VACCINE LOGISTICS
29 March 2021 | It came as no surprise that Singapore would have a very organised logistics process for vaccines but that organisation certainly exceeded my expectations. Here’s how the whole vaccine process works in Singapore:
We learned from the paper (but I assume you can also learn by word of mouth, or other news sources) that vaccinations have opened up for our age group/cohort
We went to https://www.vaccine.gov.sg/ to register
Registration involves entering your phone number and verifying that number before submitting in order to ensure that the text goes to the right person
Registration involves entering your NRIC or FIN to ensure you are the correct demographic/cohort registering
Upon registering and verifying that you are eligible, we got a confirmation email from MOH indicating that they will notify you when you can make an appointment. We actually had to register 3 times because we had apparently just seen the article and the government hadn’t get updated the website for our age group.
Early on, we tried and were denied. For example, not being in the priority group means you get the following message:
Two days later after registering in our age group, we received another text with a unique URL to sign up for an appointment.
Clicking the link, took us to a registration site where we entered our particulars again including our NRIC/FIN. We could then choose a vaccine site from a list of about 40 different sites around the island. All of them had an “earliest appointment” date in red at the top and could be filtered based on postal code, name of centre/neighborhood or earliest date. We chose a place near us (Radin Community Centre) which had an appointment date the next day (Saturday, 27 March). Further investigation online also showed which sites were administering specific vaccines (Moderna or Pfizer were the only two approved ones in Singapore). We were not picky about which one we got and in choosing Radin, we were signed up for Moderna. We just didn’t want the Sinovac vaccine but that hadn’t been approved in Singapore as of the sign-up date.
When we picked our first vaccine date, they automatically confirmed our second vaccine date at the same time (approximately 4 weeks after the first) on the 24th of April. Moderna is 4 weeks. Pfizer is 3 weeks.
We were told to arrive about 15 minutes early, wear short sleeves, and bring our NRIC/FIN for verification purposes. We arrived at 3:15 PM and were amazed at the organisation and logistics of the set-up.
We first went into a socially distanced holding area for everyone who had an upcoming appointment.
At 3:30, they posted the new time on a white board and then called everyone in the holding area to get in line to check in.
Approximately 25 people got in line and systematically checked in with their NRIC/FIN. Checking in involved using the government app on your mobile to check in to the community centre, doing a temperature scan, and then having a person scan our NRIC/FIN to verify that we actually had an appointment time.
We then received a number and were ushered to a waiting area and were asked to wait until our number was called. Call this the registration waiting area.
Our numbers were listed on an electronic board much like you’d see at a DMV; however, every number was followed by an R which stood for registration and included a registration desk that you were to report to.
When called, the desk that you went to was a registration desk. All of the desks had plexiglass screens to protect the workers who were entering all of your information. The person at the registration desk again scanned your NRIC/FIN and asked a lot of questions about whether we had an allergies or other illnesses that would make us ineligible to get a vaccine. The answer to all of these questions was an emphatic “no.”
At that point, we were ushered to another waiting area. Call this the vaccine waiting area. Every number here was followed by a V which stood for vaccine and included a tent with a curtain door that you were to report to.
When called, we were ushered to a tent with a nurse who again verified our name, asked a few questions, and then quickly and efficiently gave us the jab.
Upon getting the jab, we were immediately ushered by another person to a waiting area called the discharge or observation waiting area.
In the discharge/observation waiting area were a much larger number of chairs because we were required to sit here for 30 minutes to ensure there were no bad side effects.
After 30 minutes passed, our number was shown on a board and we went to a discharge desk.
At the discharge desk, the person there printed out a card for us that had all of our particulars and the date that we received our first dose of the vaccine. They informed us to bring the card with us when you came back for our second appointment.
At that point, we were done and were ushered out of the building.
