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When it rains it pours, I guess.
Mar. 30th, 2021 03:31 amSo, I live in one state (PA) and work in another (MD).
From a PA perspective, MD clearly has their distribution worked out: Some of my coworkers were going to the parking lot of Six Flags and getting their shots there. Drive up, stick the arm out the window, get the shot, drive away. The twist is, one has to be a MD resident.
In PA, it's not so efficient. So far it can only be had at either a doctor's office, hospital, or a select few pharmacies. Now I understand the Pfizer and Moderna require storage at temperatures lower than a standard freezer, and not every pharmacy is going to have that capability. I get that.
Anyway. Starting a few weeks ago, I started the odyssey of getting the vaccine for myself. My qualifiers were that I was an essential worker and that my BMI was over 30. I'll start with Wellspan! They have a doctor's office nearby. So I signed up for that, filled out a questionnaire, and didn't hear anything back. Was I missing something?
Figuring I got ghosted by Wellspan, I decided to try my luck with pharmacies. The pharmacies at W*mart and Walgreens required making an account. I did not want to make an account there, so I tried Rite-Aid, as they have a store nearby as well. Rite-Aid's site was just awful. In order to see if there were any openings, I'd have to pick a date, then pick a store, getting a message that was along the lines of "nope, nothing today, now fuck off." And I'd have to repeat that for every store, every day.
CVS was slightly less tricky, and by just enough. Their site at least had the ability to say which areas had openings. Then it became a matter of luck. I tried doing a search based on where I lived. Nothing. But, if I entered York as the location, then I started getting results. My choices, depending when I clicked and how often I refreshed the page, were one of three different cities, all of them an hour's drive away. Eventually I figured out one of them was going to be my best option, so I tried getting an appointment there. I figure since it was near a 2nd & Charles store that I went to often, I could combine trips. Then the site basically barfed and I couldn't do anything. By the time I could get back in, everything was gone. As it turns out, CVS opens up blocks of appointments in the middle of the night, which is perfect for me. Next evening, tried again. Had to refresh the page a few times to get the location I wanted, then it was a race against time to pick the day and time and enter all of my information. Success!
At least the in-store experience was smooth. I arrived, checked in at the front of the store, was directed to the back of the store via well-marked aisles, a nurse was ready and waiting, got my jab, went to the post-jab 15 minute waiting area, and I was done and out the door, in a total of about 20 minutes.
I had taken the next day off from work in case any side effects manifested later on. Aside from the pain in my arm from the needle, I've not felt anything amiss.
As fate seems to have the same sense of humor as I do, the day before my appointment at CVS, I got a message from Wellspan saying they have openings this week. Goddammit. Then I was informed that because I work at a MD company, even though I'm not a MD resident, I could have gotten my shot via one of the drive-through conga lines. Goddammit. The only things I have resembling consolation is that there was a strong chance I was going to be at that particular 2nd & Charles store anyway to get some used CDs, and that someone local to where I live, someone who couldn't do the same kind of drive as I can, was going to get their vaccine a bit sooner.
Meanwhile, from the perspective of those in MD, PA is where they have it figured out. I'm not sure how that works. Either way, we need something better than the "Hunger Games x TicketMaster" system we have now.
Honestly, the whole distribution system itself is too anemic. What they should do when they get enough doses available, especially when the J&J version comes out, is to have longer hours at the pharmacies, and if need be, have pop-up clinics in places like Sheetz to run 24/7. The faster everyone gets vaccinated, the better off we'll be, and that doesn't include the "return to normalcy" aspect. The idea being that if enough people get vaccinated fast enough, that would also clamp down on variants and mutations getting out and starting it all over again. This includes not just North America but the world as a whole. Viruses don't care about race or nationality. They don't recognize borders. If a variant comes out of somewhere like Brazil because not enough there got vaccinated in time, then we'll all have to go through this all over again.
My manager had gotten his first dose the day after I did. He said the sun seemed a bit brighter than usual. I could dig that.
From a PA perspective, MD clearly has their distribution worked out: Some of my coworkers were going to the parking lot of Six Flags and getting their shots there. Drive up, stick the arm out the window, get the shot, drive away. The twist is, one has to be a MD resident.
In PA, it's not so efficient. So far it can only be had at either a doctor's office, hospital, or a select few pharmacies. Now I understand the Pfizer and Moderna require storage at temperatures lower than a standard freezer, and not every pharmacy is going to have that capability. I get that.
Anyway. Starting a few weeks ago, I started the odyssey of getting the vaccine for myself. My qualifiers were that I was an essential worker and that my BMI was over 30. I'll start with Wellspan! They have a doctor's office nearby. So I signed up for that, filled out a questionnaire, and didn't hear anything back. Was I missing something?
Figuring I got ghosted by Wellspan, I decided to try my luck with pharmacies. The pharmacies at W*mart and Walgreens required making an account. I did not want to make an account there, so I tried Rite-Aid, as they have a store nearby as well. Rite-Aid's site was just awful. In order to see if there were any openings, I'd have to pick a date, then pick a store, getting a message that was along the lines of "nope, nothing today, now fuck off." And I'd have to repeat that for every store, every day.
CVS was slightly less tricky, and by just enough. Their site at least had the ability to say which areas had openings. Then it became a matter of luck. I tried doing a search based on where I lived. Nothing. But, if I entered York as the location, then I started getting results. My choices, depending when I clicked and how often I refreshed the page, were one of three different cities, all of them an hour's drive away. Eventually I figured out one of them was going to be my best option, so I tried getting an appointment there. I figure since it was near a 2nd & Charles store that I went to often, I could combine trips. Then the site basically barfed and I couldn't do anything. By the time I could get back in, everything was gone. As it turns out, CVS opens up blocks of appointments in the middle of the night, which is perfect for me. Next evening, tried again. Had to refresh the page a few times to get the location I wanted, then it was a race against time to pick the day and time and enter all of my information. Success!
At least the in-store experience was smooth. I arrived, checked in at the front of the store, was directed to the back of the store via well-marked aisles, a nurse was ready and waiting, got my jab, went to the post-jab 15 minute waiting area, and I was done and out the door, in a total of about 20 minutes.
I had taken the next day off from work in case any side effects manifested later on. Aside from the pain in my arm from the needle, I've not felt anything amiss.
As fate seems to have the same sense of humor as I do, the day before my appointment at CVS, I got a message from Wellspan saying they have openings this week. Goddammit. Then I was informed that because I work at a MD company, even though I'm not a MD resident, I could have gotten my shot via one of the drive-through conga lines. Goddammit. The only things I have resembling consolation is that there was a strong chance I was going to be at that particular 2nd & Charles store anyway to get some used CDs, and that someone local to where I live, someone who couldn't do the same kind of drive as I can, was going to get their vaccine a bit sooner.
Meanwhile, from the perspective of those in MD, PA is where they have it figured out. I'm not sure how that works. Either way, we need something better than the "Hunger Games x TicketMaster" system we have now.
Honestly, the whole distribution system itself is too anemic. What they should do when they get enough doses available, especially when the J&J version comes out, is to have longer hours at the pharmacies, and if need be, have pop-up clinics in places like Sheetz to run 24/7. The faster everyone gets vaccinated, the better off we'll be, and that doesn't include the "return to normalcy" aspect. The idea being that if enough people get vaccinated fast enough, that would also clamp down on variants and mutations getting out and starting it all over again. This includes not just North America but the world as a whole. Viruses don't care about race or nationality. They don't recognize borders. If a variant comes out of somewhere like Brazil because not enough there got vaccinated in time, then we'll all have to go through this all over again.
My manager had gotten his first dose the day after I did. He said the sun seemed a bit brighter than usual. I could dig that.
