Sight for sore eyes! COVID Vaccine!

The vaccination eligibility was opened up to 70+ recently in my area. The majority of sites are drive thru type settings. Various wait times have been experienced up to three hours. My experience was "only" an hour and twenty minutes. While in line, it struck me that as nature affects those in this age range, sitting in a car for that long with no facilities available, problems could arise! The line of cars must move constantly, however slowly. And, the ability to even use any facilities would be impossible, even if they were made available. Plus, the instructions are to make sure to drink plenty of fluids prior to getting the vaccination! I'm sure you see where this is going! Getting more mature is a bitch!

 

It's really frustrating as the local news had two big stories today... "Walgreens to start administering the vaccine!!!" and "Walmart/Sams to start administering the vaccine!!!".

But where the hell are the doses? The Walgreens rep that was interviewed even said "100 doses a week per store... if we get the allocation".

I mean, its great that more distribution points are coming online, but it is irrelevant if the vaccine just isn't there to administer.

 

Healthcare officials in my county, and surrounding counties, are saying that they’ve only used about 60% of their allocated dosages to ensure that people who received their first vaccination will be able to get their second vaccination at the two week mark, instead of having used all their one-off doses with no guarantees that secondary doses will arrive on time. This makes sense but it still has many people asking a lot of very reasonable questions.

 

My town opened up their registration site a couple of weeks ago and I’m in there, but I don’t know when my group will be eligible. I posted earlier that our health dept is separate from the rest of the county, so I am competing with less people, which is a good thing. But the supply is so slow that it could still be summer before they get to me. Meanwhile, my 89-yr-old cousin does not have an appointment yet. Her kids are working on it, but I am frustrated for her. Also for a 65+ cancer survivor friend who is still waiting, too.

 

MikeO Pensecola.......I"m hoping the vets that read this board will take advantage of the V A system. As you may already know, vets will get nearly all of the pertinent info directly from other vets. Not from the VA. At least from my experience. The out patience clinic I got my shot from administered over 4000 shots in just over 3 weeks.

 

If you don’t mind traveling a couple of hours to the burg here is a link to get an appointment. It was very easy. All you need is a valid id. The only thing is you get the time you get. You don’t get to request a time. Here’s the link if you are interested. You don’t have to show proof of your 1B requirement. No health history questions are asked with the exception of when last vaccines if any you have COVID. We’ve had people come from Houston. If you want any info on it let me know. It was very easy.

https://airtable.com/shrXmHNPOSvUs4Bf8

 

Just got my first dose of Moderna this morning!

 

Thanks. Val....I’ll investigate and see what is available but it doesn’t look like we’re driving anywhere for the next 8-10 days at least......the ‘burg.....always a nice place to visit....even stayed in one of the rooms above the brewery, which was vVERY convenient.

 

I got my second Phizer shot yesterday, and like the first one, the only noticeable effect was a very slight soreness at the injection site if I pressed on it. Even that's gone now. Insect bites have caused more discomfort. Actually, I would have preferred to have had some reaction just to confirm it's doing something.

I'll wait 2 weeks before probably returning to the gym. It's been a year. As for Vegas, as soon as it gets closer to "normal" I'll be on my way!

 

Just got my 2nd Pfizer shot , so far so good , in and out in 25 minutes ,

 

Got my second dose of the Moderna vaccine this AM. I spent about 20 minutes total in the building, including the 15 minute post-shot observation. Within an hour, my arm was really sore where I got the shot. Easily 5X worse than the first shot.

 

I got a text out of the blue a few days ago and am now scheduled for tomorrow to get my first shot. I am mid-40s, no pre-existing conditions... didn't think I'd be able to get a vaccine until at least April or May, but the VA seems to be really on the ball with this.

 

Got my second moderna Wednesday. Had a fairly rough night, sore shoulder and couldn’t sleep, also lost my appetite. Drove the wife for her second shot yesterday, got home and I had slight fever (100.2) and some chills. By 6:00pm last night all my problems gone. Wife never had anything but sore shoulder. Good for her!

 

Do you have any information on who is behind this? There's no information or "about us" tab! Just a logo for HCM, whatever that is. Yes, I'm getting desperate for a poke but this looks suspicious.

Using the naked domain gives a very vague front page promoting business services with lines such as "Orchestrate powerful business solutions with a single source of truth. The only limit is your imagination."

 

It is legitimate. Hill Country Memorial Hospital is the Hospital I work at HCM for short. The link is through their web page -- this is another one from their primary website. The little tree is our logo. We actually hate it. Years ago it was a beautiful Live Oak Tree. Then our "branding" officer changed it to the hip modern Partridge Family Tree-- so now we are stuck with it. You can peruse the website about our organization. I am honored to work there. On the airtable link posted it the from my hospital email that takes you to the page to register for interest in the vaccine. The hospital site about COVID updates will take you to the same link, but I see how it looks a little funky/sketchy. Once I put the hubs on the list It took less than a week to get a confirmation time. HCM is about an hours drive from San Antonio and 1 and 1/2 hours time from Austin. An easy commute from either.

https://www.hillcountrymemorial.org/covid-19-updates/

We are a small rural hospital but we service several counties. I am very proud how they have stepped up to the plate and really made this happen. I was very impressed when my husband got his vaccination. The powers that be have worked very hard. We have a large group of retired folks that love to volunteer for the hospital and they all made this happen. Many nurses have volunteered also. I haven't yet but I do plan to. I have helped some of my coworkers get their parents registered. As far as I know there is no residency requirements. We have a large population of Midwesterners that RV here for the winter. The Texas Hill Country area is a wonderful place to visit. All we are missing is casinos - dang it.

 

Thanks for the clarification. The lack of information made it look hinky. You might please pass it on to your web folks that it might be good to add some text to that landing page saying that this is a valid service of the hospital and that they have outsourced the data collection.

Ya know, it's almost tempting to fly to another state due to the snail's pace of vaccine roll-out here. From the map it looks like you are located northwest of San Antonio and Austin. Unfortunately, Untied quit direct flights to San Antonio some time ago. I can get semi-frequent flights to DFW and both Houston airports, but those seem like they are equally inconveniently located to where HCM is. If this thing drags on for another couple of months I might consider something like that, and if so I'll let you know when I am flying in.

Kind of ironic that you can get the vaccine in another state but around here you cannot cross county lines. (Kinda moot, since no counties in my area seem to be vaccinating over 65 but under 75.)

 

@dmr I hope they get things smoothed out. If a little Mayberry RFD community can get it together there is hope for everybody. It looks like we are about a little over a 4 hour drive from DFW. If you get brave enough for that drive -- stay off of I35 much quicker due to traffic to 281. If you can't find anything by March - the drive from Dallas to here with the Bluebonnets blooming is spectacular. They usually start blooming mid to late March and then April is beautiful. It would be well worth a vaccination vacation. Cheaper than the the $20,000 European ones.

 

Got my first shot from the local VA clinic this morning. A bit of a line, but it moved quickly and I was in and out in less than 30 minutes, which included observation time. They were handing out Moderna; I don't know if this is just regional or VA-wide.

 

There's a bunch of additional places here ready to start vaccinating, but they don't have any vaccine...

Just read FDA approved Moderna stuffing 14 doses in a vial instead of 10 so that should help! In @Sonya updates https://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/index.php?threads/coronavirus-covid-19-information.171570/page-19