I'm Eligible! And Now I Wait.

Starting today I'm eligible to get my Covid vaccination, per the rules of California. Good luck finding one, though! As I noted when Hawk got her first shot a few weeks ago, excessive delegation and shortage of supply relative to demand have made figuring out how to get an appointment, and then actually getting a shot at an appointment, a mess.

"Excessive delegation" means that some health systems, but not others, are offering vaccinations. Some pharmacy chains offer them, too, but only in some areas. Looking for an appointment today meant searching across half a dozen different organizations' websites.

Supply and demand mean, well, what it sounds like. I searched across half a dozen organizations' website only to find that none of them have appointments anywhere near me for 3 months. Maaaybe if I were willing to drive to a city 160 miles away I could find something sooner, but I am not yet at the point of wanting to commit to such a drive only to hope I can schedule an appointment they don't cancel before I arrive.

Update: I've gotten an appointment for my first shot on Friday, 108 miles away

I'll Get Shot Friday! 100+ Miles Away...

After looking for a Coronavirus vaccine appointment this morning and finding absolutely none available anywhere near home anytime I took another look this afternoon. This time I specifically searched in Fresno, which I obliquely referred to in my previous post as "a city 160 miles away". Indeed, CVS pharmacies around Fresno had numerous appointments available this week Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri. I checked back because after letting the idea percolate for a few hours because I was ready to make a multi-day trip out of it.

The CVS store I focused in on was actually in Clovis, CA. It's part of the metropolitan Fresno area (FWIW I'm chucking as I write that phrase) and it's about 170 miles away. Traveling there & back would be a 350 mile roundtrip. To make it work during the workweek without taking time off (I have critical meetings this week) I figured I could drive down the night before, get a hotel, get a shot the next day after my meetings— oh, and stay at the hotel a second night so I wouldn't have to drive home 3 hours while possibly experiencing side effects of the shot.

I had literally already started looking up hotels when I decided to try the appointments site one more time for options closer to home. A few appointments in Hayward (30 miles away) appeared for Wednesday afternoon then disappeared moments later in the time it took me to double-check my work schedule. As I typed in the names of cities in the area in an ever widening radius from home I hit pay dirt in Davis.

Davis is closer to home; it's "only" 105-110 miles away. That may not seem numerically like a huge savings vs. 170 miles for Clovis but the difference is that the roundtrip becomes feasible as a half-day drive. I can get out there & back in a tad over 2 hours each way. With a late afternoon appointment on Friday I only need to take a few hours off from work and I can be back home in time for dinner.

CVS prompted me to schedule an appointment for my second shot while I was booking the first. (I'm scheduled to get the Pfizer vaccine.) Davis area stores had no appointments available in the +3 weeks timeframe. I went back to searching in a widening spiral from home and found an appointment in Napa for Saturday, April 10. "I can take you wine-tasting afterward!" Hawk gushed. Uh, I'm not sure that would be wise... and for now I'm just happy enough to have appointments scheduled.