Tamworth COVID-19: Region's pharmacies preparing for influx of booking when they receive Moderna vaccine next week

Tamworth's Howles Pharmacy is already taking bookings for Moderna, and will begin administering doses to the public from September 26.

Only a handful of local pharmacies will be offering the vaccine, with different pharmacies allocated different quantities.

Moderna is an mRNA vaccine similar to Pfizer and will be offered to anyone between the ages of 12 to 59, with AstraZeneca still the recommended vaccine for people over 60.

At Priceline Pharmacy Tamworth, pharmacist Zubair Khan said they have already administered 1000 doses of AstraZeneca to the public since it was made available to pharmacies a month ago.

Now, they are gearing up to deliver Moderna with bookings set to open by September 25, and he believes demand will be high.

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"We're in tier one announced by the government so we are hoping to receive our Moderna supply by September 21 if everything goes right, we're just waiting for stock to come in," he said.

"At the moment we are still administering AstraZeneca, then we will be going on to the Moderna as well, so we just need to coordinate days when we will specifically be doing Moderna, it's not feasible to have both on the same day," he said.

He is anticipating 700 to 800 people to come in to the pharmacy over the next few weeks for their second dose of AstraZeneca, around the same time as the Moderna supply hits, so locals are urged to be patient when booking appointments.

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