Have you gotten a COVID vaccine?

[SarahC97]

When I got my first Pfizer dose last Friday, I had some soreness at the injection site the next day, a little headache, and felt pretty tired. Headache lingered on Sunday a bit, but I felt just fine yesterday.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

CVS may be doing it at some locations, but not where I am; if you try they refer you back to the website. (DH called about 20 locations in our area, and all turned him away. He was trying to get one classification ahead of where he was put, because of upcoming jury duty. However, his code came through today, so he has the appointment now.) It's been widely reported here that CVS isn't 100% consistent; they have more vaccine than they need out in the rural areas, and not enough in the cities.

Because I was interested in seeing how it was different than how it worked here, I put in a zip code for St. Louis and it allowed me to go through the whole process and brought up 3 locations I could pick from (2 were doing Pfizer & 1 was Moderna). I cancelled out before actually booking an appt but the process was the same as it was here.

Now, I’m not arguing how it’s working there - you live there and I don’t, so you absolutely know better. Just offering it as a suggestion if somebody is looking who didn’t have a code yet.

Glad your DH’s code came through!

ETA: they still do require you be in the eligible tier, but that is true of most states unless we’re talking about extra end of the day doses. I understand you can’t get the code without being in an eligible tier, but your first post about it didn’t say your husband was trying to jump tiers (or I missed it). I think the biggest difference is eligibility is different in each state. I don’t think there are a lot of people going outside of their tier.

 

[Meriweather]

We had a QR code and a registration number on our paper.
They only wrote the registration numbers on the car window. Never used the QR code

 

[Nabas]

I was looking forward to getting my vaccine. I checked the cdc website today and it states over 2,000 people have died since December after getting a vaccine. Is it just a coincidence? Now I just don’t know.

Read further down on that. They say so far none have been tied definitively to the vaccine. They’ve been reported to VAERS, which is a self reporting website and honestly, not something I’d believe too much. Not that vaccine injury isn’t a thing; just the way the website & reporting works.

https://vaers.hhs.gov/about.html
The FULL statement on the CDC website. The bolding is theirs. And important.

I also suggest that people need to keep in mind who has been getting the vaccine shots first. A lot (most?) of the first people getting the vaccine are in high risk categories.

In 2019 (i.e. before COVID), almost 2.9 million people died in the US. (That's 7800 people every day.)

The COVID vaccine is not going to stop people from dying what they naturally would have died from anyway (i.e. heart disease, cancer, etc.).

 

[Dan Murphy]

We have QR code and a registration number also. For my wife, her uncle and me, they scanned the QR with a scan gun.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Persistance is good, but realize that in some places there is no "legal" choice other than to wait to be placed on the waitlist unless taking a last-minute surplus slot is workable for you.

Here in Missouri, you cannot jump your classification without lying, no matter how persistent you are. You must register with the state, and and until they send you an authorization code, no vaccine site in the state may make an advance appointment for you through the online centralized appointment calendar. The catch is that they don't send the code until they also have a local appointment time slot for you, so unless you need to be picky about when you go and turn down the one they offer, there isn't much point to constant vigilance in pursuit of an appointment. (If you hear that there is a surplus and contact a vendor directly you might get a last-minute slot, but any other route is skirting the eligibility rules.) The good news is that they are dropping the eligibility gateway as of April 18th, so after that you still have to register with the state first, but you will no longer have to wait to be issued an authorization code, and once you have it, you can take any appointment you can find.

I got a FB message forwarded to me today by a parent in a school group I belong to; she gave everyone a way to fool the next state over into granting access to out-of-state persons to make immediate appointments; that "trick" involved registering with a false address.

I got my shot last Thursday at a mass event, luckily one of the slots I was offered was late in the afternoon of the first day, and I chose it rather than the morning because afternoon is more convenient for me. Lucky choice. The folks who turned up that morning were missing their appointments because of the length of the line. The walking (!) line was a full mile long, in the rain, because of thousands of people who turned up with duplicate codes and swore that they were entitled to a shot. It turned out that what had happened in most cases was that someone who did not want to use the time slot offered had passed the code to another person, thinking it was transferrable, but it wasn't; it was only good for the person who originally received it, and if your photo ID didn't match, then no service. When I arrived after all of those people had been weeded out by cops with bullhorns the line was MUCH shorter, though they still administered thousands of shots that day. (Apparently some folks had actually purchased a code; the police said there were a few codes that showed up in hundreds of hands.)

.


Here there is no QR code, but a registration code number is issued to you via a return email some time after the initial registration. In my case the sequence went like this: I got online and registered (anyone here can do this, no wait to register), and immediately received an acknowledgement that said (I'm paraphrasing for brevity), "Thank you for completing the survey. You are classified as Phase 1B, Tier 2. At this time, the state is in Phase 1A. You will be notified when you are eligible to make an appointment. watch your email." Sixteen days later I got an email that said, "URGENT, the City is holding an upcoming vaccination event at Place X on March 24, 2021. Appointments are now available for you. Your patient ID number is #######. You must enter a valid Patient ID number when you make your appointment. Please use the following link to access the appointment form." and there was a drop-down menu of slots. You could choose one of those, or do a zip code search for other ones open elsewhere, but the appointment form after that requires a valid Patient ID or it greys out. Then, when you show up for your appointment, they check your ID and ask for verification against the database info to be sure that you are the person that Patient ID code was actually issued to via email.

I know families who, early on, were desperate to get vaccine for an older person, and had multiple family members in different areas create a new email in the name of Granny X so that the correct name/DOB was on the registration code that multiple people received. That does fool the system as long as all those people have been given Granny's correct DOB, address, list of medical conditions, etc, but it is cheating, because it requires a coordinated lie.

The state knows that it is possible to fool the system if you truly want to and are willing to lie to do it. From their POV, identifying individuals is not really the key point at this stage in the game. The point is stopping people from camping out in line at vaccination sites, and if they make the appointment process a bit complicated and also use individual ID numbers for the registrants, that cuts down on the number of people who are willing to go to the trouble to lie and jump the line. (Doing it the legitimate way with my own info was easy; it took about 10 minutes total, split between 2 linked web forms, and I did it on my smartphone.) When that big traffic jam at my designated site happened, they called as much media as they could get to come, and photos were all over the news and social media, with explanations that it happened because people tried to share codes. The next day they had almost no duplicates, because word had gotten out that lots of people were getting caught when they tried to cheat, so most people who had gotten their code from a friend or family member instead of directly from the City didn't show up. There is no fine or ticket if you get caught cheating; your punishment is taking the time and trouble to come to the location, stand in line for however long, and get turned away once you reach the door, which will also serve as a deterrent to every person you gripe about it to.

Missouri's Navigator isn't a requirement to get a vaccine. They even state: "The Missouri Vaccine Navigator is intended to help Missourians navigate the COVID-19 vaccination process. This tool may not capture every event in your area, so we encourage you to engage with your local public health officials and health care facilities to learn more."

I believe the Navigator is just used as an aid for people, something that could potentially get them a vaccine faster by doing the background work for them. There may be events that they pull exclusively or in part from that list, hence my comment about getting the vaccine faster.

For Arrowhead's mass vaccination they pulled from Jackson County's health department website list of people who signed up there and Missouri's Navigator website.

For people here in KS/MO border it def. isn't a requirement that you register with the state of MO. Maybe your area is using more events that pull from the Navigator exclusively but in the KC metro a lot is health department, hospital systems and employment location (as Kansans work in MO) and some workplaces (like my sister-in-law's) have been able to get it as well as community outreach in specific areas. You're encouraged in the metro to sign up through multiple venues.

**Phase 3 for Missouri which is all adults is April 9th.

 

[GAN]

I forgot to mention in my update yesterday that my sister-in-law was able to move up her appointment from early April because her work was able to secure some doses. She got it on the other side of the state line. Her boyfriend works for the same company so they both got it on Friday 3/26 with Pfizer.

Her boyfriend:
~didn't have any side effects from what she said. They didn't mention sore arm but that's possible that could be the only side effect he had (some people don't consider that a side effect) if he had that.

She on the other hand:
~her entire left side of her body ached and hurt and she was very tired. Her left side of her body ached through most of Saturday though she was able to go to the store. She came back from the store and said that wiped her out so she was still really tired.
~By Sunday she was mostly fine again but a lingering tiredness that is gone by now.

I don't know if they did v-safe or not.

I felt similar to your sister-in-law. Got the vaccine yesterday around noon ...early evening my lower back and sides were sore and was more tired than usual, then by 11PM my arm was slightly sore. Woke up this morning and the only thing I notice is the sore arm but it's improved -everything else went away and I feel as good as ever.

 

[Bellhop97]

Just got my 1st shot this morning at a local CVS,...pfizer.. it was a little hectic there as their system was down and they had to enter everything manually.. the line for the vaccine was starting to wrap around the store.

 

[KrazeeK120]

Illinois continues to throw me for a loop! Officially, all residents 16+ are eligible on 4/12. However, some counties have thrown that out the window and have begun vaccinating anyone who will take it. My county is sticking to the state eligibility for now, but I found a site about an hour away from me where I could go tomorrow and my husband found a different site about 45 minutes away where he could get one today! Both of us are getting Moderna. I’m so excited, it’s like Christmas Eve!!!

ETA - I had to refresh several times before something popped up for tomorrow. Guess getting all those fastpasses paid off - I perfected my refreshing technique!

 

[GoingSince1990]

I got my second Pfizer shot last week and had fewer side effects than after the first, which was the opposite of what I was expecting based upon most reports I have seen. After my first shot I had a 2-day mild headache and tiredness as well as a sore arm, but after the second shot, just the sore arm and nothing else. (By the way I couldn't have asked for a nicer experience than I had at CVS. Such nice people, very well organized, plenty of chairs to wait the 15 minutes after the shot).

 

[SarahC97]

I got my second Pfizer shot last week and had fewer side effects than after the first, which was the opposite of what I was expecting based upon most reports I have seen. After my first shot I had a 2-day mild headache and tiredness as well as a sore arm, but after the second shot, just the sore arm and nothing else. (By the way I couldn't have asked for a nicer experience than I had at CVS. Such nice people, very well organized, plenty of chairs to wait the 15 minutes after the shot).

I have actually read that those previously exposed to COVID have more side effects after the first dose than the second. Things that make you go hmmm!

 

[NotUrsula]

Missouri's Navigator isn't a requirement to get a vaccine. They even state: "The Missouri Vaccine Navigator is intended to help Missourians navigate the COVID-19 vaccination process. This tool may not capture every event in your area, so we encourage you to engage with your local public health officials and health care facilities to learn more."

I believe the Navigator is just used as an aid for people, something that could potentially get them a vaccine faster by doing the background work for them. There may be events that they pull exclusively or in part from that list, hence my comment about getting the vaccine faster.

For Arrowhead's mass vaccination they pulled from Jackson County's health department website list of people who signed up there and Missouri's Navigator website.

For people here in KS/MO border it def. isn't a requirement that you register with the state of MO. Maybe your area is using more events that pull from the Navigator exclusively but in the KC metro a lot is health department, hospital systems and employment location (as Kansans work in MO) and some workplaces (like my sister-in-law's) have been able to get it as well as community outreach in specific areas. You're encouraged in the metro to sign up through multiple venues.

**Phase 3 for Missouri which is all adults is April 9th.

It's kind of the opposite, actually; we can use the navigator, but we have to register first via the City/County health dept first, so the Health Depts use their own list and then go to the navigator, but except for the disabled, all of the invitations from the health dept are for the mass events only. If you want to go to a pharmacy or medical practice to get it, you need to take your county patient ID to them to get an appt.

 

[Figment of Speech]

Persistance is good, but realize that in some places there is no "legal" choice other than to wait to be placed on the waitlist unless taking a last-minute surplus slot is workable for you.

Sorry about that, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. The friends I referred to are eligible in their states but have been struggling to nab appointments because the appointments get snatched up so quickly, not because the people aren't eligible. Similarly, it took me several days of pretty persistent page-refreshing to get mine. That's the angle I meant to convey; I don't mean to imply folks should try to cheat the system.

The reason I mentioned being "way down the eligibility list" is that I signed up for the Dr. B. standby list before I became eligible in a neighboring county. That's the list that texts you when surplus is available in your area, but they still prioritize who they contact by the usual factors, so someone in group 5 could get texted, even before that group opens up in their state, but not before Dr. B tries to reach everyone in the higher-priority groups first. So let's say you're in an eligible but low-priority group, and you've been struggling to find open appointments online. You might be tempted to just say "Oh, dump it" and wait until you get texted because all that hunting isn't worth the stress. But it could take a long time for that to happen, and I just wanted to encourage folks to keep researching vaccine locations in their area and refreshing pharmacy, county, and vaccine finder websites instead of taking the more passive approach.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

I received my first Pfeizer today. My arm is a bit sore. My joints are a bit achy, but that is normal for me, with the weather changes; I think I slept funny as my neck is 'knotted up', which gave me my headache; and I'm having a bit of sinus pressure/pain, but that is normal...stupid allergies. I did not take my allergy meds the last 72 hours, just in case it could be a problem, and I'll wait another 72, just in case.

The site was very orderly, after I found the turn in. It was only about 15 minutes from my place, but it is out in the backroads, where I've never been (by the country fairgrounds). The first turn in from google maps was the one only for employees, lol. Had to go down the road and turn around, to come in on the other side.

Once I was parked, I went in, stood in line for about 3-4 minutes (I was about 10 minutes early at that point), got the registration paperwork (literally fill out a quick questionaire on allergies/covid). Filled it out, went over it with a nice Air Force guy (they were assisting today, IDK if they are there everyday; he verified I filled everything out that I was supposed to...at least 3 people had to be told to fill out parts by him, even though the registration lady told everyone to do so); then went and stood in the line at the next location to hand in the paperwork, for about 3 minutes They went over the paperwork, verified my info, and then sent me to the next line, where I waited for about 5 minutes, then went to sit down with the nurse. They had 7 stations running, and it was sit down, clean the arm, verify all my info...again..., gave me a shot, and sent me to the waiting area. There was a paramedic in the waiting area, but no one timing how long you were there.

I was home a little over an hour after I left. I have a paper 'passport' that shows all the info about this visit, and a reminder about going for my 2nd shot on my 50th birthday. What a great birthday present for me!

DS is eligible starting next week, and I'm on the hunt for a spot for him. I'm going to try to get it at the same place I got mine, as they said they are definitely carrying the Pfeizer for the next month.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

It's kind of the opposite, actually; we can use the navigator, but we have to register first via the City/County health dept first, so the Health Depts use their own list and then go to the navigator, but except for the disabled, all of the invitations from the health dept are for the mass events only. If you want to go to a pharmacy or medical practice to get it, you need to take your county patient ID to them to get an appt.

That's great information for your area and I think that could be very helpful for those there but that's not what is happening here in KC.

Your area may be requiring this for the majority of their events or pharmacies requiring a patient ID but it's not a statewide thing.

KC Zoo is now being used as a site. Last Wednesday they did 2,200 appointments. They've got 2 more at least in April. You sign up through Swope Health for appointments. It's not tied to a health department or city though they are first concentrating on MO residents as a whole but it's intended to be used for both states: "Complete the form below to be added to the Swope Health COVID Vaccine Interest Roster. This roster will be used to schedule vaccination appointments as Missouri and Kansas move through vaccination phases and resources are available at Swope Health."

Saint Luke's is patient only right now in our area but it's super easy to sign up for an event (there may not be appointments but the process is easy) you just need to log onto your patient portal and go schedule it. If you don't have a patient portal but are/have been a patient you go through a quick process to request access. Saint Luke's has said though if you are a resident of KS you need to be vaccinated at one of the locations in KS and if you live in MO you need to be vaccinated at one of the locations in MO. That may change in the future IMO as both states have everyone eligible and vaccine supply becomes much easier to come by.

Hen House, Price Chopper, Payless Discount Foods and Sunfresh which are Ball Foods Pharmacy you need to enter your name, address, date of birth, phone number, and email and they are open to people who work or live in KS or MO respectively and are eligible as per each state's current phase. It's open to residents of either state at any of the locations so long as you're eligible. And if you have a 16-17 year old there is one location (a Price Chopper), located in KS, that specifically is only doing Pfizer. Each store chain Ball Foods is in has a FB website too their page calls out you should go to to get updates.

Hy-Vee you sign up online just searching for appointments and ensure you're eligible though you need to get vaccinated at locations in your state.

That's just a few of the stuff. Didn't even get into Costco, Walmart, Sam's Club, CVS or Walgreens.

At least here in KC if you want a vaccine you're better off doing a lot of stuff yourself, getting yourself signed up through multiple places be that the pharmacies, the county, medical centers, watching out for if your employment can get you a vaccine in a particular place, etc. And there's the twitter feed for KCvaccine watch as well as a FB page. Honestly it is actually more about persistence like the other poster was saying. And that's not advocating for people to skirt the rules (I've been totally on the eligible aspect) that's just using all options you have available to you if you're eligible.

Def. different places are doing things differently though I'm not trying to be argumentative here just trying to share the information for others

 

[Wendy1985]

Just got my first does today

 

[Shellsbutt]

I am happy to report that I received my first dose of Pfizer today! Thanks to everyone on this board for all their advice, tips, info. I happened to log onto Kaiser's website this morning and saw that I was able to schedule my shot and got one for 3:25. This was a vaccine clinic at a nearby community college. I was impressed, very organized and had no problems getting in or out. I feel very relieved and keeping my fingers crossed that I have no side effects other than a sore arm.

 

[Deb]

I have actually read that those previously exposed to COVID have more side effects after the first dose than the second. Things that make you go hmmm!

I know someone who this rang true for, Had COVID. Said the first dose of Pfizer hit him like a "three Mack trucks ran over him" Second dose only slight symptoms.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

I am happy to report that I received my first dose of Pfizer today! Thanks to everyone on this board for all their advice, tips, info. I happened to log onto Kaiser's website this morning and saw that I was able to schedule my shot and got one for 3:25. This was a vaccine clinic at a nearby community college. I was impressed, very organized and had no problems getting in or out. I feel very relieved and keeping my fingers crossed that I have no side effects other than a sore arm.

Yay! I’m so glad it worked!

 

[JLemaire7]

I'm scheduled for J&J on 4/24. Has anyone had J&J and had any severe side effects? I haven't heard of too many people that have had that one since its newer.