As I recounted in maybe another thread, I got my first shot in late April at the Rexall in my office building (downtown Toronto). It was a piece of cake to get an appointment the first week that AZ was released to the 40+ cohort. When I got the shot, I was given a sticker that had a date for the second jab on August 7; even back then though, the pharmacist told me that they were expecting to shorten the gap from 16 to 12 weeks, should the projections on supply hold steady. Because of how Rexall books appointments, I was told to just expect a text message (and simultaneous email) when my turn came up with a link to choose an appointment time. Easy peasy.
In the interim we’ve had AZ getting yanked, then debated/studied, then the announcement that they wouldn’t give any more first doses of it, then that we’d be able to choose an MRNA vaccine for our second jab if we wanted. Hoping to sort out how that would work, I went into the Rexall on Monday to ask if, should I decide to go Pfizer for round two, was that option going to be part of the registration off of the link they’l be texting me in five weeks or so. Basically, I was told, the message will say “Come in on this day and you’ll get [vaccine that they have in stock that week].” What they offer will depend on what they’ve been supplied with most recently.
So I asked, if the text says I’m going to be given a second dose of AZ but at that point I’d prefer to get Pfizer or Moderna, can I choose it via the site as well? And basically no, not that day, I’d be put on a different waiting list for my preferred vaccine. Which, honestly, will just make me say screw it, I’ll take a second AZ dose because I want the process to end for me as soon as possible. Just another reminder how much we’re at the mercy of inconsistent supply and shipping schedules here. Which, of course , First World Problems, at least we have a choice.
I’m also feeling lucky compared to my septuagenarian parents, who got their first Pfizer jabs at the local Y in Ottawa and are getting impatient (no matter how much I plead with them to let the system work) for their second and, not having gotten any communications recently, are repeatedly spending hours on hold trying to find an earlier local appointment. No idea if that’s the provincial portal or something local. I happened to get my shot through what seems the be the easiest method in Ontario shy of a walk-up clinic (easier than that, even, as I didn’t have to wake up at the crack of stupid and stand in the rain with fingers crossed that they don’t run out by 10AM), but the ridiculous patchwork of platforms, logins, waiting lists and different dates for age brackets (“If you’re sixty and up you can use the provincial portal or the local pharmacy one if you’re fifty and up unless you can’t get the AZ only if there’s a runner on base and the moon is in the seventh house or we’re in a month with a ‘t’ in it…”) has been causing a lot of headaches, expecially for people like my parents who have enough trouble navigating the online world in the best of times.