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Difficulty in getting appointments
#1
As I'm in the 65+ category, I have a number of relatives & friends that are in that age group.  Since I believe in the vaccine as an aid to helping us individually and collectively, I've helped a number of them to find appointments.  (3 have declined that help for various reasons.)  So I've seen the process for getting appointments in a handful of counties in California and one county in Texas.

As should be well known, there have been differing priorities for who can get the shots, roughly based on the CDC original recommendations.  For California, the healthcare workers accounted for nearly 10% of the eligible population.  The LTCF residents were maybe 1% or less.   The 65+ added another 15% or so.   At this time, there still isn't enough vaccine to cover all those eligible from those groups.  There are other categories added such as agricultural workers that push the numbers higher.

The last two friends I've been trying to help were one from a small coastal town in California and one from Austin, TX.   It was frustrating to not know when appointments might come on line.  Deliveries are on a weekly schedule but it wasn't clear when the appointments would open up.  Tuesday?  Wednesday? Thursday?   Midnight?  5AM PT (8AM ET)?  8AM?  9AM?   I was watching 5 web pages for the California friend and at least two for the Texas friend. (Hint: Some opened on Wed.  Many more opened on Thursday)

CVS had vaccination possibilities for both and I had been watching their pages for several weeks.  They listed all locations in the state in a relatively easy to check manner.  Appointments seemed to open up en masse and then start disappearing as they got snatched up.  There were only two locations within 50 miles of my friend.  I've never seen either have any openings.   

The CA county also had its page but I hadn't seen openings for 2 weeks.  Just after 9AM Thursday, they opened their web page for first dose appointments.  My friend was able to grab one for Monday.

Texas was another story.  They opened vaccinations to 65+ sooner than other states, but that doesn't make it any quicker to get through 25% of the population.  Vaccinations opportunities were more widespread (lots of pharmacies & clinics -- far greater than California).  You could find out who was getting how many vaccines so it seemed easier.   It was early on.

But now, it is tough.  At one of the larger vaccination sites, 188K people are registered and they are getting 12K shots a week.  One of the grocery stores that has pharmacies has a web site that exposes each individual store (not cities or counties but each storefront).  It had been fully booked for the last week apparently.  Today, sites started showing up as available.   It appears that each individual store was marking itself available or not.  I would see the same store show up as having a "few" (< 6?) spots available, then disappear, and then come back with a few spots available later on, repeatedly.  I saw some others come on with 20 to 30 spots open.   At any one time, typically about 2 stores had any appointments available.  They wouldn't last but about a minute in the list.

I started refreshing the page every few (5ish) seconds.  When I'd see a store appear (it didn't matter where), I'd click on the store to check for appointments.  About the first 10 times I did that, there were no appointments available - they had already been snatched up.  Either demand is far greater or there are automated tools out there to grab these appointments, or maybe the web site doesn't get the same access as the store's app.  

The moral of the story is that there are many different mechanisms for getting appointments.  (I have no issue with that)  If you're looking for an appointment, try multiple providers. (I suspect many are still waiting for Kaiser to get in touch with them, and I believe Kaiser is getting very few vaccines.)
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#2
At that grocery store chain vaccine appointment slots, I could determine all vaccines, even in batches of 20 were gone in less than 4 seconds.  I'm convinced that Bots are grabbing the appointments, and potentially selling access to them.

Others have put in defense (Captchas) against Bots.  So that chain isn't going to have me wasting my time going up against bots.

Just Google 
   vaccination bots
and you'll see a lot about existing bots.
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#3
We (collectively) have to learn the same lesson over and over again.

Thank you for working to help people that can't advocate for themselves. As a 65+ person you are an outlier in terms of knowing "the system" and dealing with this stuff. Your friends are blessed.
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#4
With another month gone by, things have improved in Contra Costa County, CA. A few days ago, they lowered the eligibility age to 50. The county uses MyChart for appointments. I was able to get one on line for Friday without too many problems. The biggest catch is that I have to go to the town with the highest new case rate in the county to get that shot. The only site they had in a less hard hit area was all booked in a flash.
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#5
First, congrats on getting an appointment.   A news story today indicates Contra Costa County has opened vaccines to all 16+.

Today, I actually looked at a couple of counties in N. & S. California and saw there were plenty of appointments available.  (I have my vaccinations, but this was alerting younger family to vaccine possibilities.)

In California, 50+ are eligible April 1.  16+ are eligible April 15.


For people that may be looking to get appointments:

My understanding is that California intends for the governmental entities (counties & those they supply) to schedule appointments via California's https://myturn.ca.gov   (I do not know if that is actually the case)

However, the entities in the Federal Retail Pharmacy program get their vaccine from a different federal source and are not using the state's reservation system.  Here are some of their vaccine sites (appropriate for any US location):
CVS   (I've had good luck scheduling through CVS.  It is a race, but it is do-able.)
Walgreens
Albertson/Safeway/Vons
Ralphs
Costco
Rite-Aid
Nob-Hill/Lucky/Save Mart/Raley's/Bel Air  (Apparently not currently offering in CA)
Walmart (none in CA (but I may be wrong))


The CDC recommends using VaccineFinder.org to find vaccination sites near you.  With this, you could specify to search only for certain vaccines.

A third supply of vaccine was supplied via FEMA at large vaccination clinics.  Those are currently being shut down (using J&J for their last 2 weeks).

A fourth supply was earmarked for what were seen as areas where the populace wasn't getting the vaccine.  You can find these clinics and health systems at  https://www.hrsa.gov/coronavirus/health-...rticipants
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#6
CVS seems to release their appointments very early in the morning. I booked one while up at 3AM for another purpose. Multitasking at its finest. Plenty available then. Not so much later on.
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#7
6 weeks/8 weeks ago, I watched CVS intently (multiple states). I found they opened up in the morning (8ish), but not early morning. They opened up across the state essentially simultaneously and then got filled. (In Texas, bots were grabbing the HEB appointments in less than 2 seconds (limit of what I could measure by hand))

But things may have changed. I definitely would get up very early to try to get the early shot.
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#8
For people living or working in Contra Costa County, going directly through the county health department is the way to go right now, at least if you want to take advantage of the county's early lowering of the eligibility age. It's my understanding that other providers have to wait for the state eligibility age to drop to 50 tomorrow and 16 on April 15. You will not get the earlier eligibility through MyTurn.

Contra Costa County uses MyChart for scheduling. By putting in a request at the County health site, you can get an email from them that gives you a link for creating your MyChart account and scheduling your appointment. My daughter sent in a request soon after the announcement that they are taking anyone over 16 and today was able to schedule an appointment for next Wednesday. She had to deal with a few site freezes but did not spend a whole lot of time. In the mean time, I already got my first shot last Friday because the county lowered age to 50 last week. It took about an hour between arriving at the site and driving off.

I've heard rumors from people I work with that they had smooth experiences at sites in other counties as well, including the massive operation at the Oakland Colosseum (which uses MyTurn).
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#9
Since you mention the Oakland Coliseum, that site and all FEMA sites across the country are being shut down.  I believe it will shutdown within 2 weeks.  They've already transitioned to the J&J vaccine, so that people aren't left scrambling for 2nd doses.
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#10
Correcting myself: FEMA is not shutting down all vaccination sites.  FEMA is continuing to open new sites.  Some are in high infection areas; some are in low infection areas.

The two California FEMA sites (Oakland & LA) are shutting down.  (Makes sense. CA is relatively low on infections and middle of the pack on vaccinations.)
The early FEMA site in Pennsylvania appears to be shutting down.  (They are opening a different one.)

I don't know about the other early FEMA sites (TX, NYC, FL, IL, NC).  Are they timing out like CA?  NYC is very high on infections.


The former administration, with concurrence of the governors, established a policy of distributing vaccine according to population.   The current administration appears to be doing things differently.
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