We stood for an hour. It was indoors. Four hours would have been a bit more uncomfortable . . . I guess I might have sat on the floor. The DMV can be a 6 hour wait here in TX. I sat on the ground then.
But these early vaccinations are of elderly people, many of whom would have trouble standing for an hour. Surely some better arrangement is needed.
Good grief! I’m hoping to get my elderly mother vaccinated, but she can’t stand in line for 5 minutes. That’s crazy.
Around here people sometimes carry those lightweight aluminum folding chairs with the plastic webbing when they have to stand in line. Or the canvas folding chairs from Wal-Mart.
That’s the deal here.
~Max
My 86 yo mom is getting hers next week. She’s in an independent living place. They are doing it like the flu shot clinic. The pharmacy will come and set it up. There are a handful of active cases there.
I can see in a skilled nursing facility or an independent living community, it makes sense for the vaccine to come to them; they can get many people in one trip. But my parents live alone, so it would be inefficient in their case for someone to come to them. And it’s made more complex by the need to dispense the contents of the vial within a certain amount of time. So most people need to go someplace to get vaccinated.
My eighty-something-year-old parents registered for the vaccinations in Connecticut. One complication was that the registration system requires an email address and only one per person but my father doesn’t really use email so my brother set up a dummy account for him to use just for this purpose.
Be careful that it isn’t a throwaway because they might email him to schedule the second dose.
~Max
Just got mine. My state (New Mexico) seems to have it relatively well-organized. The state Dept of Health sent me an e-mail saying that vaccines were available in my area so I could set up an appointment. Setting up the appointment was done online. then I just went down to Walmart to get the shot (Moderna, in my case). They already set up an appoiintment next month for the second dose.
I’m a little curious as to why they got me vaccinated on the first day it was available to the general public, but my 93-year-old mother is still waiting for her notice. I think she should have been a higher priority. But, that’s the way the bureaucrats decided to do it.
Anyway, I am now halfway there, and scheduled for the second half. Thank you, President Trump.
I received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine today. I’m in IL and got the vaccine through my county health department. I was vaccinated by a pharmacist - I didn’t have to exit my car - they came around to the passenger side of the car first and had me sign a consent form, verified my identity, and scanned a code they’d emailed me when I scheduled the appointment online. When that was done, the pharmacist came around to the driver’s side and put it in my left arm - totally painless. It has been about 7 hours since then. I can report moderate nausea and stomach upset, along with feeling some fatigue (I took a rare nap). When I returned home following my visit to the health dept., my kid asked why my face was red - oddly it has remained that way since - not a rash, more like a blush that got stuck to my face. I think my county did a fantastic job through all the steps involved.
I didn’t want to start a whole new thread for this question, so I picked this thread to ask it.
Is there an outside limit on when to get the second shot? As in, you must get it by X date for it to be fully effective, or you might as well not get it? I’m remembering my Shingrix vaccine - six months out was the latest they recommended getting the second shot.
I don’t think they can say for sure. I was watching an interview with an immunologist and she was saying a longer span between primary and booster often leads to better protection. But they really only tested ~3 weeks for these ones.
Three more days until my second shot.
I was vaccinated today, after returning to working in a pharmacy as a vaccinating pharmacist (group 1a in Ohio). Prior to today, I spent the past 5 months testing for COVID-19 at a specific location five days a week. I received the Pfizer vaccine. I’m glad to have dose 1 completed and luckily haven’t suffered any side effects so far (my arm was very mildly sore, but even that has abated). I’ll be participating in administering COVID vaccinations starting next week.
As I said elsewhere, my lovely wife and I received our first dose yesterday. My leg is a little sore (I don’t get shots in my arms) and I have a whisper of headache and malaise, but this is nothing compared to my reaction to Shingrix.
My parents had their second jabs (Pfizer) about a week ago. Here, the vast majority of people are registered with an NHS GP, so they’re the ones organising things. My parents had the call back in mid December. They didn’t suffer any noticeable side effects.
Question: do they test you before the jab? What if you’re asymptotic?
There’s not much point except for research purposes. Reliable tests aren’t immediate so you couldn’t use the test to decide whether to proceed with the shot. It would make for a massive slowdown in the rate of vaccination.
This morning Arizona opened up registration for the third tier (1C) vaccinations, the group I’m in. I shoulda looked earlier but I looked last night and found I need an account to get an appointment online. Okay, let’s fill out the form on my laptop. Name, email, phone, and date of birth, nothing major.
Oh, wait. DOB it’s accepting only three digits for the year. Not two, not four. Three. Let’s try 195 Bzzzz. Thank you for playing. Okay, 950 Ding See the confirmation email to put in a password. Three hours later, no email. Go to bed.
Get up at 5am and check there’s still no email. Open the site on my desktop with Firefox. Oh, look. At the top there’s a notice, *For best user experience use Firefox/Chrome/Safari. No reason at all why they left out Edge, what my laptop uses. And part of the same notice, All January appointments are full. Sigh. Well let’s try again; at least I’m not guessing on the year. Use last night’s email. Bzzzz. Already in use. Use an alternative email. Ding. Wait for the confirmation email.
8am the phone lines open and there’s no email. Dial the number We’re experiencing a heavy call volume. No shit. I wonder why. Pay no attention while the robo-secretary goes through a three minute pitch on what the COVID symptoms are, who compromises groups 1A, 1B, and 1C, and where the two sites to get the vaccination are – no good without an appointment.
Finally If you have no internet access, please stay on the line. Blessed silence for thirty seconds then, *We are experiencing a high call volume. >click< Sigh. Call back and pay more attention to the nice robot. If you want to leave a message, press 3. Ha! 3 Not so blessed silence for three minutes before >click<
I sent off a cranky email. I mentioned middle school-level coding on the registration form. A friend of mine is in Connecticut because of family illness (Not COVID, thanks be) and she was fussing about not signing up in time, being in the same group I am. I texted her she’s not missing a damn thing and it’s reminding me of the ACA rollout a while back, not in a good way.