Sutter Health claims 1B starts next week

[ACK]

My health provider is Palo Alto Medical Foundation, which is part of Sutter Health.   I received an email from Sutter Health on Friday indicating they are expecting to begin vaccination phase 1B next week.  

We plan to make appointments available very soon through My Health Online and a dedicated phone number. Sutter will hold vaccination clinics across the Bay and Valley Areas, where you can make an appointment when you become eligible. At this time, vaccines will not be scheduled nor administered in your provider’s office. 

My Health Online is Sutter's mechanism by which patients can review their medical info, make appointments, share info with their physicians, etc.  I'm sure it gets probably 10,000 hits a day.  I'm also 99% sure it will melt down a half hour after the link comes up for this mechanism.  We see that happening across the US, and appointments for a month fill within a few hours.  It surely won't hold up in March(?) when 1C becomes available which will be comprised of 50% of their patients.  If they all try to hit the website within a few hours, something's going to break.

This also raises the question of other venues for shots.  CVS, Walgreens, and Safeway pharmacies will be opening up too, but I haven't seen info on that yet.

A news report indicates CVS & Walgreens expect to finish the LTCFs by January 25.  It also indicates that CVS is capable of administering 20-25M shots a month (I'm assuming that's if everyone is lined up all day long.)  (At a total of 400M shots, that's 16-20 months if only CVS were giving shots.)

It remains unclear to me how ANY of the vaccination sources are going to know if you are eligible, except by age.

Sutter began making appointments earlier today for 75+. Neighbors (80+) across the street got an email letting them know they would be available.  They called at 8am and made appt for next Saturday.  My wife (66) was told she wasn’t eligible yet.

their reservation system did indeed melt down and it seemed to effect their insurance processing as well.