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How to get a Covid-19 shot earlier than you would otherwise

Find somebody over 75 and take them to get a shot and you can get one, too.

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This only works as long as there are people in the eligible age group who need to be vaccinated. And if this accelerates the pace of getting them, and some others, vaccinated, then it has resulted in reaching the goal sooner. This could end up being one of the better changes they've made to this flawed process.

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Does this only work at the designated sites or does it work if the person 75 or older is getting their shot at a hospital? My relative is getting hers at Tufts where she an outpatient and I was planning to take her anyway.

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The administration also announced that individuals who accompany someone age 75 or older to get a vaccine at a mass vaccination site may also schedule and receive their own vaccination on the same day.

emphasis mine

https://www.mass.gov/news/baker-polito-administration-announces-two-mass...

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My next door neighbor is taking our 83-year-old neighbor who lives across the street for her appt next week. She helped her schedule the appointment 2 weeks ago using the MA Covid vaccine website. She called today and was told they are a private agency so this doesn't apply to them.

So, apparently, the caregiver vaccine is not applicable at every location.

The funny thing is that of the five 75+ seniors who I helped to get appointments, only one of them was willing to change their location to take advantage of this change and help out someone else.

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There is a new option at the mass vaccination sites. To encourage eligible individuals age 75+ to visit the large mass vaccination sites, they may bring with them a caregiver, neighbor or family member who can also receive the vaccine. An appointment for each person is required, and may be scheduled for the same or adjacent times. For those who have trouble accessing the online appointment system, the 2-1-1 call center is available to assist for both the caregiver and the 75+ individual appointments.

This offer is good for
Natick
Dartmouth
Fenway Park
Foxborough
Springfield
Danvers

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I'm going to stand outside the old folks' home with a sign that says "I need a miracle"

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Someone is going to ask you to listen to the Dead in the car on the way to get the shot.

I'd rather wait until its my turn to be honest.

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"... if you haven't figured it out yet, we're *never* giving up control of the playlist."
--- grandpa

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"Then drive yourself Pops."
- Sonny

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From what my relative told me, everyone at her vaccination time earlier this week had someone with them. Frustrating that my 72 old mom taking chemo meds who brought her there Monday could not also be vaccinated. I think it is a great move, but with around half of 75+ vaccinated already, it's pretty frustrating.

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If your mother is on chemo meds she should speak to her prescribing physician about whether that conflicts with getting vaccinated first.

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I have asked her to check in with her PC previously, so we will firm that up.

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I agree with you Esperanza - brought my elderly relative to get her first dose on Sunday (in the middle of the snowstorm!). I wish this had been in place so I could have received a shot then too. We have out-of-state friends who told us to ask if we could be given the shot when we brought our elder in - of course, that wasn't allowed when I made the initial appointment. Other states implemented this rule from the beginning....I send 12+ hours a day with this person and would have loved to have the protection of the vaccine too!

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You can schedule your first dose to be when you bring her for her second.

I took my father to be vaccinated today. They weren't able to vaccinate me because I needed my own appointment and none were left when the announcement was made but this is how they told me to handle it.

The state announced this without giving sites time to plan or getting their own website ready reserve spots.

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I'm worried about some older people getting dozens of shots within a very short period of time.

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2 shots a few weeks apart, not dozens.

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I think they were making a bad joke about the same elderly people being brought by different young people to get vaccinated over and over.

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Now has a new meaning.

As noted, this is for Fenway, Gillette, etc. - not for Ye Olde Local Vaccination Clinic.

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I can think of a dozen ways the elderly will be taken advantage of and this new policy abused.

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One barrier to reaching the 75+ population: transportation
Another barrier: needing someone to walk in with them
Another barrier: a lot of vaccine ends up at mass vaccination sites because they have the facilities to store it longer and go through enough for the 975+ minimum shipments of Pfizer, but see barrier #1

Solution: vaccinate the people driving them to the big sites. Makes it easier to find a ride. Makes it easier to get them into the door with assistance, and the big sites have enough vaccine to do it.

You can think of a dozen ways to abuse the policy, sure. But the barriers for older adults using these sites are slowing up the entire process of vaccinating everyone. There is a certain cost-benefit analysis here that favors doing this.

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You can think of a dozen ways to abuse the policy, sure. But the barriers for older adults using these sites are slowing up the entire process of vaccinating everyone. There is a certain cost-benefit analysis here that favors doing this.

Exactly. The goal should be on vaccinating as many people as possible as soon as possible, of course triaging by those who need it the most, but if this helps more people get it, the better for all of us. Now, if they had only announced this last week, I might've scrambled up to a certain northwest suburb to drive my 78 and 79 year old parents to their first vaccination appointment today. (that's mostly tongue-in-cheek, their appointments were at Lahey Hospital and I would not be eligible under this policy, and, as far as I know, I'm not in a higher risk category anyhow. I'm more than happy to wait my turn if it means those who need it more get it first.)

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I can think of a dozen ways the elderly will be taken advantage of and this new policy abused.

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I honestly can't think of any way this will be abused.

Some young and healthy people might end up getting shots now as opposed to April but I hardly see that as abuse. Everyone is going to need to be vaccinated. It's not as if it's "wasted" on them.

And the only way someone under 75 will get the shot is if they show up with someone 75+. So if this gets more elderly vaccinated, that's a net win.

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Some people get welfare who aren't poor. Some companies got PPP money they didn't deserve.

Every government program is going to attract scammers. But if the program helps a majority of needy people, it's worth it.

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It's impossible to make a system so air-tight that assholes won't take advantage. I know (and don't like) two healthy 30 somethings who strolled into a vaccine site with lies about working in medical and are now vaccinated. Scummy people are going to scum, the important thing is policies shouldn't let that 5% abuse possibility stop implementation for the 95% of people it will help.

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...if our state weren't laughably far behind on its rollout, if many people who are vulnerable or facing exposure (teachers, grocery workers, transit workers, people with comorbidities, anyone under the age of 65 who's not a cop or a firefighter) wasn't seeing themselves moved further down the line by this action.

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otherwise you're violating the honor system.

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What if their barrier isn't transportation, but rather hesitancy? What if having a younger family member willing to go with them and receive the same shot is what gets them to show up?

If we're going to (foolishly) wait until we think we've vaccinated all of the 75+ year olds before we start moving onto the next sub-phase, we better find ways to get there rest of the 75+ crowd to get vaccinated or we will still be in Phase 2 Step 1 next year!

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This also goes for that 70 year old friend or spouse driving the 75+ person ... easier to do it together.

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The druplicator is running on high today

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At least in my book.:-)

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Let’s match up these groups!!

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Given that the end goal is to get everybody vaccinated, maybe a little more emphasis on getting shots into arms and a little less obsession with whether any given person is in group 2.b.(3) subpart 2 rather than 2.b(3) subpart 1, and therefore getting his shot 6 days earlier than he would be entitled to it, might be in order? I'm not suggesting free-for-all or rewarding line jumpers, but the objective is to get as many shots done as quickly as possible.

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The problem is still supply - and the solution to that problem is at hand.

And when the problem is supply, you simply cannot just say "hey everyone line up", because those most likely to catch and spread disease due to high exposure, and those most likely to die or be hospitalized will be pushed out by people without such needs.

Things are speeding up. Its only February and the real grownups have only been running the response and thwacking the supply chain for three weeks.

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The problem is not the feds-47 other states have figured out how to do this better than Massachusetts.

That's an embarrassment.

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The dilemma is either (a) drop the excessive bureaucracy to have as many people vaccinated as possible, but run out of the vaccine at a much faster clip, or (b) put extreme controls on who gets the vaccine to prevent line-jumpers, which saves the number of vaccines but increases the risk of wasting unused doses.

It'll be a moot point once millions more doses arrive, but better to do (a) and run the risk of running out than (b) and lose critical doses that could help others.

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Won't this encourage young people who should NOT be seeing their older loved ones in person to tag along with them and put them at risk, especially since it takes 2 shots plus 2 weeks to have full immunity?

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The people who have been taking them to their appointments, and/or the spouses and adult children they live with who are younger will get their vaccines at the same time.

I know a lot of elders who are eligible for vaccine who have not yet gotten theirs because their spouse isn't eligible yet. This way, the older spouse doesn't wait and the household gets their shots.

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That's a possibility, and even more reason to continue to maintain your own personal safety at all times.

But for those who transportation is a barrier to them getting vaccinated, their only other choice would be transportation by someone else, including complete strangers from a taxi, livery or ride share service.

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elderly person going to get the vaccine so they can be vaccinated and they can OPEN THE SCHOOLS ALREADY!!!!!

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Is I was easily able to register for a vaccine by going to a central state website, entering my age, location, and a couple other questions, and the site gave me an approximate date when my vaccine would be ready and said they'd contact me a few days in advance

....is what I would be typing in a parallel universe where we weren't making up every bit of this as we went along

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The Boston VA is offering clinics for Veterans 55+ to be vaccinated Thurs/Fri/Sat of this week.

https://m.facebook.com/pg/VABoston/posts/#!/VABoston/photos/a.1015010048...

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I don't recall seeing "75+ unless you're a veteran in which case it's 55+" on the state website.

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Methinks the Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not have much jurisdiction over a federal healthcare system...

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VA distribution is ahead of and independent of state distribution. Hopefully folks eligible to get vaccine through VA will do so - one community impact is that it opens up spots in vaccine clinics for non-Veterans. Additionally, VA is contributing to overall herd immunity in this way. The sooner everyone who wants vaccine is vaccinated, the better!

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VA also vaccinated all their employees, which is a LOT of people now walking around with lower risk factors. If they continue at their current pace they should be able to open it to all ages veterans soon which will help with the crunch as other groups open. Hopefully they'll find a way to vaccinate CHAMPVA/TRICARE and other dependents as well.

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...that's where those doses disappeared to.

(my state senator was talking about a federal allocation of doses that "came to Massachusetts" but vanished into the black hole of the "federal system" with no information about how they'd been used)

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There are people out there who use their elders to get subsidized housing and free parking (handicapped placard). Why won't they use them to get vaccines (again and again)?

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Had my mother in law signed up for a shot at Fenway a few weeks ago and then she changed to a local pharmacy, I was so close!

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.... listings of people and services willing to pay seniors to pose as a caretaker and take them to a mass vaccination site so they can get the vaccine.

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Lots of offers for free rides being posted online, with many now including payment up to $250. Any seniors out there willing to make some extra money? You can also schedule an appointment even if you have already been vaccinated (just tell them when you arrive and they will cancel on the spot but allow your escort to still get the shot).

Baker messed up the vaccine rollout so now we have people openly buying/selling access to the vaccine online.

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