I refreshed again later and I got it!!!
And yes I’m ugly crying right now.
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Hooray!!
Yeah, this seems to be the case here too. There’s lots of talk of midnight drops and 6 a.m. drops… but what worked for me was just randomly and idly refreshing at random times and all of a sudden HOLY SHIT there are suddenly appointments.
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Question for the sciencey/research types, when it says “In the first part of that study, a group of kids from 5 to 11 years old got their first shots last week.” if they’re following the usual pattern for adult second doses that would mean 21 days later so the week of April 12th and then they’re testing for full immunity a month after that (midMay), how long would it take for all the research documentation to be … documented, reviewed, approved, whatever? before it’s sent to the federal government for approval? Then in December I feel like it was about three weeks for vaccine approval at the federal level, I’m not sure if pediatric version of an already approved adult vaccine would be faster or slower.
Basically now that I’m getting my shot before my end-of-May birthday I’m wondering if my kid will maybe be able to get his vaccine by his summer birthday. That’s the one that will truly be life changing for us.
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It all depends on how fast the kids in the trial get exposed to covid and become infected. They need a certain number of total covid cases to determine whether there’s a statistically significant difference in the number of covid cases in vaccinated kids vs. placebo kids.
If the kids are playing inside with a ton of other kids with no masks, maybe we’ll know this quickly. If the kids are doing virtual school with minimal play dates/errands and wearing their masks right, it may take longer.
(Fun fact: the raging pandemic is part of how we finished the other Phase 3 trials so fast…it took no time at all to rack up those covid cases. 
)
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My coworker says he doesn’t want the vaccine because he doesn’t trust it. Says it’s been rushed through too fast and isn’t proven. He said his wife will not get it, so maybe she’s influenced him, I’m not sure. The others of us here will all get ours, all but one young one will be finished next week and she will be done in May.
My question is: I thought I heard that it’s been around for like 20 years and they tweaked it for this? Does anyone know?
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CT just opened up to 16+ today and
Under a cut if you don't want to hear me bitch
JESUS CHRIST PEOPLE CALM THE F DOWN. They have told people to be patient and warned them that the first week (especially the first few days) the system will be overloaded with people trying to get appointments. They anticipate supply will exceed demand within a month, a fact that they keep stating. Yet so many people (especially on Twitter, which I don’t use but occasionally check because it’s one of the easiest places to see the weekly news conference info) continue to bitch about how they can’t get any appointment. WAIT A MINUTE OR TWO, GEEZ.
When I got mine, I didn’t check until 1.5 weeks after that group opened up. I got an appointment 2 days later.
There are lots of comments from people using VAMS (and only VAMS), but there are a lot of other systems you can go through here (pharmacy chains, hospital systems, the mobile FEMA clinic, and in a few days, independent pharmacies also). There are lots of people suggesting or recommending these resources, and different strategies that seem to work better than just relying on VAMS (eg. searching by individual zip codes because it seems doing radius searches don’t always work). If they are tech savvy enough to use Twitter, they are probably tech savvy enough to stalk a few different systems.
I’m sorry, but I am extremely frustrated with these people. It feels like they are complaining just for the sake of complaining, and don’t really want to try alternatives to getting an appointment.
Are there problems with the rollout? Yes. Is the multi-system approach a cluster? Kind of! Are some communities being left behind? Absolutely Yes. Are the people doing the bitching part of those communities? I don’t think so.
In positive news, our current stats are:
81% of 65+ have received at least 1 dose
65% of 45+ have received at least 1 dose
43% of 16+ have received at least 1 dose
ETA: Obviously I understand frustration. But the level of vitriol that is just off the hook.
Also, this is good because our numbers are kind of bad right now, because of the variant circulating here.
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mRNA vaccines have been in development for decades (not sure exactly how long). The nice/fast thing about them is that the carrier (basically a hollow ball) is the same and the mRNA can be changed to code for… basically any protein without changing the safety of the vaccine. So they’ve been doing safety and efficacy studies on animals and in small scale human trials for a while, and were able to very quickly swap out the mRNA to code for the COVID protein instead of whatever they were using before (a lot of them are targeting cancers in ways I don’t fully understand).
If you’re (generic you) are nervous about that for some reason, then the J&J vaccine uses a different technique that’s even older. And the NovaVax uses the actual protein, not the mRNA so that’s a 3rd totally different technique that has been around for a really long time and is used in a lot of different vaccines including Hep B.
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Thanks. He chose not to believe me when I told him it was not new. He did say his preference is J&J because it’s one shot, not because it’s older which I’m sure he doesn’t know. Not my job to convince him anyway.
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The vaccine trials in children are not actually efficacy trials, requiring 30,000-45,000 participants to show statistical difference between placebo & vaccine groups. The trials in kids, I believe, are enrolling only a few thousand & mostly looking at immune response and safety profile. That there were NO cases of covid in the vaccine group of the Pfizer trial in 12-15yo is a good thing, but the trial isn’t actually designed or powered to prove efficacy, hence the 100% efficacy thing being in quotes. Vaccine manufacturers will also be applying for an extension of the original EUA to cover kids rather than a new EUA altogether.
I think that in the 5-11yo group, they’re also looking at different doses of the vaccine, so it’ll probably happen in 2 phases: inoculating a smaller group of kids to figure out the optimal dose, and then a larger group of several thousand kids. Vaccines for the 12-15yo group will in all likelihood be available for the 2021-2022 school year, but for the 5-11yo group, I’m still thinking the very earliest is probably Sept-Oct.
In other positive news, looks like the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is effective for at least 6 months and likely longer. Also initial signal that it’s effective against the B.1.351 variant in South Africa:
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There is now a walk in clinic doing vaccines here! A coworker got hers there today and said it only took about a half hour from start to finish!
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That’s less than my first scheduled dose took! That whole process took me nearly an hour by the time my 15 min wait was done 
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Ah, whoops, thanks for clearing that up!
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My first dose was like an hour and a half. Apparently I was very unlucky the day I was there because they had some computer issues.
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The clinic had only just started running large numbers for HCPs, the second dose went way more smoothly. I think they were still trying to get their process sorted probably for me
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It depends which vaccine you are talking about.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are the first successful mRNA vaccines to be on the market. But that doesn’t make the technology new.
J&J does not use an mRNA model. I don’t know much about theirs, but it uses more traditional vaccine research.
But I believe all of them started with research that began with the SARS outbreaks.
One risk management thought: the risks and prevalence of vaccine injury are less than the risks and the prevalence of the disease.
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So I’ve um got an appointment for the J&J vaccine on Tuesday. 
happy tears of course.
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Scheduled my wife for an appointment next week! Feeling like the beginning of the end.
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My parents both go Monday!
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