Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Is anyone else totally unclear about how exactly you are supposed to sign up or be placed in a waiting line for the vaccine?

I'm not too concerned about myself, but say, my parents? Who is keeping the order of the queue or adding people to it in a way that you know when you're supposed to expect to get the vaccine?

Is it just up to your personal doctor? A local hospital? The county? Who is keeping the list? Who do you ask to be added?

Maybe I'm not a key/critical category person so I am not in the target group, but aside from the high level CDC guidance on who should get it, there seems to be a vast chasm of lack of information / authority connecting to the individual person to know how to take action to receive the vaccine.

But again, maybe I'm missing something. It seems like a total chaos fest, muddling / random walking our way through the crisis. I guess the same theme as the entire handling of the situation in the US. God forbid we have some centralized authoritative list of who is who, and who does what, to know when someone should get the vaccine.

But I guess when 0% are vaccinated, anything even half-assed is useful.

At this point I believe it's just frontline health workers and elderly individuals in assisted living facilities. In those situations eligible people are being notified by their applicable institutions (employer, etc.) to schedule their first dose. I'm not sure what the process will look like once things get more broad (over 65, etc.), but I suspect it will be well publicized.

We will rapidly be past that group though as it's a very small percentage of the county. When each county is making their own rules it's going to get hectic quick.

Phase 1a, basically health care workers and nursing home patients, is some 24M people. At time of writing less than 10% have received even their first shot, so at current rates it's going to take quite some time to vaccinate them all.

My PCP is at a large local hospital chain, and I recently got an e-mail from them saying that they would notify people as soon as they met the eligibility criteria.

At least here, large multi-state hospital systems are expected to get shipments directly from the feds, and the state will be coordinating distribution to smaller providers.

https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/COVID19/Vaccine (See "How will vaccine distribution work?")

Thanks for that example info.

In every state/county website I have looked at, it has somewhat comprehensive information for the distributors of the vaccine. But nothing for the consumers. It is all from the logistics point of view -- down to the distribution point of "hospitals are going to get it". After that, nothing. Total absence of information.

Unanswered is the major (but simple) question of, "how do you apply/request to get the vaccine?"

No answers on that front. For 330M people waiting to find out how. It's kind of an embarrassment.

Edit: I acknowledge we're in an unprecedented time with a vaccine developed at unprecedented speed. But I have a feeling this is not going being managed well. We had months of warning that a vaccine was coming. And months more until the general population's turn is ready -- and I bet we still won't have good information.

I don’t think you can just proactively request one, but that providers will notify you as soon as you are eligible and they have it available.

My PCP and the hospital they’re at already knows my date of birth and my medical history. I haven’t been told I can get it yet because, well, I can’t get it yet.

I got an e-mail from a grocery chain saying they will be offering the COVID vaccine. No additional details on how to sign up or anything. The communication had a 'more info is coming' vibe to it.

Why does it need to be any more complicated than a flu shot? You can get those on demand at most pharmacies, urgent care clinics, even many employers set up dates/times for it on-site.

OK there's some special cold-storage needed, and you need two doses, so maybe it will be a little more complicated, but in practice I'm expecting that we'll get to a point where you just walk in to a local vaccination provider and get the shot.

That's like comparing a UN food drop in a war zone without any food and going grocery shopping.

I think you'll cover the people who are clamoring for it pretty quickly. Everyone else will just wait for it to become generally available. I've already had COVID, as has my household, so I'm not in any rush to get vaccinated. Neither are most of the people I know (sample size < 10).

I think you underestimate the demand. Your sample size is small and contains an abnormally large percentage of people that have already had covid so that will skew things.

I haven't had covid and would like to get vaccinated as soon as I can. Many, but not all, people I know feel the same way.

that's exactly what's planned. cvs already has a page up.

https://cvshealth.com/covid-19/vaccine-information

"In 2021, COVID-19 vaccines will be in all our stores

We’re following federal and state guidelines that prioritize vulnerable populations, including those at long-term care facilities, to be among the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Once vaccines are available to the general public, anticipated to be in early 2021, we will begin offering them in our nearly 10,000 CVS Pharmacy locations nationwide. We expect to be able to administer as many as 20-25 million shots per month.

When that time comes, booking an appointment for your vaccination will be simple and seamless. The same digital experience that we created for COVID-19 testing and flu vaccinations will be available to schedule COVID-19 vaccinations, so that you can easily book an appointment and, depending on the vaccine type, the required booster dose as well."

Same questions here, Especially for those not well connected to a hospital or a part of a congregate living institution. How does an essential worker that works retail for example get their dose? Are the companies like Walmart going to coordinate it? How does a 70 year old that lives in their own home get theirs? Their gemeral provider?

There’s pilots you can sign up for, eg for SF https://wecanbeatcovid.org/

Pre-screening questions and then they’ll call you if they’re interested. Roommate got a call within a week, but another three of us haven’t heard back. Probably depends somewhat on diversity. My guess is that your best shot is applying as soon as one of these studies open up registration. FIFO.

There is an extremely large difference between taking an approved (with emergency authorization) vaccine and joining a research study where you could be getting a different vaccine at earlier stages of approval or potentially a placebo.

Joining a research study is great and helps push the science forward with other vaccines or whatever the researchers are studying, but it is not at all the same thing as scheduling when you are going to be getting an approved vaccine.

It's up to each state. My state has their vaccination plan up on the state department of health website.

A general plan is one thing (categories of people, in what order, etc). We all know roughly what that order is, I think. Where is the list of actual people and names being kept? How do you know when it will be your turn? Where do you sign up?

My close friend is a firefighter/paramedic and was told by his chief "to call this number as quickly as possible" to get on the early vaccination list. He did and was given the first dose last week. It became a race for those even most eligible.

For the rest of us, it's a bit of crap shoot depending on where you live. Some counties in our state have created sites where you can enter in your information so that when you're eligible, you'll be notified. For those of us not in those counties, we're hoping similar systems, because the alternative is very messy and will almost certainly add to the body count.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com