Getting the COVID Vaccine is Like Getting a Linden Stilt House

[Prokofy Neva]

I'm not much of a RL poster on the forums because they are so dreadful but I like to find out what people's experiences around the world are so as to assess where we are at this juncture in the century's worst pandemic.

All social media has these automatic disclaimer sentences forced into posts nowadays, but since the Lindens don't have that (yet), let me put it in here:

FOR ACCURATE AND UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION ABOUT COVID CONTACT THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION OR THE CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL IN THE US OR LOCAL HEALTH AGENCY.

So finally the doctors told me I could get the vaccine even though it's not going to likely work for me (I have a rare immune disease, etc.).

But...I got a stilt house faster after about 3 days of this than I'm getting the vaccine appointments. I decided I didn't like the stilt house and freed it up for someone who does. I am grateful to SL for my page refreshing skills and tips and tricks and that extension you can put on Chrome to refresh pages for you until you hit the wall and then it waits 15 minutes or whatever. 

Edited February 28, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Rowan Amore]

What was the question?  Anyway, I logged on to the website where my mother gets her prescription refills, punched in the info they needed, the gave me options for days and times, I scheduled, we went and got the vaccine.  This past week, they called me to schedule her second shot.  I found the entire process couldn't have been easier.

[LittleMe Jewell]

33 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

What was the question?  Anyway, I logged on to the website where my mother gets her prescription refills, punched in the info they needed, the gave me options for days and times, I scheduled, we went and got the vaccine.  This past week, they called me to schedule her second shot.  I found the entire process couldn't have been easier.

This is "General Discussion" -- no questions needed.

Based on the rantings of some of my neighbors, Prok's experience on trying to get the vaccine is not unique.  It seems to take quite a bit of effort around here, checking multiple locations constantly for open appointments.  Many folks, once they find out they are eligible, book multiple appointments.  Not sure why - maybe they are afraid that place ABC will run out before they get there that day or that something else will happen to invalidate some of the appointments.  Then they don't cancel the extra appointments after getting the shot.  In any case, it appears to be causing issues quite a bit around this area.  

I think I'm glad that I'm a little bit down on the list.  Gives the state and counties some time to work the kinks out of the delivery process before I even have the opportunity to get mine.

Edited February 27, 2021 by LittleMe Jewell

[Rowan Amore]

7 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

This is "General Discussion" -- no questions needed.

Based on the rantings of some of my neighbors, Prok's experience on trying to get the vaccine is not unique.  It seems to take quite a bit of effort around here, checking multiple locations constantly for open appointments.  Many folks, once they find out they are eligible, book multiple appointments.  Not sure why - maybe they are afraid that place ABC will run out before they get there that day or that something else will happen to invalidate some of the appointments.  Then they don't cancel the extra appointments after getting the shot.  In any case, it appears to be causing issues quite a bit around this area.  

I think I'm glad that I'm a little bit down on the list.  Gives the state and counties some time to work the kinks out of the delivery process before I even have the opportunity to get mine.

I was feigning ignorance since I only skimmed over the entire post.  

I actually thought the whole process would be more difficult and was happily surprised that it wasn't.  I am sorry to hear that it's an ordeal for some people.  Hopefully, as more becomes available, the process will become easier.

[kali Wylder]

9 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I'm not much of a RL poster on the forums because they are so dreadful but I like to find out what people's experiences around the world are so as to assess where we are at this juncture in the century's worst pandemic.

All social media has these automatic disclaimer sentences forced into posts nowadays, but since the Lindens don't have that (yet), let me put it in here:

FOR ACCURATE AND UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION ABOUT COVID CONTACT THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION OR THE CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL IN THE US OR LOCAL HEALTH AGENCY.

So finally the doctors told me I could get the vaccine even though it's not going to likely work for me (I have a rare immune disease, etc.). I figure even 10% better protection is better than nothing. My daughter who works in a hospital got the vaccine at the work, and my son got antibodies by working on a TV crew with his wife after their businesses folded due to COVID. All they lost besides thousands of dollars of deposits they had to return to customers was their sense of taste and smell for a time. Fun times! Everyone has a story. I don't want to get into a discussion with anti-vaxxers because it's just not the place for it and I don't support that movement. I decided to accept the advice of doctors with world recognition in the field of this disease who said they weren't comfortable with the research and trial results yet before they recommended that I get it, so I'm in a tiny minority of unvaxable (they won't let me get some other vaxes I needed but they had to top off MMR because it simply fell out and disappeared, as it does in immune disease cases, I had no idea) But now they are cautiously greenlighting the COVID one, so great. As I've been telling many friends and relatives with ideas about this as well as other immunosuppressed people who in fact were encouraged to get the vaccine that I can give you their number to call them if you want to debate them but you know, they're kind of busy. As I know from my daughter who has to prep all this stuff, the vaccines are not FDA approved in the standard way, although have emergency approval. That doesn't mean they aren't safe. Vaccines aren't that hard to make, they made them in the first week of the corona, but then it has to be tested and tested again on animals and then people in trials (she does trials most of the day for other things, it is a complicated and vexing process which reveals the disparity of health care between whites and BIPOCs in a big way). The government gave it the go-ahead without this FDA thing because you know, it's a public emergency. There was only one case of a side effect in some 600 called "COVID Arm" which is not dangerous but it's hard to assess this overall throughout the country and world.

SO as I had heard here and there on various church and neighbourhood groups and lists and Facebook, you can't get an appointment even if you are in the categories for our city which is: health care worker, frontline (essential worker), 65+, or with underlying conditions as defined by the list on X Y Z government site. OK, once you get past all those screens, there isn't anything on a dozen different sites. Use your "IT skills" (er, the ability to open up pages and fill out forms and refresh them, which even my 86-year-old aunt can do but not my 95-year-old mother-in-law).

I find that for example the New Yorker is now glorying in this new genre of narrative, which is How I Got the Vaccine for Granny and 3 Poor People By Being a Hipster Coder. And that's good, let them get to work with their "coding skills" which involve fetching data off sign-up sites and aggregating them, but which still involves having to get up at 7:30 am to be ready for the 7:59 page refresh push.

Meanwhile, on Twitter or when I talk to the far-flung correspondents of our various web sites, I discover all these people who got the vaccine. Russians, who got their Sputnik vaccine and are fine in Moscow, but you know, not in Tambov. British. Dutch. French who breezed through, with some forms only requiring one dose. People in Florida or Utah. I realize we were the hardest hit and ground zero for the virus at one point, though that has passed, sadly to move on and strike others in the US. I realize there are large populations and the most vulnerable. There are all sorts of heroic stories I've heard from my daughter of doctors coming down out of their sacrosanct realms to jab arms (usually only nurses do this). Everyone is pressed into service to do all the things related to it. My daughter told me that yes, you can now get the 5th dose extracted out of those vials, but you need this special extractor syringe thing that not every hospital has even in America. And even in her big city hospital. So then it's a question of trying to get that thing and of course it's out of stock or unevenly distributed. And yes, there are heroic tales of grabbing the non-category relatives of the patients that were in the allowed categories to give them the jab so the vaccine wouldn't expire, as it is fragile, you can't leave it out. Then there are heroic tales of transport. I wondered what the army could possible do related to do this unless they meant army medics. Answer: they will organize and secure transport of these fragile vials to prevent theft and breakage. Hope they'll manage this better than they did Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's a topic that is on every social media, every Zoom call, every everything. It's a narrative that many people find rich opportunities to heckle and harass others -- and I mean not within the nexus of "pro" or "anti" vaccines because they have views on "safe" or "unsafe". But more about where people place themselves on the continuum of value. So a 25-year-old man with celiac disease and multiple other conditions is an "underlying" and gets the vax. He is consumed with guilt because he took away a dose from Granny. Others either support him or think he made a bad call, but that he can expatiate his sin by helping 3 others to get on the list. I urge him to think in terms of removing himself from that awful category of people that I fell into which is called "there is no room for you at the hospital", i.e. if you need to go there for a non-COVID emergency, when I suffered a cut in my hand that still hasn't healed after 9 months. I hated being in the hospital -- twice -- with COVID patients including, sadly, little children and wouldn't stay and now have a bad "AMA" mark in my record -- even tho my daughter rushed me a precious N95 mask, taking away one of her own in a precious supply at the time, kitting me out better than some of the doctors and nurses I happened to see those times. I was super glad that through sheer happenstance I got sent to NYU Langone, a private hospital, instead of Bellevue, a city hospital because the difference in chances of surviving COVID in my category rose from 11% to 22%, although they are literally only a half dozen blocks away from each other.

Since I can't go out and there aren't any appointments, and even if I get the vax I still have to stay home and double mask up if I even take out the garbage, I thought I'd wait until the crowds thin out, no? Finally the man came to fix my heater finally after 3 weeks of it working only occasionally, from whom I kept 12 feet away and put on scarce new masks and sprayed alcohol in his wake, and he told me he couldn't get on the list and was told he wasn't eligible. Isn't a man going in and out of people's homes to fix their HEAT in the worst cold snap we've had in ages pretty ESSENTIAL? Can't this giant corporation that owns this building complex and much of New York get their employees vaxxed up? 

But before we blame them, let's look at all their messages and their troubles as a management just trying to get information about where they can send not only their employees but their 4000 tenants. Um, Schenectady? There's an opening there today, bring a thermos and blankets, it will be a long wait. It's 164 miles from NYC. I'm not a believer in federalized "Medicare for all" because of how badly government works whether left or right, and am happy to keep it in the realm of the state's rights. Many people don't realize when they rant and rave about health care in America that the individual states provide free health or low-cost care to those who are means-tested, and they did this long before ObamaCare. Many people don't realize as they find the opportunity to slam Cuomo now that when you have nursing home COVID patients you don't want to send from the hospital back to nursing homes, that you need nursing homes to send them to. We, in a Blue state, have less of them than Florida does, who claims they did so much better as a Red state. So, ok, do your thing, New York State. But it's not just the state or the city. Private drug store chains are also authorized as are various institutions. So you have this list of say a dozen entities, state and private, and you go to their page and refresh them all day.

Now, before you hop on board and rant about capitalist rent-seeking drug store chains, try to keep in perspective that these entities are actually delivery systems for Medicaid, which I am on because my medicines are hundreds of dollars a month. There are zillions of people in all the other categories of Part D Extra Help or the discount community to help with medicine expenses, and guess what, insurance companies simply won't pay for certain kinds of medicines so the pharmacy is limited in what they can do. It's a complicated system with many moving parts, and before you rant about ObamaCare, Big Pharma, and evil insurance companies, keep in mind that the real power centers that put Obama in office are 1) trade unions with forced insurance purchases in their dues and 2) trial attorney associations that live off fantastic medical malpractice cases.

I got a stilt house faster after about 3 days of this than I'm getting the vaccine. I decided I didn't like the stilt house and freed it up for someone who does. I am grateful to SL for my page refreshing skills and tips and tricks and that extension you can put on Chrome to refresh pages for you until you hit the wall and then it waits 15 minutes or whatever. 

TLDR

I never tried to get a stilt house so I can't really compare the experiences but I do agree that getting an appointment for the vaccine is an ordeal. I finally got one for next week after multiple tries.

[LittleMe Jewell]

Scheduling the vaccine -- at least in my neck of the woods --- most definitely reminds me of trying to get a Linden Home at various times.

My husband and I are eligible starting tomorrow.  I have visited 2 general 'vaccine finder' websites, both of which show differing information and I have gone directly to the websites for Kroger/KingSoopers, Safeway, and Walgreens.  All of them show availability for my area on their initial page, but then when you actually drill down to scheduling it, there is no availability or the website scheduling does not work worth a damn.

Kroger/KingSoopers -- Shows availability, but then no availability once I get further into the process.

Walgreens shows availability but their website is screwed up.  You select either "Need both doses" or "Need second dose".  I select "Need both doses" and then successfully pick a date/time for the first dose tomorrow afternoon.  However then it comes up and says "No dates available to schedule second dose" --- and I cannot go any further, thus not even able to actually confirm the first dose for tomorrow.  Picking other dates for the first dose all give the same problem.

Safeway -- Shows availability, but when the calendar is actually display for you to pick a date and time, you cannot actually click on any date to even get a list of times..

 

I guess now it is time to start calling around.

 

*sigh*   This is such a f**** up process.

Edited March 4, 2021 by LittleMe Jewell

[Rolig Loon]

Gosh.  I didn't have to do anything. Last month, the clinic I go to for all my health care sent me an e-mail note to ask me to schedule a time to get my shot.  I logged on to their secure site, picked a date and time, and that was it. I walked in at 9:15 Monday morning, got my shot, and was out by 9:40.

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Scheduling the vaccine -- at least in my neck of the woods --- most definitely reminds me of trying to get a Linden Home at various times.

It DEFINITELY depends on the state you live in === and possibly on the area within the state.  Oregon has made a huge mess of it all.  I have a freind who will be 90 this year with a heart condition (bypass, stints and the whole deal) plus most all the other things they try and convince older people they have even when they do not.   Not only did the website go in circles and say nothing (I went to test it to see)  -- there was conflicting info.   Oregon is close to the bottom of the state list (or was and likely is still) for getting vaccines to seniors. I guess they did OK with the health care portion of the process.   

 

She finally got her shot a few days ago, this after both her daughter in NY and another friend who --let's say she KNOWS lots of folks-- and can pull some strings FINALLY got her in.   

 

So experiences will definitely vary.  I don't know anyone else around me who has been in for a shot besides her.   

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

Yeah, from what I read, at least in the US, it depends not only on the state but the general area within the state.

We can only get the shot via the pharmacies that I mentioned above and Walmart --- not through any doctor office or clinic.

Edited March 5, 2021 by LittleMe Jewell

[Rolig Loon]

11 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

I don't know anyone else around me who has been in for a shot besides her. 

My cousin and his wife (both 79) got their shots a week and a half ago in Portland OR. They didn't mention anything about scheduling problems, but their daughter made the appointments for them so who knows?  Anyway, yes, I have heard tales from all over about people having a hard time getting the vaccine.  It really does depend on timing, location, and luck, I guess.

[Annie Evergreen]

It's possible that there's no option to schedule the second dose because that location may have started giving out the one-dose vaccines. Several of my family members got that yesterday, not expecting to get the one-dose vaccine because it had only arrived in our state the day before.

[Arielle Popstar]

My mother received a call from the local clinic here in the GTA of Ontario to come in for a jab, which was a complete surprise considering how far behind Canada is with the whole Covid vaccine program. She declined it though as she had a recent issue with a local anesthetic for a tooth extraction which scared her enough she wasn't up for another jab with unpredictable results. 

[Coffee Pancake]

There is no vaccine here. Less than 5% vaccinated so far.

Partner works retail in a high traffic store that was  deemed "essential" right from the start (corporate & regional management evaporated and haven't been seen in a year). we have to wait till general public phase.

🤬

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, Lacy Knickers said:

It's possible that there's no option to schedule the second dose because that location may have started giving out the one-dose vaccines. Several of my family members got that yesterday, not expecting to get the one-dose vaccine because it had only arrived in our state the day before.

The location that couldn't schedule the second dose is not giving out the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at all yet.  They are currently still only doing the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

I got fooled because I followed the advice, a letter arrived telling me I could book a vaccination appointment online, or wait for my local GP to contact us (and the letter was quite specific to not contact the GP surgeries yourself, presumably to avoid swamping them with phone calls).

So I waited, and after nearly four weeks thought this was going on a bit longer. I checked with the surgery, and learned that because they were very small they were only dealing with the highly-vulnerable cases in their area. And they had no instructions to contact everybody else and tell them to book their own appointments. Nor, presumably, the time to do this.

Doh, eh?

I can't actually think of anything in the past that happened on this large a scale, however, so they're all feeling their way in the dark.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Profaitchikenz Haiku

[Alwin Alcott]

On 2/27/2021 at 1:09 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

Getting the COVID Vaccine is Like Getting a Linden Stilt House

ah .. i'm no premium so there's none with my name on it

[Ceka Cianci]

I'm in a neighborhood online community in town which keeps me updated with this..  They are still doing elderly here, so when it's time I'll get mine..

I'm really not in a hurry.. When our tier comes up we'll go.. until then no sense of me getting all in a, hurry up and wait mode.

[Jackson Redstar]

i am scheduled to received the Moderna version (its similar to Phizer) from some the studies I have read - double blind studies - only 5 out of like 11000 who got the vaccine got COVID and none of those were 'serious' with complication, so, hopefully, it works ok and not not many mutant stains of COVID come along to make the vaccine, in a word, useless

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I'm really not in a hurry.

For myself, I'm really not either.  My husband and I only go out when one of us goes to the grocery store or sometimes to pick up a meal somewhere.  However, I am planning to visit my mother at the end of April and neither she nor her husband have gotten theirs yet.  Since I don't know when they'll get vaccinated -- they are much more leery of things than I am -- I figure that I should get vaccinated so that I reduce the chance of picking it up and carrying it to them (even if airplanes are very safe, airports are likely not).

[Ceka Cianci]

10 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

For myself, I'm really not either.  My husband and I only go out when one of us goes to the grocery store or sometimes to pick up a meal somewhere.  However, I am planning to visit my mother at the end of April and neither she nor her husband have gotten theirs yet.  Since I don't know when they'll get vaccinated -- they are much more leery of things than I am -- I figure that I should get vaccinated so that I reduce the chance of picking it up and carrying it to them (even if airplanes are very safe, airports are likely not).

I can understand that for sure.. I'd never want to give it to anyone..

I monitor myself every day, especially before going to work.. plus any time I'm on the floor I have a face shield and mask on..

What really is the most irritating thing at work for me is, how people wear their masks..

It makes me wonder why they even bother putting one on.. most have it under their mouth or their nose or all the way down on their chin like a chin cover..

But anytime they come up to me, I get assertive with them because it irritates me to no end, mainly because it's a big safety rule..

I'm like, Don't even get up on me with your mask hanging half way off your face asking me anything! If you need to come to me for anything, You best put your mask on the right way then come on.. Otherwise stay back and yell your question outside my zone.

I just hate seeing so many people skirt the rules, especially the safety rules..It goes right to my b*tch nerve.. hehehe

[Prokofy Neva]

7 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

ah .. i'm no premium so there's none with my name on it

Oh, you mean, not 65, not underlying, not health care worker, not frontline. Yeah, that's the premium of RL, I totally hear you.

So I have several Premium Home pages er drug store or NYC vaccine site pages to keep refreshing. Occasionally I get the stilt house, I mean the page where I plug in my criteria, not 65, and not on the list, too rare, but a link to my chart which shows doc letter and permission. And then it says "nothing in 25 miles" or "nothing in 3 days" and it doesn't want to think further into the future -- and I can't blame it. I don't either. If anyone would like to debate socialized medicine with me, I may be available tonight 9 pm in world or see me on my RL twitter. I have socialized medicine. I have socialist political leaders I've voted for. We have a socialist mayor. I live in socialist housing with socialist stimulus payments. The problem is socialism isn't distributed evenly, on the one hand, but pouring more socialism into this system would only make it more broken, other fundamental democratic and political changes have to be made that aren't about socialism.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Arielle Popstar]

42 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

If anyone would like to debate socialized medicine with me, I may be available tonight 9 pm in world or see me on my RL twitter. I have socialized medicine. I have socialist political leaders I've voted for. We have a socialist mayor. I live in socialist housing with socialist stimulus payments. The problem is socialism isn't distributed evenly, on the one hand, but pouring more socialism into this system would only make it more broken, other fundamental democratic and political changes have to be made that aren't about socialism.

Sounds like a job for Luna. 😃

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

53 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

The problem is socialism isn't distributed evenly,

Very ironic, given the central tenet of socialism is the even distribution of everything.

 

I'll get me coat...

[Luna Bliss]

11 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

55 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

If anyone would like to debate socialized medicine with me, I may be available tonight 9 pm in world or see me on my RL twitter. I have socialized medicine. I have socialist political leaders I've voted for. We have a socialist mayor. I live in socialist housing with socialist stimulus payments. The problem is socialism isn't distributed evenly, on the one hand, but pouring more socialism into this system would only make it more broken, other fundamental democratic and political changes have to be made that aren't about socialism.

Sounds like a job for Luna. 😃

 

[Arielle Popstar]

6 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

 

Quite appropriate they all standing with beggars cups being that socialism is great till the money runs out!