We had our second Pfizer shot today. My wife has a very sore arm and a fever. I have a slightly sore arm, less so than after the first shot. We will see what the next 24 hours bring.
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10 hours after first Pfizer vaccine, sore arm but not terrible. WaitingâŠ
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D2 got vaccinated with J&J today. She said she cried when she got her shot. Her BF also got his shot today.
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D2 got vaccinated today because she worked at her university.
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Questions for those who have gotten vaccine:
How long was it between when you became eligible to get vaccine and:
- When you were able to get an appointment (i.e. when you were able to confirm an appointment, not the actual appointment date/time)?
- When you were able to get the vaccine (i.e. the actual appointment date when you got the vaccine, or the date when you walked in and got it)?
How much and what kind of effort did you have to go through to get the appointment or otherwise find a vaccine?
We had confirmed appointments in AZ seven hours after they opened up to 55+, but we didnât learn we were eligible until six hours after the announcement.
- When you were able to get the vaccine (i.e. the actual appointment date when you got the vaccine, or the date when you walked in and got it)?
Less than 24 hours. We got confirmed appointments at 7PM, and both of us had our shots by 1:30 the following day. We used VaccineFinder with very little effort, just filled in the required information and chose two available slots from a local Fryâs (Kroger) pharmacy. I posted upthread that we arrived about 25 minutes early not knowing what to expect, but there was no one there, not even anyone dropping off or picking up a prescription. We just walked right up. Our second shots were scheduled during the same process. I hope that pharmacy is just as empty the second time.
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Took several days of constant trying for us in AZ for the over 55 grouping - Iâm amazed that some lucky folks were able to sign up so easily! Some of our friends had to keep trying for a couple weeks, and one even drove over to a different county about 90 miles away. The appointment was for W and was about one week out from the booking.
I made a comment to W about the process definitely being very biased towards higher socioeconomic status. Most people donât have the time or opportunity to check websites multiple times per day.
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This was probably about two weeks. I never managed to get through via the stateâs web site nor via my pharmacyâs web site. My primary care physicianâs web site keeps telling me that I am eligible but they do not have any vaccine. Then a specialist that I had seen sent me an email with a login code that allowed me to make a reservation to get a shot. This last part was easy.
The appointment was for three weeks out (next week).
However, earlier I had complained to this list about a nurse I know who had needed to discard a couple of doses because they could not find an exact multiple of ten officially authorized patients to treat within the short time window after the vaccine came out of the deep freeze. Someone âupstairsâ (in government I think) eventually realized that this was not a good move, and the message came down that I might summarize as âno vaccine left behindâ. Essentially if they have a few doses left, and any arm at all to put them into (for a person who wants to be vaccinated and has not been, or who needs their second dose) they are to use the vaccine and not waste it. That same nurse today had 17 patients. I got the call and took dose 18 (and they scrambled and found two other people).
Therefore after all this planning and getting a reservation, I just suddenly today got vaccinated with essentially no planning at all.
I do not think that this pandemic thing is something that we have fully worked out.
I donât know the time lapse because I donât remember when my age group (65+) first became eligible locally. The first priority group was health care workers and long-term care residents, and then somewhere around January 20th the county announced that it was âtransitioningâ to the next phase. On January 27th the county posted link to a ânotification toolâ on its website â a place to sign up to receive notice when eligible for the vaccine, and I signed up as soon as I learned about that. At about 10pm on February 1 I received an email inviting me to sign up for a mass drive-through 2 days later; I followed the link on the email and scheduled an appointment â at that time there were plenty of openings. At my scheduled time I drove to the site â everything was seamless, I was in place receiving my injection at my scheduled time. Roughly two weeks later I got an email to schedule the 2nd shot; same deal, except the second time around I actually got the shot about 5 minutes ahead of the scheduled time.
Very smooth & easy. I think that if I had been trying harder to schedule a vaccination for myself I might have been frustrated â I know there were a couple of weeks when 65+ was technically eligible, but my health care provider was only vaccinating 70+⊠but I didnât make much of an effort beyond checking their website regularly to see when they were ready to schedule my age group. As it happened, the county notice came several days ahead of that.
It all happened very fast and out of the blue with me. Around 9:30 AM on the morning of Feb. 26, I got a text from the local VA telling me I could make an appointment to come in and get my first shot. I was surprised because I didnât think I was eligible yet. Iâm under 65, retired, and with no preexisting conditions.
I called the VA right after I got the text, half expecting them to tell me they had made a mistake They said it was no mistake, and the person I was talking to said I could come in any time before 1 PM that day. I got my first shot at the VAâs San Bruno, California clinic around 11:30 that morning. My appointment for the second shot is on March 25. I got the Moderna vaccine.
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Around the middle of January I registered with the city, county and state health departments plus several hospital systems. I figured Iâd be waiting a while to hear anything. On January 20 a friend sent me a live link to a different hospital sign up and I was able to make an appointment for February 2nd. My appointment was cancelled on the morning of February 2nd because they ran out of vaccine but was rescheduled for February 3rd and that one worked out. However, since then Iâve been offered appointments by the city, the county and the state and most everyone I know who qualifies has been vaccinated. This is in Missouri/Kansas.
In CT here. I was able to get an appt within 36 hours of becoming eligible, and I got the shot 24 hours after that. I had first made an appt over VAMS for something like five weeks hence. Then I saw on that site âNextdoorâ â I think a lot of locations have that site â that one could sign up directly at a particular hospital near us, so I did that and got an appointment for the following day.
In SC, I became eligible on Monday, March 8th (55+). I made my appointment at a mass vaccination site Monday morning at 8am for the same day (1:15pm appointment). My husband also made his appointment on Monday, March 8th (also 55+) for a different vaccination site for two days later (Wednesday, March 10th). Super easy or else we both just got really lucky.
I was able to get my H his vaccine about a week after he was eligible but I was constantly on the computer refreshing pages. We think I was able to finally get him scheduled because of day light savings and fewer people being awake that Sunday morning.
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I canât really say, since it was a secretive chaotic mess the first couple of months. I know we were supposed to sign up on a database where you were supposed to get called, but nobody I knew every got called until recently - almost 2 months later! And now many of us have found other sources.
I got mine through work. They sent out random emails asking if we wanted it to sign up. Then we got one saying they would vaccinate 200/week by priority group until everybody who wanted one was done. I (and definitely younger S) should have been last in the 1200 employee priority group. But I was called at the last minute with group 1. Younger S got into group 2 a few days later.
I am thankful that our state prioritized teachers early. Mid January H should have been eligible. But, he too got the run around in the beginning. 2 weeks, then 1 months, then 2 months, then 3 months. Then all of a sudden, he got an email saying he could go tomorrow (end of January).
Mid Feb. CVS opened slots and we were able to get my in-laws into the first round pretty easily. Same with my co-workers and their elderly parents. Winter storms kept CVS from getting any new openings for 2 weeks, but since then itâs been a steady stream every week and my area almost always has slots available.
As far as the health department database, people started getting called last week for the mega clinics. My biggest gripe with VA is the lack of communication. They are great at telling people what group they are in and what groups are eligible, but finding vaccines they are silent. They say you will be called, but again⊠2 months for elderly people? Thatâs crazy. And the health department does not mention the CVS, Walgreens, other grocery store pharmacies that carry them. People are left to figure that our on their own. Each pharmacy seems to have their own criteria. CVS is over 65 and more recently added educators. Kroger for a little while allowed the younger people with health conditions. I believe itâs the same for the other grocery stores up north.
In NY, we were eligible (64 with medical conditions) to make appointments at 8am on 2/14. I (working on 3 computers with my H and S) was able to get appointments at the mass vaccine site at Javits Center by 9am, but it was an hour of frustration, site crashing etc. We finally got appointments for ourselves and my pregnant DIL one week later on 2/21 and 2/22. Earlier in the process, I was refreshing the pharmacy sites for my 88yo mother and got lucky around noon on January 20 with an appointment on January 22. And for my sisterâs family, I spent a week trying to find slots and, due to a tweet from vax finder I followed, was able to book them appointments at an upstate mass vax site a week later. In that case, the twitter poster advised to click through even though the site said no appointments available and I was able to get them slots. From my experience so far, when I could get access to appointments, they were for dates in the very near future.
I was signed up with VAMS. When I got their email to schedule, I was able to schedule immediately. I could have gone the following morning (end of December), but chose to go Jan 5.
My second appointment was cancelled due to snow. I had to reschedule that one, and was able to do so within minutes of getting the cancellation email.
My husband did his in February. He had to schedule two weeks outâŠand had no difficulty doing so.
Both of us got our first shots at the location closest to our house as well.
CT.
It was a bear trying to get one for FIL in VA even though at 92 and with health issues he was eligible immediately. His doctor wasnât part of a health system, so that didnât work. He doesnât use a computer and only uses his flip phone for actual phone calls. He called the state and supposedly got on the list, but no calls. (When VA put the list online we were able to check his name and he was on it.) This lasted from the beginning (Dec or Jan?) and might likely still be going on had I not been on this thread and realized I could look on our computer to see what I could find.
At that point it probably took me 2-3 weeks to find one at a CVS close to him. He finally got his first shot a week ago Monday and it was only able to be scheduled because both H and I were able to be online when CVS dropped more appointments on. I got on first, but they donât go in order because H got on about 5 minutes afterward and got through first. By the time I got through all slots were filled. I just looked at CVS around FILâs area of VA (near Richmond) and theyâre still fully booked.
For myself, I became eligible when teachers were added to the list in PA. Most of these are going through schools though when I checked with ours they didnât have enough doses to cover everyone in the district, so of course I opted to wait to favor those currently working (thatâs the way it would have worked anyway). In the meantime our news said educators could get them anywhere so I tried CVS (and Rite Aid and Walmart) in PA. They were full. After about a week I happened to see openings at the closest CVS and snagged one for last Saturday. Within 20 minutes all slots were gone and one had to be up and looking at 7am. I just checked and all CVS locations in PA are fully booked.
School has more slots now so I could have gotten one there in about two weeks if Iâm remembering correctly. I didnât pay much attention to that email since Iâm already in progress. I consider my getting CVS a plus because itâs Pfizer (my #1 choice if I could choose) vs J&J that school is using.
My med school son in NY was able to get his back in Jan in the second wave of medical personnel. Heâs completely vaccinated now as is his GF who also works in the hospital.
CT here. It took a couple of days to find an appointment through a local hospital but the appointment was more than three weeks out. I randomly checked a local pharmacyâs website about a week later and was able to grab an appointment for this week. By the time I shouted to DH in another room and he logged on, those appointments were gone but he was able to find something through VAMS for the next day. I got Pfizer and heâs getting Moderna, so that will be an interesting comparison.
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I signed up on our county waitlist January 19th just after they opened it to 65+. Got an email March 1st and was able to sign up for an appointment the next day. When I got home there was an email to sign up for my second shot in 3 weeks. I go in Tuesday for that. Between Jan and March I kept checking other sites and had managed to find one at a Safeway but it was 2 weeks later so I canceled that one.
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