Northern Virginia. They added the “18-64 with health conditions” people to the 1B category, in mid-January (we’d been 1C before that). Since I’ve got several of the comorbidities, I jumped at the chance.
It’s going on a year, not a couple of months. The Feds should have been defining the framework for a rollout the minute they knew there were viable vaccine candidates. Anyone who has been paying attention should have realized that the Feds were doing no such thing. Is it too much to ask for public health authorities at the state, county, and city levels to, you know, communicate with each other so everyone understands what the plan is? I understand that quite simply, not enough vaccine is being distributed, but the communication has been a clusterfuck.
See:
I’m fine with not playing a big blame game, and it was’t going to be entirely smooth regardless, but, well, there were feds who defined that framework. Now that it has been ignored, a total re-do is impossible.
What that article tells me is that among the Feds, the right hand wasn’t listening to the left hand. The smaller group of expert Feds didn’t get to make the decisions about implementation, just recommendations. And the folks who could have been responsible for defining the implementation plan didn’t listen. All in all, a clusterfuck at the Federal level. People need to communicate with each other for a coordinated plan to work.
Meanwhile, I see things like a cousin in Florida posting about her mother (in her late 80s), who had to wait more than six hours in line, in her car, in the heat for her first shot, and that was with an appointment! When she arrived for her second shot (also with an appointment), she reached the spot where she had started her six-hour wait for the first shot and literally couldn’t see the end of the line. She knew she wouldn’t be able to wait that long, so she just turned around and went home.
There is plenty of blame to go around here at many levels.
In terms of deciding which large groups should go first, yes, much of that was done, and then was ignored.
In terms of determining how vaccine would get allocated to specific localities, and in terms of determining how people not in a health care facility would find out when and where they could get vaccinated, I’m not seeing anything at all; at least, not in that article.
There should have been provisions for setting up wait lists by area. There should have been provisions for how people could get on the wait lists, and how they’d be notified when it was their turn. If the Federal government hadn’t done that (and I see no sign that they’d paid any attention to it at all), the states should have. Now the states, the counties, multiple pharmacies, and multiple health care practices are all trying to figure out how to do it, at or rather after the last minute, and all more or less separately though many are also trying to work out, again after the last minute, how to coordinate with each other.
Had she brought a car potty? Diapers?
Quite a lot of young and healthy people can’t hold it for six hours. Very few old and/or ill people can.
The problem in my area is too many uncoordinated choices. I have an appointment at the local hospital, but I could try to get one at my CVS, or another regional health center, or my clinic - though they are no longer taking appointments being out of vaccine. Not to mention going to a stadium. I signed up at the county level and have heard nothing from them at all.
A push system rather than a pull system might work out better, or a pull system that tells you where to go for a vaccination depending on your name, perhaps.
My doctor says that their hospital system spent a fair bit of time trying to prioritize all their patients, but they had no info about when they would get vaccine, what the law would allow… lots of key logistic information.
I live in Connecticut, but I’m still employed in California, in the state university system, and I get frequent updates from our campus administration. The campus itself, in north San Diego County, has recently been turned into a vaccination site. The doses are administered in the basketball facility.
As an educator, I’m officially in Phase 1B - Tier 1 - Education. My group is currently listed as coming up next in the order. Currently, they are vaccinating Phase 1B - Tier 1 - People over 65. Yes, part of 1B -Tier 1 is being vaccinated, and another part of 1B - Tier 1 is still waiting. I think they could remove some confusion if they had a more logical way of naming the groups.
The county currently has 7 separate levels (although, as noted above, they are also splitting some levels up, even if they have the same name):
- Phase 1A - Tier 1
- Phase 1A - Tier 2
- Phase 1A - Tier 3
- Phase 1B - Tier 1
- Phase 1B - Tier 2
- Phase 1C
- Phase 2
All the Phase 1 sections are specific groups based on age, risk, and/or occupation; Phase 2 is General population over 16 years of age.
Why not just have Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, etc., down to Phase 7? Why does almost everyone have to be in some variant of Phase 1? It’s like the “everyone gets a trophy” naming format.
I also think that, when allocating people to phases, they should take account not just of what job they perform, but whether they’re actually likely to be exposed. As an educator, I’m in the the next phase up for vaccination, but there’s really no need for me to have priority right now. My university has been in predominantly remote learning since March last year, most people I know haven’t set foot on campus since then, and most of us won’t have to be on campus at least until the end of August. I’m healthy, and I spend the vast majority of my work time sitting on my ass in front of my computer at home. There’s no (occupational) reason at all for me to be ahead of, say, a 55-year-old DoorDash driver, or a 40-year-old with underlying health conditions or disabilities.
I imagine it’s because things evolved from four tiers or whatever. At some point they decided to split a tier so they renamed the two halfs rather than renaming all of them.
Do they have a plan for notifying people when they do get vaccine? Have they told their patients what this plan is?
Yes, I know almost nobody’s got any vaccine. The day the vaccine shows up is not the day to be figuring this stuff out.
That was a while ago. They actually DID start vaccinating their highest risk patients. And this morning my mom got an appointment for her second shot. And this afternoon I got an email saying they’ve run out of vaccine and have only enough for those already scheduled, and can’t schedule any additional people.
And I was just talking to someone in another hospital system who just learned the same. It’s a state-wide thing, not my hospital.
Such a mess.
I have my first dose scheduled for Mon. I work in a K-12 support position and was notified a couple weeks ago I could schedule. I chose the nearest location to me but nothing was available. I chose a downtown location and got the next available date and time.
Well it worked. The wife and I both got our shots, Made the appointments at the same time but mine was 6 hours and 21 miles from her’s. Not complaining - I’ll take what I can get.
My county finally caught up with most of the rest of California and will start taking appointments for over 65 on Tuesday. I’m in the group after that so maybe April. It can’t come too soon.
I was vaccinated on 20 Jan. A young collegue, B, was their and had lift from his mother. B said to the med staff, “my mum is in the car, can she have a shot”, and the medical staff staff said, “Of course”!
My mother’s 74 years old and there isn’t even a projected time frame for her to get vaccinated. Welcome to Canada!
Or Nebraska USA. 
Appointments available for Moline #2 for Friday.
All taken.
Nebraska is vaccinating people at twice the pace of Canada.
I previously guessed I’d get mine in July. I’m now thinking October. That may be optimistic.