‘Sorry, try again later.’ The frustrating quest to get a COVID vaccine appointment
It was a frantic few minutes at my house and, I suspect, many others when news broke early last week that some Walmart, Hen House and Price Chopper pharmacies in the Kansas City area would be vaccinating people age 65 and over for the coronavirus as early as Friday.
From our beat-up living room couch, I bolted to my phone-booth-size home office and began Googling for links that might free my wife and me from the semi-home confinement that we and so many others have endured since last March.
Hurry up, dude, I thought, all the appointments are going to fill up before you get your name on the list!
But when I finally had signed in, Walmart’s version of a now all-too-familiar message popped up on my laptop’s screen.
“Sorry,” it announced in big, boldface font. “Walmart pharmacies in this location do not administer COVID-19 vaccines yet. Please enter a different location or try again later.”
Try again.
Later.
For the better part of a year, we’ve worn our masks, practiced social distancing and stayed at home and away from others as much as possible — those of us fortunate enough to have jobs that allow us that luxury, anyway.
But in December, hope emerged in the arrival of two of what promises to be several vaccines. President Joe Biden pledged last week to have on hand enough to vaccinate 300 million Americans by July.
Since the first of the year, millions of us have been trying and trying to get the shots, again and again. Through our health departments, hospital networks and now retail pharmacies.
Eventually, 40,000 retail locations will be involved. But for now, even as the overall number of doses available continues to increase each week, there’s still not enough vaccine to go around. So be patient, we are told.
Those of us who, because of our age, occupation or disability, are now eligible to get the shots know all about patience and the frustration of waiting our turn, only to be told by some website “sorry, but maybe next time.”
Or worse, hearing nothing definitive after filling out a four-page form expressing interest. Thanks for your info, but don’t call us, we’ll call you.
Some of us are more patient than others.
“I’ve registered with the JO county health department, plus the hospital,” 71-year-old Carol Handley responded when I asked some Facebook friends about their experiences playing the vaccine lottery.
“I’m answering every phone call hoping for an appointment. (99.9% of the calls are phishing spam.) I’m waiting, trying to be patient, and my goal is to get the vaccine by Independence Day!”
There are so many lists, and if you want to increase your odds of getting your shots sooner rather than later, it pays to be on all of them, people in the health care field say. My name is on several and recently I bookmarked the websites of pharmacies that are likely to get in a supply at some point so I would be ready to pounce.
Pollsters say that a surprisingly large number of Americans aren’t interested in getting vaccinated. My wife and I volunteer to serve as examples for the hesitant among you.
We want the shots badly so we can hold our two grandkids, both of them toddlers, for the first time in more than a year. To host our daughter’s long-delayed wedding ceremony. To go to the movies once again and just breathe.
What’s stressful is all the waiting and uncertainty of not knowing when it will be your turn. And then you hear these stories about people who aren’t high up in the priority list, but just happen to get lucky.
“As we wait on three lists without any idea when we’ll get notified, I keep hearing stories of people who were standing around at the right place and time — and got shots because there was a sudden surplus,” Craig Nienaber, one of my now-retired former editors, commented on Facebook.
We in the general population knew we’d have to wait awhile. Initially, only health care workers and nursing home patients were getting vaccinated. Then cops, firefighters and EMTs. Different states have different rules.
Our middle child, a 30-something nurse who works in the intensive care unit of a large Colorado hospital, got his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Dec. 17 and his second a little more than a month ago. Unlike the first one, dose No. 2, he said, made him feel “like hot garbage” for a day or two.
The sore arm, aches and fatigue weren’t fun, but the side effects meant the vaccine was doing what it was supposed to do, building up his immunity to the disease so life might return to some kind of normal.
His mother and I were envious. We could go for some of that hot garbage feeling right about now.
But it hasn’t been easy getting an appointment, as anyone who has tried and come up short knows, and that’s fostered suspicion, especially when we read about some hospitals vaccinating board members without critical jobs ahead of people with serious health issues.
“As I hear it, the lack of perceived fairness is what bothers most people,” said former Johnson County commission chairwoman Annabeth Surbaugh. “Add to that the not being able to book appointments even into the future.”
This winter’s slow vaccine rollout has the feel of that toilet paper shortage last spring, when people on sites like Next Door would scout out the TP supplies at Costco, HyVee or the dollar stores and report back to their neighbors on texture and availability (often none).
A lot of vaccine networking is going on now, too.
My vaccine quest began about a month ago. As more and more health care workers were vaccinated in January, the health department in Johnson County, where I live, began preparing for the day when vaccines would be available for everyone else.
They weren’t through vaccinating people in the first phase, primarily health care workers. But those of us in Phase 2 — people 65 and older and “high-contact critical workers” — were encouraged to fill out a “vaccine interest form” for planning purposes and to compile a list of who to call when.
That Saturday, Jan. 16, I filled out the form twice. The second time because we were told to keep submitting them until we got a confirmation email, text or phone call. I didn’t get one because the system crashed or came close to it.
“We have increased the server capacity,” the department wrote in an apology that next week, “so please try again over the next few days. We appreciate your patience.”
There’s that word again. As instructed I patiently filled out the form two more times and finally got a confirmation email on Feb. 4 that said, essentially, we know you’re out there. Hang tight.
Meanwhile, I had gone online and put my name in with the University of Kansas Health System, Olathe Health, two hospitals in the HCA Health Midwest network, Adventhealth and the Jackson County Health Department, even though I don’t live in Missouri.
I figured I’d navigate any jurisdictional and ethical considerations when and if I was offered an appointment across the state line.
Also, I updated my account information at CVS and Walgreens, both of which expect to start vaccinating people at some point, but not now locally.
Which brings us to last week, when I bolted from the couch — hobbled is more like it: bad knees that I plan to get fixed once the pandemic is over.
That night was hectic for vaccination manager Amanda Applegate and others at Balls Food Stores, whose Hen House and Price Chopper pharmacies were, according to news reports, set to begin vaccinating people that week.
Only problem was, Balls was not ready for the torrent of calls that came in. The company didn’t know how much vaccine it was getting from the federal government or exactly when it might arrive.
The phone system was slammed.
“It’s been a challenge,” Applegate said Thursday afternoon.
Applegate said her staff would start administering the Moderna vaccine at 11 Hen House and Price Chopper stores in the metro area beginning Monday until the supply ran out.
As of Thursday she had no idea how many vials she would get. There are 10 to 11 doses in each one, she said, and once opened the vaccine is only good for six hours, so scheduling appointments 20 minutes apart would take careful planning.
Applegate was expecting a surge at ballsfoodspharmacy.com when the appointment reservation system went active the following day.
“We’ll probably have all the doses booked up within an hour,” she said.
A little more than that, as it turned out. But in less than 90 minutes all 1,100 doses were spoken for Friday afternoon, and Applegate won’t know until late this week how much more she’ll get in and when.
As for me, I lucked out a few hours before I spoke with Applegate Thursday with an absentminded click on the Walmart web address I’d bookmarked.
Instead of “Sorry, try later,” I was given the choice of four Missouri stores to click on in order of distance from my house. The top one was 17 miles away, in eastern Kansas City, near Independence.
All the appointments were taken for Friday through Monday. Tuesday was wide open one minute. The next minute all that was left was 5 p.m. I snatched it after texting my wife upstairs about my good luck.
She got one for the next day just before those filled up. Somewhere between when I made my reservation at 10:38 a.m. and when I checked back and 10:51, all the appointments at all four stores had been filled.
“Sorry,” the message said, “try again later.”
Have patience.
This story was originally published February 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
