Sight for sore eyes! COVID Vaccine!

Got the first shot Tuesday, wife got hers yesterday morning. Both Moderna. Typical vaccine sore upper arm, no other reaction. Both scheduled for second shot February 17th (Pfizer is three weeks between shots, Moderna four). March Madness in Vegas looking good! Unlikely there will be any big viewing events, but it'll be great just to be back.

 

So encouraging to read this thread and see the number of people actually getting vaccinated. I sure wish things were as hopeful in terms of timelines for us in the frozen north. My wife and I are way down the list (mid 40's, not frontline, no pre-existing conditions) therefore from what we are hearing it will be at least Sept for us. I am NOT complaining at all, anyone that needs it more than us or is more at risk than us should be in front of us no question. I am holding out hope for a Halloween trip to the motherland and so far that seems somewhat reasonable. So for now it it is a waiting game.

Let's continue to hear about those getting vaccinated so we can share some positive news at least. Cheers everyone!!

 

I'm 46 and I live in DC. I'm hoping that by the time I qualify, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is approved and distributed: only one shot, and it only needs to be chilled, not frozen (easier to store).

 

It took me nearly 200 calls to finally get an open line and I have a TENTATIVE vaccination date of 1/30 IF there is enough vaccine. Stay tuned…

 

Just did my Pfizer dose 1 so far so good, 2nd dose in 3 weeks. 02/10/2021 very organized in and out in 30 minutes , cause they make you wait 15 minutes after the shot.

 

Florida apparently just disallowed "Vaccine Tourism", or so the Talking Head just said.

 

A good friend of mine got her 2nd vaccine Tuesday. The first kicked her butt for 48 hours and she said this was a repeat. She did have COVID this summer. I texted her a little while ago. She works at a sister hospital 20 miles down the road. She is back at work. Her words “it is like a dead beat husband - stays for 2 days, beats you up and then leaves”. I cried laughing.

I heard on the radio then googled it — that if you have about $30,000 to drop there are a couple of companies that offer luxury vaccination vacation retreats. This was not in the U.S. but overseas — An exclusive UK travel club arranges travel to India and United Arab Emirates. The company says they are pioneers of the new luxury travel vaccine program.

Some good news I saw is that travel bookings are on the rise as confidence in the vaccine increases. If only SW would have a real sale.

 

Austin, Texas, group 1b (age and bronchial)

The hunt - excruciatingly frustrating and time consuming research, phone calls, online searching, networking, registering everywhere possible within 100 miles (many locations only permit established patients), missing out on snagging scarce appts sometimes by minutes because everyone doing the same thing.

The catch - Wednesday afternoon, Jan 20 at 2:15 found open schedule on APH Austin Public Health website for Thur, Fri, Sat hourly appts. Discovered quickly that Thur/Fri appts full, so jumped to late afternoon Saturday and able to grab appt for myself and husband, alerted my daughter and friend, in the few minutes it took them to logon, all appt slots were filled.

The Moderna vaccine - location at Delco an events arena 30 minutes away, easy directed parking, extremely long outdoor line moved quickly, first contact as we got into line proof of appt was verified as well as dob and full name and given a round yellow sticker to hang onto, proceeded in line to a tent where we were handed a sanitized clipboard and pen with 2 sided questionnaire and told to attach yellow sticker to lower left corner of questionnaire to prove we passed through screening, entered building where huge staff directed your every step through the maze of vaccine seekers. Filled in questionnaire on the fly at each brief stop, at end of line clipboard was taken away and we were directed to next available station which had just been sanitized, handed over questionnaire, as assistant entered data, the nurse/ technician asked several questions and provided info about vaccine and explained procedure for second vaccine, nurse puts on new gloves, and said ‘tiny needle, won’t hurt’ and she was correct, barely felt it and over in what seemed a nanosecond. Voila! Vaccine success. Handed me my vaccine card and directed me to an area to sit in case of reaction to vaccine. Wait is usually 15 minutes, but I am allergic to some meds so had to stay 30 minutes. No reaction and left. Twenty four hours after vaccine, slightly tender arm at injection site, but no pain and no side effects so far.

From time entering line to actual vaccine took about 25 minutes.
Hats off to the personnel at this hub - efficient, professional, well oiled procedures, friendly and helpful! 2nd Moderna dosage due after Feb 20.


Vegas, here we come, (still plan to mask, and social distance, not taking any chances). Anniversary and DH birthday combined trip planned for end of March

Stay alert to vaccine distributions and be proactive in your search, it paid off for me.

Here is a link for Texas DSHS regarding distribution and is updated weekly or go the DSHS website for more info:
https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/heres-whos-getting-the-covid-19-vaccine-in-central-texas-in-6th-week-of-rollout/?ipid=related-recirc&utm_campaign=custom navigation&utm_source=promo link&utm_medium=desktop

 

Just got my 2nd shot this morning here in Virginia. In and out in about 30 minutes. Feel great and ready to rock. I may book a trip to Vegas for the end of February to celebrate.

 

I got my first shot (Moderna) this past Wednesday. My arm was sore for a couple of days but no big deal. My second shot is February 16th.

 

My husband is group 1b in NJ (low lung function on oxygen 24/7, auto-immune disease) and I am group 1c (caretaker). We booked separately online in NJ. Earliest appointment we could get was for March 19.

 

After hours and hours of frustrating attempts, my wife and I finally got appointments yesterday for our first vaccinations next Monday. Hurrah. We have to drive about 30 miles but that is OK with us as long as we get our shots.

 

I'm glad that several of you actually got the shots. That's the good news.

Here in Nebraska the roll-out is agonizingly slow! The only meaningful information over the past few days is that UNMC posted that they expect vaccinations for 1B to begin "In early February" but nothing else. Local media (our local news tends to be exceptionally poor by US standards) simply repeat the same old talking points.

My local county's health department is combined with a smaller adjacent county, and about a week ago they did roll out a so-called pre-registration website for collecting information. Usually when you sign up for something on a web site you get something like a confirming email that your entry was received, but when I signed up, nothing! Black hole! Poor design! I signed up again just to be sure.

 

We had both dentist and doctor appts this week. At the dentist office I asked the hygienist whether they had all received their vaccines yet. She said no, only the dentist had received the first short. My doctor said to watch the portal where you log into your insurance account because hopefully in a couple of weeks they were going to post information on the schedule and locations for vaccinations.

 

An interesting development here in DC: if your BMI is over 30, you are considred obese and you get priority. While I am not in amazing shape, my sport coat size is 44 Long, and my 34" pants need a belt to stay secure (I can't fit into 33 inchers, but 34 is a touch loose). So with a BMI of 30.1, I will apparently get priority, because BMI doesn't care if you have lean mass or a spare tire. It's just a height-weight thing.

 

I received my first Moderna dose a couple of weeks ago, and I'm supposed to get my 2nd shot on 2/18.
No arm pain, but about 24 hours after the shot, I developed a runny nose for about a day... which is actually quite unusual for me - which is why I'm calling it a "side effect".

 

I live in sparsely populated county- about 20,000. Being frontline I was in the first wave to get vaccinated. Our hospital got 1200 doses for the public. We are a designated vaccine center. So about 2 weeks ago they opened up the web portal and all 1200 slots were gone in 15 minutes. Last week we were notified of another 1200 doses. A San Antonio news channel trying to update the public of available vaccines let all of South Texas know we were receiving vaccines. Our web site gave the exact time when sign up would start. Earlier this week on sign up day all 1200 slots were gone in 2 minutes. Thousands of people flooded the hospital portal and our computer system and phone lines went down. I’m likening this to the famous Cabbage Patch Doll Debacle of the 80s. Everybody wants one. We have a lot of angry people calling the hospital every day. I am glad to see so many people eager to take it. I tried getting my husband signed up - he is high risk. But he doesn’t go anywhere so he can wait.

 

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that it's gonna be a madhouse around here as well when they finally open things up to 1B folks. The Talking Heads are teasing us with all kinds of "plans" to vaccinate critical workers and seniors Real Soon, but so far nothing definite.

We're assuming that things will be done county by county, but nobody knows for sure. I live in a "suburban" county, population about 200,000, with a health department shared with a smaller mostly-rural county with a population of about 25,000, so we're hoping that we exurbanites will be subjected to less of a total cluster{f-bomb} than the city, proper.

I'm getting tired of this $#!+! I want my social life back! I want to retire! I want to relocate!

 

Got my first shot 2 weeks ago . Normal sourness in arm. It was Moderna . Will be ready by the end of February to travel