@ChoatieMom If he was contacted by beth isreal, it is because he is a patient there and meets a medical condition criteria (you just may not know about it). This is only happening because the state once again is giving vaccines to the hospitals (after pulling them out a couple of weeks ago).
I was on a call recently with some friends and was surprised at how many of them (and their family members) have some medical condition that makes them qualify. We are all women around 60 but so many have had breast cancer, or suffer from an autoimmune condition (like colitis), or have a heart condition, same with their spouses and in some cases their kids.
Most of our friends and family don’t know that my husband had lymphoma and would think he is healthy. Not everybody talks about their medical conditions.
Nope. He’s our best friend of 35 years and our son’s godfather. He’s an athlete in perfect health, no conditions. Beth Israel med center is his health organization (his primary care doc is affiliated). His (younger) wife also got the e-mail. They are both scratching their heads, but why look a gift horse in the mouth?
Perhaps the medical group had a surplus supply (i.e. more than needed for all of their willing patients in higher priority groups) and decided to offer it to additional patients? But that seems unlikely given the extreme shortages everywhere.
Even their website says if you are a patient and meet the state requirements they will contact you. COVID-19 Resources Center | Beth Israel Lahey Health Somebody goofed, but as others say I would take them up on the offer. I hope this isn’t a systemic error and they are vaccinating the wrong patients.
Interesting that webpage I just put up says “current cancers”, most state sites just say “cancer”. So people in remission from a non-autoimmune type cancer (so not something like lymphoma or leukemia), would not quality. This goes back to what @compmom has been saying about former cancer patients.
One more thought maybe he once smoked (put that done on his medical history at some point)
I am also in the Lahey health system and got their mass email to all patients saying we would be contacted at some point. But no individual email yet. I am well over 65 with a few qualifying conditions. I think that must have been a mistake.
Neither are or ever have been smokers. Neither has any chronic conditions or had any surgeries, and wife’s (recent) statin is their only prescription. They have no clue why they got the e-mails, but there was no reason to ignore them. It appears to be a mistake. I just wish we could be so lucky.
Well Lahey just emailed me with a vaccination offer, I clicked and bingo scheduled 3/10 locally. My allergist wants me to have Pfizer but I’ll take whatever is there. @ChoatieMom watch your email!
That’s wonderful @compmom! My neighbor (under 65 but several comorbidities) also just got notified.
Some of my friends with conditions (autoimmune disorders, recent cancers) also got emails and appointments from Beth Israel. Wow! So happy for them. No hassle at all. A lot more of my friends got the email that said they have no conditions and to wait.
@loveorangecats thanks. We have been refreshing the Rite Aid app a lot, plus CVS and Walgreens. THis is actually for my DH who has a heart condition. He also has registered at our county and with 2 different health systems. PA is just a crapshoot.
We have friends in their 30s and 40s who go shots simply because they won the lottery and are overweight, as a contributing factor. Again, I dont begrudge anyone who gets a shot, but the system should be smoother and not require people to sit and refresh screens all day.
I keep saying they should have gotten the PTA moms from when my kids were in elementary school to do logistics for this. Those ladies could streamline and proceduralize in the life out of this thing!
feel like I just won the lottery. CVS opened up a bunch of appts in Virginia and was able to get grandfather an appt.
I live in Arizona. 
FDA recommends authorization of J&J vaccine -
A one dose vaccine - could be a game changer.
Actual issue may be the infrastructure to get them into the arms of people .
A one-shot vaccine would mean half as much some types of infrastructure needed to vaccinate a given number of people (only one instead of two appointments per person, only half as many vaccine doses to be managed). That the storage and handling requirements are less difficult also helps with the infrastructure issues.
All that is true - but apparently they are still anticipating lots of preparation to enter a third into the mix. The other two will continue as well. The news source breaking this news indicated some concern over the logistics of it all.
Tricky but not impossible!
One thing to be aware of is simply that the priority lists and protocols are different in each area. In my county in California, they scheduled a mass drive-through vax event for today which included “Healthcare Workers, First Responders, Educators, Childcare, Agriculture, Food workers” — that’s a HUGE expansion – and is going to pick up a lot of young, healthy adults. But that event was promoted through email to people who had signed up via the county for notification – you had to receive the email to have the sign up link.
Meanwhile they seem to be expanding outreach in other ways --there’s a walk-in mass event at a local high school for age 65-over which was published on the county website – so I’m thinking that’s trying to pick up the over-65’s who haven’t been getting email notice, or have transportation issue that prevent going to the drive through event.
But I can see how it all might seem very random to someone who is essentially off the grid - not utilizing internet & email as a primary source of info. At the same time it seems to me that locally, there is a plan in place and outreach will be expanded and scaled up as needed. I know that locally they feel that if they had unlimited vaccine supply, they have the ability to get everyone vaccinated within a matter of weeks. But the problem is that right now demand outpaces supply.
Just received an email that Chester county PA is currently vaccinating phase 1A people who signed up by…wait for it…Jan 7th.