatures needed to preserve one of the vaccines can be maintained by use of liquid nitrogen, or just about by dry ice.
Both are readily available.
Neither dry ice nor liquid nitrogen should be conveyed in any type of enclosed vehicle, including railway vehicles.
Suitable road vehicles include open pick up trucks, or other trucks with the cab completely separated from the load area, clear air space required between cab and load area. Small amounts may be conveyed by motorcycle.

Suitable rail vehicles include open wagons, very well ventilated livestock wagons, or passenger vehicles with the doors removed, or secured open if still in gauge thus.
Decades ago I observed large liquid nitrogen containers being moved in an otherwise empty passenger train. In the luggage van with the inward opening doors secured open.
Guard to ride in rear cab.

Neither material should be taken into an enclosed lift with any person in the lift. Can be sent in an otherwise empty lift.

Not really just an unstable compound.  We know it is not living virus. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are a made of one of a group of complex chemicals called ribonucleic acid (RNA).

As any fule knoweth, the so called vaccine actually contains micro technology illegally obtained from crashed alien spaceships. This is to render people EVEN MORE vulnerable to government mind control rays.
The unworthy will be killed by sending a coded 5G signal to activate the kill circuit.

Fortunately many large hospitals, and all NHS Advanced Therapy Treatment Centres, are used to routinely handling materials kept cold by dry ice (and even vapour phase nitrogen shippers). Consequently they already have safety procedures for this (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjw-6PTpI3tAhVITRUIHekHAusQFjADegQIAxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sps.nhs.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FHandling-Dry-Ice-and-Vapour-Phase-Nitrogen-Shippers.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2sWW253QL4VhRAw3n5hnsA), and they are nothing like as restrictive as broadgage implies.

You might also ask yourself why Pfizer cam up with -70^oC as a temperature. Did they work out exactly what was needed (for some reason still a mystery as far as I am concerned) and it just happened to be the standard value for dry ice storage? Or did they decide dry ice was needed, and translate that into a temperature?

Are we not getting a bit carried away with the -70 figure ? To inject the vaccine it must be a liquid - unless its given as an ice lolly !  It has already been said that the vaccine will survive up to 5 days in a "normal" fridge as part of the thawing/distribution process. The -70 figure certainly poses major problems in the third world but not in most of the developed world.

I would be a bit more concerned about the news that Dolly Parton gave a million dollars towards the development of the Moderna vaccine - imagine what that might do to you  :o :o ....and I'm not talking about your singing abilities either.............

(https://i2-prod.bristolpost.co.uk/incoming/article4702651.ece/ALTERNATES/s1227b/2_JMP_SWA_141120_lockdown_protest_032_JPG.jpg)
Broadgage, seen recently in Bristol. (Photograph taken before lunch.)

Such nonsense is regrettably widely believed.

Particularly in Stroud, for some reason.

and the New Age centre of Totnes.

And the 'old'age settlement of Glastonbury....we didn't hang around the other week!

Drat, my masterplan for world domination has been both discovered and hijacked!

The clues were there:edit, bah the Totnes road sign image didn't seem to work!

My own surgery organised mass flu vaccination clinics this year, one for under 65s such as myself, one for the elderly. They took place in a local community centre. I got out of the car in the adjacent (free) car park, joined the short and moving queue, gave name rank and number to the front desk, and was directed to one of numerous stations. They were laid out so you didn't pass close to any of the others. I think it may have been one of the doctors who administered the jab, and bade me a cheery farewell before I left by the rear door. I was on my way home within 5 minutes maximum of leaving the car. One of our GPs is ex-military, which I think might have helped. A week later, friends in Bristol were still no nearer to being "done".

I had to have daily injections for a while almost 20 years ago, when I was going through chemotherapy. I didn't fancy a daily trip to hospital or doctors, so said I would do it myself. The nurse said he would show me, I told him I would prefer to do it myself under his direction, like I did when learning to tie my shoelaces all those weeks previously. 5 minutes later, I was proficient, although I didn't get a certificate. It isn't difficult, just don't use a plaster anywhere there may be small hairs. And don't wear a 19th century Peruvian admiral's dress uniform - you only need to get one of the buttons in the wrong hole to lose a whole morning. So a friend tells me.

Didcot Health Centre ran a few 'mass events' on Saturdays using the Civic Hall opposite. These included a 'walkthrough' one-way route through the garden into one of the gazebos and out again through a different exit or for people with mobility issues an alternative drive-through around the horseshoe shaped car park.