A better sign-up system might ease the pain of waiting for that 1st COVID-19 vaccination

It’s great to hear that the COVID vaccination clinics are working so smoothly. That gives one a sense that things will get better. Getting an appointment for that first shot, however, can be hellish.

The Lord Fairfax Health District decided early on not to use a pre-registration system, opting to wait for a Virginia-wide system. That Virginia-wide system has yet to be deployed. In fact, no one, from people at the Virginia Department of Health hotline to our elected state representatives know when or indeed, if, that will happen. In the meantime, here in the LFHD, we are left with the Valley Health 12 noon auction. I previously described it as a lottery and that was incorrect. It is more like an eBay auction for a very coveted item or trying to get tickets for a Rolling Stones or Garth Brooks concert.

As anyone who has tried to use that system knows, it is frustrating at best. Slots fill up in minutes if you are even able to get to the registration page. Many times there is such a load on the Valley Health system that one cannot even get to the first page. And in many cases, you go through this only to find out later there were no slots available anyway. (There are open clinics, which are great if you can get to them.)

To make matters worse, many, if not most of the other Health Districts in Virginia have implemented their own pre-registration systems, choosing not to wait for the state-wide one. I wonder, what did they know that our own district did not? In the pre-registration systems, you go online once whenever you want to put in your information. When vaccines are available people are contacted to make an appointment. I’m sure there are issues with those systems as well, but they cannot be as anxiety-provoking as the one we have to deal with. – When do we admit our error and deal with that?

When I brought this up with various officials, part of their argument was that it was largely due to vaccine shortage. I don’t see how the lack of vaccines has much to do with how one ultimately gets an appointment. It has bearing on when you can get an appointment depending on vaccine availability, but if you know you are on a waitlist then you don’t have to devote your day to web surfing, calling over-burdened phone numbers, and just plain worrying. Not to mention bothering health officials over and over again.

To add insult to injury #1 – The LFHD published the information about CVS offering COVID vaccinations at selected locations a day after registration was opened. All appointments were of course already filled.

To add insult to injury #2 – The CVS site said that to be eligible for a vaccination you had to be 65 or older AND on a waitlist for your particular health district. If your health district does not keep a waitlist as ours does not, then what?

I hope something can be done about this situation. At this time states and localities don’t have much control over vaccine distribution, but they can do something to make the sign-up easier and more equitable.

Vicki Althaus
Front Royal, Virginia