#CucukMyAZ 2nd dose

AZ was opened for registration two more times, both were glitched. System worse than Air Asia's and yet its budget was covered by a RM 70m allocation.

Thereafter, it was put back into the main immunisation programme bcause, evidently, there was huge demand for it. As I stated in a previous blog post, 

" Malaysia government seprated out Astrazeneca (AZ) from the main national immunisation programme as they alleged that people were hesistant about taking that vaccine. "Alleged" i.e. didn't back it up with any statistic/survey/study etc. "

Incompetency in this government is just a stone-throw away.

Then they shortened the gap between 1st and 2nd dose from 12 weeks to 9 weeks, without any explanation whatsoever. I was apprehensive about this because studies showed that best immunise response was achieved by having a gap of between 12 weeks and 10 months. However, I didn't cancel the appointment (and thereby place myself at the back of the queue) because suboptimal protection was still better than low protection (from just a single dose) against the fast moving Delta variant. Why didn't the government give any reason? Even Australia gave this reason (I found out after I've decided): "Shortening the gap between first and second doses will bring forward short-term protection, which is expected to be beneficial in outbreak situations." If the reasons were legit, there were no reasons to hide them, especially reason like this. This lead me to believe that they did it for non-medical reasons e.g. boosting statistics so that they can boast about the number of people "fully" vaccinated. This goverment's fate in hell should come sooner.

There were many more people (easily 20x more) at the vaccination centre, compared to my 1st dose appointment. Not entirely a surprise because this centre was now not solely for Astrazena vaccine. Despite this, the whole process took only 55 minutes (about 35 minutes spent waiting at the first stop), similar to 1st dose's. However, there were notable differences:

• We were asked to fill up form beforehand.
• No need to sign consent form. The one we signed covered the entire vaccination schedule i.e. included the 2nd dose.
• No explanation of possible side effects. Although personally I don't neeed it, I believed it's still better to reiterate them.
• We were asked to scan right before we got into the vaccination cubicle.
• Obversation time was skipped. I asked them for the reasons and I was told that we should be familiar with the possible side effects already and so could observe off-site, and that many people were not comfortable to be on-site with so many people.

Here's a list of observational points:

1. 18/7, 10.45am Vaccinated
2. 18/7, 10.45pm Felt a little warm. 36.9 degree, hungry
3. 18/7, 11.32pm 37.4 degree, hungry despite downing some oat and later half piece of Weetbix with milk
4. 19/7, 12.43am 37.4 degree, sleep
5. 19/7 2.50am Hungry, warm but just want to sleep. 36.6 degree. Had Weetbix and later soft-boiled egg
6. 19/7 5.03am 36.4 degree, sleep
7. 19/7 12.45pm 36.9 degree

Caveat: I was also unusually tired and lethargic but I believed that these were due to the bad nasal allergy I had (vasomotor rhinitis).

A piece of information that I received beforehand is true i.e. the side effects of the Astrazeneca's 2nd dose are fewer and less severe than the first dose. This was demonstrated in Australia where not only were there fewer recipients with side effects (i.e. there were more people without any side effects), there were also fewer recipients with severe side effects (i.e. among those who had side effects mostly had the mild ones).

I forsee that Astrazeneca recipients in this country needing a booster shot due to suboptimal level of immune response.