Hopefully, you have signed up for the vaccine. I am qualified for the 1B tier vaccine list. However, I must say, finding a waitlist was not easy. My particular county has nothing out there in an organized way to get you to a waitlist signup site. I contacted my Health Dept/Homeland Security website and emailed the question, where can I sign up? Their response was not what I wanted, which was, there was nothing like that for our County. He only redirected me to the CDC website that then lets you drill down to “hubs” in your area, and then you tediously are clicking on those to find out if there is a waitlist. It appears everyone is doing their own thing. This is a “Worldwide Pandemic” and there is no County protocol on getting people on a list? If there isn’t a guideline, and if I were sitting in an office that had responsibility for that information, I would be searching it out myself and making sure it got done as a one-click sign up. Not hard, not difficult, and needs to be done.

Interestingly, I searched the next county over from me and found a very complete, easy to understand, and quick to locate, waitlist information on their website. Thank you Collin County, Texas. I signed up there, got an immediate automatic call to my phone with a recorded message that I was confirmed as registered and it listed my number in line (177,780).

Now, why wouldn’t every single County do the same thing? How hard can that be? How much easier does it make it for us needing a vaccine? I am completely puzzled by this haphazard approach to getting a vaccination.

I also read at the Collin County site that everyone should be registering in multiple places, within an easy to drive distance, because once your name comes to the top of the list, that is only for a phone call from them to schedule an appointment for the vaccination. I have no idea how far out the appointments would go, it would depend on the quantity of vaccine that particular “hub” or location has received. So you see, one location may not have received many vaccines, and another location may have received more, so your chances of moving to the top of the list may be greater in one spot than another. Register in more than one location. AND, you don’t have to live within that county to get a vaccine in that county. Search your surrounding counties and sign up in those at as many locations in that county that are easy for you to drive to for a vaccine (any medical facility, including hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, fire departments, etc.).

I also searched my local hospital and found they had a vaccine sign up/waitlist, so I registered there also. I also searched the local pharmacy I use and found they had vaccine sign up/waitlist, so I registered there. Now why did my local Health Dept/Homeland Security contact person not know that and was not informed to give me that information? I emailed him back and gave him that information and said he might want to add that to his website. They need to be more proactive, on their own, so the public knows how to get this done quickly. I will be searching other nearby hospitals and pharmacies and sign up at those also.

So if you haven’t, go the website of your local Health Dept. or City government, and the CDC website, and any hospitals and pharmacies (including those in a CVS or Walgreen’s or grocery store) and get registered in them all. Do that now. You will be sorted into the correct vaccine tier based upon your answers to a very short informational survey.

Search any easy-for-you-to-drive-to medical facility, including hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, fire departments, etc. You don’t have to live in that county. Do it now, and wait for that call for an appointment to get vaccinated.