Disappointing

The experience of covid vaccination so far has been very frustrating for many GPs - they were about to engage in this crucial task and instead of clinical engagement, they have mainly experienced clerking through vaccination lists and then waiting for Godot. Will GPs remember 2021 as the year they wanted to vaccinate and could only get involved as locums in vaccination centres?

Fresh data from the MOH (but published by e.g. the Central Bohemian Region, not the Ministry itself!) suggests not.

Outlook according to the plans of the Ministry of Health

According to the ISIN, 373 thousand doses of vaccines from Astra Zeneca and Janssen had been vaccinated by the end of April, with the highest number in March, when 200 thousand doses were vaccinated. In contrast, the Ministry plans to vaccinate 425 thousand doses in May and even 905 thousand doses of these two vaccines in June. In addition, the Ministry also anticipates the approval of the Novavax vaccine and the delivery of 108 thousand doses - also in June. If this happens, practitioners could be tasked with vaccinating 5 times more doses in June than were vaccinated in March.

In practice, this would mean vaccinating 250 doses in one month, instead of the average of 50 that reached 3,968 PL practices during March.

Looking at 2021 as a whole, practitioners still have over 90% of their covid vaccination work to do.

Will it happen?

We don't know for sure, of course. Even with BioNTech's vaccine, actual vaccination progress is 13% behind schedule, with Moderna at 19% and Astra Zeneca at 32%. But even if practitioners get 3x or 4x more doses in June than they got in March, it will be a challenge.

Ondrej Sobotka, MD, Emmy's project lead physician, comments, "We are proud to have been the first to come up with a comprehensive solution to support vaccination logistics in PL practices with Emmy. And we were delighted to see how beautifully it works in practices in both urban and rural areas. But we were all very disappointed by the number of doses delivered to GP surgeries. That's why we are looking forward to things being different in May and especially June, and Emmy finally getting the opportunity to show how much help she can offer in organising vaccinations!"