Colorado is still only doing 70+ and medical people. My 85 year old mother just got a shot yesterday because there were no appointments available through pharmacies, her doctors. She won a lottery through another health care system for the 10000 people who are 70+.
There are still something like 200,000 seniors who haven’t been able to be vaccinated. My friend’s MIL turned 98 on Wednesday and got her shot (along with her 71 year old son, my friend’s husband) on Thursday. They had registered at 5 or so hospital systems and won a spot at Nat’l Jewish.
As of next Monday, group 1b.2 will open, which is age group 65-69 and teachers. There are something like 400,000 in that 65-69 group and I don’t know how many teachers as it includes all public, private, charter, magnet, day care workers, all the staff, all the paras, bus drivers, lunch ladies, etc. After that group, 1b.2 gets a good start, they’ll open it to the next group which is 1b.3, and includes 16-64 year olds with 2 medical conditions and all the essential workers (like grocery store workers). It is estimated that group has 1 Million people in it and the governor has already said that if the govt can’t provide more vaccine, they’ll have to further divide that group.
The registration system in Texas varies from county to county and even within some counties. In Houston for example, the city run sites are first come, first served. The appointments are filled within minutes of being posted online. Other providers are running a lottery system. Some of the hospitals such as MD Anderson are calling their own patients to come in for appointments. It is a huge mess. There is way more demand than supply.
Another Houstonian (slightly over 65/no underlying conditions): My doctor’s medical group notified me in late December about setting up a time for the vaccine. I could have taken an appt. the next day. Instead I flipped through the days until I found a first-in-the-morning appt. and took it. Plenty of openings at the time.
I was lucky to already have a doctor in a group that got plenty of vaccine. Others haven’t been so lucky and have to scramble for an appt.
I had no idea at the time that I was fortunate to sign up early and with ease. I had been thinking of changing doctors: this has changed my mind.
It’s been about 24 hours since dose 2. I woke up with a headache and stiff neck. Has proceeded to fatigue and minor chills. Luckily I can go take a nap. Still worth it!
Dallas county had a mass event at the convention center and accidentally vaccinated hundreds who didn’t have reservations but had friends or family members who forwarded the link. I’m thinking Ticketmaster should be running this…
I saw an article where a drive thru mass vaccination site was completely bogged down, so the powers that be called in the local Chick Fil A manager. He fixed everything and the wait times dropped from hours to 15 min. Chick Fil A has the drive thru process down!
A small county in Michigan cancelled their vaccination clinic when they found out that 280 of the 300 doses they had were going to residents of other counties, after a link had been shared
Here is a bit of positive news to balance things out. A Chick-fil-a manager answered the call to share his drive-thru expertise and solved a back up at a vaccination event.
Thanks for sharing the problem about link sharing. I signed up on my county health department website for notification of when the vax was available, and received an email late last night with links to schedule an appointment for a drive-thru later this week. I had no problem with scheduling. I told some of my over-65 friends about the place to sign up for notification – but did not share the links for the actual drive-thru. Based on what you guys have posted – I won’t share those. I was feeling conflicted because I think that there’s a societal need to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible – but your posts really bring home to me the reason why I should not be sharing the specific location of the drive-thru or the sign-up links – and let that be handled directly by the same system that pushed out my invitation. They have made it clear that they will be checking ID’s and won’t vaccinate anyone who can’t prove their age or relevant employment status (health care workers).
Younger S was able to secure an appointment for this Friday through my workplace. This is where I struggle. I am so angry with the non-compliance of mask wearing, social distancing, and the general attitude of management. However, they did me and younger S a huge favor by hiring him (and a few more of his contemporaries) to be interns for us over the summer. Interns aren’t normal for us. We have had < 5 that I know of over the last 20+ years. And not only that, they have let him be an open ended/active employee, so he can work when he wants on any break. Because of this, he qualifies for the vaccine, which is a HUGE plus. For this, I am super grateful.
Edit - and if he is able to get it already, that means they’ve gone through everyone who wanted one. He should be at the end of the list of employees.
We are in the Bay Area and vaccines are only given to residents of the specific county with photo ID and proof of residence. Our neighboring county has been vaccinating people 65+ for at least 3 weeks now with loads of openings but we are still at 75+ and medical workers. We can’t go out of county to get our vaccinations.
counties all around us too had been vaccinating their older residents while we watched on; so thankful ours started. Cbreeze - hope it comes soon for your elderly. i have two 70/80 aunts in your area. for us it happened sooner than they had projected (mid feb).
Just about all of our little group of over 65 have successfully had their first vaccine and scheduled their second. I think that anyone who can navigate the system should be exempt from the annual Medicare “Wellness cognitive exam”.
My side effects from dose 2 yesterday are completely gone except for a slightly sore arm, which I get after any shot. Dragondad had no side effects except for slightly sore arm.
Hooray! We are done!
Saw in a different thread that some doctor was recommending vaccinating younger people next in line, before some older folks because younger people are more likely to spread Covid. Someone needs to remind him that vaccinating the “spreaders” early only works if the vax stop the spread - which we don’t know for sure yet. We know they almost totally reduces bad cases and have totally stopped (so far) deaths from Covid. I would keep the at risk folks ahead of the spreaders.
However, there is an argument in favor of job-based prioritization, because those who work in jobs that have to be (or are much better done) in-person are both more vulnerable to exposure and more likely to spread the virus to others. Everyone seems to agree that health care workers with patient contact should be prioritized, but there is more disagreement about people who work in grocery stores, meat packing, K-6 teaching, etc…
The priority (after the medical personnel) wasn’t to stop the spread but to lessen the impact on hospitals. The older group uses more resources if they get the virus.
The biggest group of ‘spreaders’ is 35-50 year olds (just read that yesterday) and they are the last group scheduled to get the vaccine.
