Covid Vaccine Stories

Yesterday when I picked up a prescription at CVS, the technician told me that CVS would open up Covid vaccine appointments at 4 am today.  It would be good to have appointments four miles from home instead of the 48 mile trip we have scheduled. 

I did not want to set an alarm for 3:55 am but when I woke up at 4:57 I thought it was worth checking my CVS phone app.  I grabbed my phone from the side of the bed and found the app.  New Jersey was not open.  I lay awake for a bit and at 5:07 I wondered if I had checked carefully enough but there was NJ on the map--no red color. Being curious, I checked New York and there were many towns listed that were not booked.  New Jersey was clearly not ready for appointments. I went back to sleep and was grateful for a few more hours of rest.

At 8:30 am I saw that New Jersey was open.  However, Princeton and all other slots were booked.  Some Facebook posters wrote of their frustrations like mine.   It appears that the sites opened up at 7 am and within 15 minutes were fully booked.  So if I had tried hard enough by checking every 15 minutes from 5 am to 7 am, I might have been successful!  

It makes me very glad that we have our backup plan of driving to Gloucester County on February 25.  We will do a trial run to find the site next week.  My gynocologist told me this week what she said was a funny story of her parents doing the same and when they found their site it was almost deserted.  They were asked if they were there for an appointment and her father said they were --just not right then.  They were welcomed in anyway and got their shots!  

A friend in the Grand Rapids area told me that she spent 3 hours and 50 minutes on hold  on the phone waiting to get her appointment.  She has now had her second shot and posted on Facebook that she is "sooo happy."  I am trying not to be jealous!   I know that I have not wanted to put that kind of effort into this.  We can wait.  Really, when I think of the need for teachers to have vaccines so schools can open safely, I think they should go ahead of us--the 65 and older group.    

So now we can hope that the Gloucester site doesn't run out of vaccines.  And that when it is time for our second vaccine a month later,  they also have supplies.  And that we don't get too sick from the side effects either time.  Maybe by early April we will feel safer about seeing family in person and getting out a bit more.  Maybe by summer things will start opening up again.  We can hope!