We schedule your second dose when you get your first dose, at the same location and will send you home if you can’t make it back to that spot in exactly 21 days. It does have to do with vaccine allocations - at this point we are still in the “every appointment is taken, there are less than 1% no shows” stage of the game. I’m also volunteering at a health care system, and I think that adds some administrative overhead. (There is room for “I got my shot and now discovered that I can’t be there for my second, can I get it the following week” - but you have to call a special number to get rescheduled - it isn’t easy).
I got mine as a volunteer. In Minnesota, volunteers in vaccination clinics are considered health care workers - and while you aren’t guaranteed a shot, they generally give you the “occasional seventh dose” or first dibs on no shows. (We did have a vial that had only five rather than six doses in it the other day - since we’d allocated every dose with an appointment, we were in “hope someone doesn’t show” territory.)
As to getting a shot, a friend of mine got lucky and his local pharmacist called him at the end of the day - it happens. But it was that sort of “I’ve been doing business here twenty years” local pharmacy situation. His kid - who is 25 with no underlying health conditions, got one Friday because my friend was volunteering at a clinic and at the end of the day they did have a few no shows.
I’ve been working almost exclusively with the Pfizer vaccine, which does have some unique issues - i.e. it can’t be moved easily within the system because of the refrigeration requirements. It needs to be compounded by a pharmacist. And each vial contains six shots (sometimes seven, originally approved for five). So if you aren’t going to waste vaccine, you have to schedule in multiples of six - and it isn’t so simple as just taking an extra vial out of the freezer if you run out.
Folks here raise some good points about the second shot location issue and qualifying health conditions.
Without sharing too much on a message board, I do have a qualifying health condition - I just looked it up on the CDC guidelines.
If I’m able to transfer the location of the second shot to a different, closer CVS, I’m going to contact a human being at the original CVS in Fresno and tell them about it, so they aren’t holding my second shot out for me.
Obviously I’m not privy to the specific internal logistics of CVS but if they don’t mind, I don’t mind. They must have a way of dealing with these things three or four weeks out or they would have a stricter policy. At this point, very few doses seem to be going to waste so I’m fine with otherwise eligible people not being on the road for a few hours for Dose #2. All of that extra road travel and the fuel used and the slightly increased chance of accident, to me, is worse than getting a second shot elsewhere. This would be a reschedule within the CVS system so they know that the originally scheduled dose is freed up. If I were to see data that indicate that this causes doses to be wasted, I would change my mind.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday said he expects the state will be able to make vaccines available to everyone in California within 5 ½ weeks.
“We’re anticipating within 5 ½ weeks where we can eliminate all of the tiering, so to speak, and make available vaccines to everybody across the spectrum because supply will exponentially increase,” Newsom said at a Bay Area press conference.
That doesn’t mean instant access. The proactive bird is still going to get the earlier worm and once it is opened to everybody the mad scramble for open slots will intensify. But the pace definitely seems to be picking up which is great news.
Here’s hoping. But jeez, the man is being recalled. Of course everything will be verbally peachy in a month. I guess I’ll keep looking at the numbers per week and see if it revs up to, say, 2 million/week, but that seems like a very heavy lift.
San Francisco’s eligibility levels are looser than the state of California’s. If you don’t qualify under the state’s standard but you do under SF’s, you are allowed to go to SF to get your shot. Even if you don’t live in SF. That’s been officially confirmed.
That’s how I was able to get vaccinated at Moscone Center.
Appointments for Moscone regularly show up at the Myturn web site. About twice a week, they post dozens of new slots. There are various services you can subscribe to which will notify you when slots become available. The key is to put SF as your location into Myturn, otherwise Moscone won’t show up even if it has appointments.
IL is so fucked up, we really didn’t know why we weren’t eligible a long time ago. Friday, she got an email from her employer - a community college, saying they were offering 400 shots today. She signed up and was given an appt. When she went, they did not ask for her employee ID, or anything other than driver’s license and insurance card. So I signed up, and got it no problem.
Very quick process - she left the house to get hers at 730 a.m., I was back from mine before 10.
So - my suggestion is, if you ever get an announcement like this, don’t bother about trying to figure what group you are in or what groups they are serving. Just sign up and if they give you an appt - congrats! You won the lottery.
And, if you know of anyone else who might want the vacc - send them your original email/invite, and let them see if they can sign up themselves.
Good luck everyone.
This system has been SO FUCKED UP, and I truly feel for all of you who are still fighting thru the nightmare. I’m so happy to have this in my arm and start dedicating that portion of my brain to ANYTHING else.
I don’t know what you’re talking about with MyTurn.ca.gov. I’ve been on there several times and registered. There’s an initial screening page: check 4 boxes to confirm you understand something or you’re providing accurate info, then enter age group, check two boxes that you don’t have underlying comorbidities, and you get squat. Next you can register to hear when shots are available, so you provide all the same info plus your contact info including county (not city). In no place is there a way to make an appointment; I lied just now to that form that I’m in SF county, 94016 zip. Same thing: you’ll be notified, see ya!
There is IF you qualify under the screening criteria AND there are potential appointments open in that zip. I just did it and I am qualified at this point, so at the top of the next page it said Congratulations! You are eligible in bold and then lets you try to schedule by zip code. The answer in this case was that nothing was available, but they offered the registration button and suggested a bunch of nearby Safeway pharmacies as an outside site I could try.
Why it doesn’t try to link to Walgreens or CVS as well, I have no idea. There also should ideally be a linkage to county sign-ups via zip, but alas it is a limited tool. With the private suppliers it might have something to do with the regional nature of Safeway vs. those other more national chains (or it might be related to CA data harvesting rules). Regardless I haven’t found MYTurn particularly useful for me, but it is yet another worthwhile avenue to pursue in that proactive hunt under the old ‘any port in a storm’ reasoning.
Things are looking up. I now become eligible in early April, and if current trends in my state hold up, I may be able to get my first job shortly thereafter.
First, check if you are eligible under SF’s looser criteria.
If you are, ignore the state’s guidelines and check the box that yes, you do have comorbities. (This is specific instructions from a SF city supervisor.)
Then it will take you to page that says you are eligible and to enter a zip code. Regardless of where you really live, enter 94103.
Moscone will show up if they have available appointments. That happens about twice a week, so keep checking or subscribe to, for example, @CovidVaccineBA on Twitter.
I don’t know if this will be helpful information regarding traveling and vaccines. Here in Arizona, state residency doesn’t seem to be an issue. Snowbirds and undocumented folks are here and they need to be vaccinated, so if they are otherwise eligible and are able to get an appointment, they get jabbed.
Mom came to stay with us in November, but still lived maintained her home in Idaho. When her age group came open (she’s 84), I signed her up for a shot.
Mom had surgery scheduled so had to return to Idaho before her second shot. She had no problem scheduling her second shot in Idaho and cancelling her Arizona appointment.
Illinois announced on Friday that government employees are added to the eligible list effective March 22, slightly ahead of the general population in early April, so I’ll be eligible in less than an hour.
A good amount of fishing at the chain pharmacy websites over the weekend nabbed me an appointment for the morning of Wed. Mar. 24! At a Jewel-Osco on the far northwest side of Chicago, for those who know where that is.
Well, here’s discouraging news for my chances: the rate of vaccinations in California has actually been falling all month, not picking up speed. Here’s a chart I snagged from a Sacramento Bee article that’s paywalled (well, free-subscription-walled):
The dotted line is statewide, showing <squints> 2800 doses per 100k residents / week, or 1.1 million people/week. That number needs to triple to get to the state’s target in the next 5 1/2 weeks.
