Getting My Rona Vaccine. Essex County

I registered and received an email confirming my appointment . The email came a few days after I registered. 

My wife registered after me (she couldn't register when I did because she is having a colonoscopy) and this is the message that she gets when she tries to register again (I did this as a way of checking that she is registered)

"Based on our records, [email address] has already submitted a survey. Vaccination eligibility is based on the guidelines set forth by the NJ Department of Health. We will contact you via email when your appointment is scheduled. Please be advised that the appointment you receive may not be on the date you requested due to availability. Thank you in advance for your patience."

So, she is over 65 (the eligibility part) and if the vaccine is available, she'll get the shot on the day she requested. 

Although I originally was a little concerned that I didn't immediately receive an email confirming my appointment, I think that Essex Co.is doing an excellent job. It was a little difficult getting an appointment for my wife (very similar to trying to get a delivery time from Amazon Fresh in the early days of the pandemic, as Joan Crystal said) but it worked out. My wife's sister lives in Morris Co. and she could sign up but wasn't able to pick a date - they'll let her know. 

My wife just received a text from her best friend, who lives at the shore, that she has COVID. We're trying to figure out how she got it because she lives alone and hasn't gone out for 10 months. Be careful. 

eta - I just recently started going into Shoprite - I had been ordering online and picking it up. I think I'll stop going in the store until I get my two shots. 

I am sure the volunteers who are doing the actual clinic are doing more than asked of them.  I have zero issues with them.

My complaints are that the system to sign up is a mess.  First week or two, you need to work out bugs, but fixing those bugs should have been  a priority from day one.  They’re a month into the drive, and a month into using what small amount of vaccine they have been allotted, and they’re still working on a way for certain groups to be able to sign up.  That county officials forgot that there are residents in Essex County who don’t have email or smart phones is astounding, especially considering that Newark still uses sirens for snow days for that very reason.  I remember that because people on MOL were complaining a few years ago about having to hear them and wondered why Newark didn’t use phone messages like SOMSD did. I can understand upper middle class residents not realizing these citizens exist, but for politicians who are supposedly working for their benefit, it’s disgraceful.

As far as Joey D showing up, he’ll show up for anything if there is even a chance he’ll get a photo op out of it. Plus he knows he gets to show his face to new voters every day.  Don’t kid yourself, Joey D is, and has always been, about Joey D.

lynnl199 said:

I personally think the thread title for this thread is unfair. 

 If the title was unfair, there wouldn't be the number of people posting about their confusion regarding getting their vaccine.

cramer said:

My wife just received a text from her best friend, who lives at the shore, that she has COVID. We're trying to figure out how she got it because she lives alone and hasn't gone out for 10 months. Be careful. 

eta - I just recently started going into Shoprite - I had been ordering online and picking it up. I think I'll stop going in the store until I get my two shots. 

 I hope she's ok. Who came inot her home?

I just want to say that I've had no luck in getting an appointment. And the various websites I go to suckity suck. 

Not positive if this is the reason - but some hosting services limit their outbound email from domain to a certain # per hour.  So, perhaps this is why some emails arrived really late, and hopefully they're using an alternate service if this was the problem.

I like that Joe D has been providing phone messages on a fairly regular basis.

here's an alternate view on the sh!tshow

Overall, the County is doing far better than many other counties and states.  However, there are parts of the process that can be improved:

1) when you go to register online, you have to answer a bunch of questions before even seeing if a date is available.  This is time consuming and wasteful.  If no dates are available, you should be prompted to come back later. 

2) when you submit a request for an appointment, you receive a text like the picture below which includes a link to the Essex Covid site. Many people are clicking on that link and making another (and another) appointment. They should get rid of the link, so people don’t make duplicate/redundant appointments. 

3) when you make an appointment, it takes a while to get a confirmation of the date and a time. This leads to confusion and calls to the call center. This process should be streamlined.  

4) they should open up the portal for people to view/confirm their appointment to minimize confusion and phone calls to the call center. 

Just my 2 cents.  

I don't seem to ever get to a point where I can enter my phone number so that I can get a text.

What am I doing wrong?

joan_crystal said:

spontaneous said:

Email addresses cannot be reused, leading to some more vulnerable portions of the population being unable to get an appointment.
 

 I have been told that the County is working to correct this.

It is also extremely easy to set up a second address if you use gmail, and then to forward it to your main address, if the alternate methods aren't working yet.

sbenois said:

A phone bank has been set up to handle people who do not have email addresses.  Family members or caretakers can call to make appointments.

 Phone number please.  I would like to share this information with two caregivers groups.

susan1014 said:

It is also extremely easy to set up a second address if you use gmail, and then to forward it to your main address, if the alternate methods aren't working yet.

For gmail users, yes.  Other email providers may not have the option of creating multiple email addresses.  If someone has two or more email addresses, each with a different provider, they can use the second email address to register a friend or relative who does not use email.  They can then manually forward the replies from the second email address to their primary email address.

And I got a text with an appointment time for a test instead of a vaccine. And yes, I know that you can register for both at Essex covid but I didn’t and still don’t care about a test since they don’t work as any kind of way to protect me, and I don’t go out around others at all so I don’t expose them.  So that’s another problem with the “team reviewing my submission” as michaelgoldberg quotes above. Apparently the team wants me to go take a useless test.  

I registered 3 weeks ago and am a 1B so I’m frustrated with answering all of the questions again and again simply to be met with the no appointments available. And now I get an appointment for a test I don’t care about. And someone else will miss a chance to take a test they want. At least the tests don’t need to be kept at subzero degrees.

Pangur1 said:

And I got a text with an appointment time for a test instead of a vaccine. And yes, I know that you can register for both at Essex covid but I didn’t and still don’t care about a test since they don’t work as any kind of way to protect me, and I don’t go out around others at all so I don’t expose them.  So that’s another problem with the “team reviewing my submission” as michaelgoldberg quotes above. Apparently the team wants me to go take a useless test.  

I registered 3 weeks ago and am a 1B so I’m frustrated with answering all of the questions again and again simply to be met with the no appointments available. And now I get an appointment for a test I don’t care about. And someone else will miss a chance to take a test they want. At least the tests don’t need to be kept at subzero degrees.

 You probably selected the wrong button (Very easy to do the way the page is laid out) and accidentally requested a test rather than a vaccine.  The same thing happened to me.  I did not submit when I noticed that the appointment was to be a parking garage in Newark instead of Sears.  By the time I realized my mistake, all the vaccine appointments were taken.

The Star-Ledger reported this morning that NJ will get only 100,000 doses per week this month.  So, lack of vaccine is the primary bottleneck. 

Trying to emphasize bright spots.  The daily new case totals have been dropping pretty much everywhere including NJ.  In NJ, there were about 7800 new cases on January 13 and only about 3800 yesterday. Even in places that are supposed to be the hot spots of new more infectious variations, daily cases are down significantly.   The UK went from 68,000 on Jan 8 to 37,000 yesterday.  South Africa went from 18,000 on Jan 13 to 9000 yesterday.  California went from 50,000 on Jan 8 to 25,000 yesterday. 

In the article posted above they said that extra doses at the end of the day are sent to the local prison to be used there so shots aren’t wasted.

I’m confused, prisons and jails are 1a.  You have a large population that is confined in a small space and social distancing is impossible, so making them 1a makes sense.  Why are they getting leftovers from 1b?  They should have been prioritized from the get go.

Wifey and I have an appointment on Friday after registering yesterday--confirmed via text that we they were reviewing our information, followed by a text today to confirm our appointment.

It took a few times for a location (Sears/Livingston Mall) to become available (the drop-down menu for location is blank otherwise) to become active, and when it was, several dates in January and February were offered).

Pretty easy to register, dreading the actual process on Friday but will report back.

You will be in and out in 30 minutes.

joan_crystal said:

sbenois said:

A phone bank has been set up to handle people who do not have email addresses.  Family members or caretakers can call to make appointments.

 Phone number please.  I would like to share this information with two caregivers groups.

 tel:855 568 0545

You can check in advance of registration to see if there are slots available here: 

https://www.essexcovid.org/vaccine/vaccine_availability

sbenois said:

You will be in and out in 30 minutes.

 That was my experience at Sears.

so now i am getting nervous.  Do you think if the system allowed me to select a date and then sent me the follow up email saying they were reviewing my request, that i will get the vaccine? I selected 2/5 for both of us and there were 200 or so available then.  But now i am seeing none at sears for that date?  just don;t want to get delayed.  We fit the criteria -- 72 and 66 with an issue.

EdwardAlbert said:

so now i am getting nervous.  Do you think if the system allowed me to select a date and then sent me the follow up email saying they were reviewing my request, that i will get the vaccine? I selected 2/5 for both of us and there were 200 or so available then.  But now i am seeing none at sears for that date?  just don;t want to get delayed.  We fit the criteria -- 72 and 66 with an issue.

 Whether or not you receive a follow-up, just show up at Sears on Feb. 5th.  

My vaccination request was approved for Dec. 30th. at 11:am., along with the same "we are reviewing" and "you will receive a text message".  The follow-up message never came. By Dec. 28, I was nervous so I drove my **** up to Sears and was told to just show up on the 30th.

I did and it went smoothly.

The follow-up text, telling me to show up on December 30th, was sent on January 6th. 

I hope this helps.

If you show up at Sears on  a date you selected - but it was not yet confirmed - you will not get the vaccine that day.  You must have a confirmed appointment.  

EdwardAlbert said:

so now i am getting nervous.  Do you think if the system allowed me to select a date and then sent me the follow up email saying they were reviewing my request, that i will get the vaccine? I selected 2/5 for both of us and there were 200 or so available then.  But now i am seeing none at sears for that date?  just don;t want to get delayed.  We fit the criteria -- 72 and 66 with an issue.

 Don't be nervous.  Just wait.  It's likely those appointments are now down to zero because they are going through the applications to allocate the exact times on that date.    As long as there was nothing wrong in your request, you will likely get that date or one very close to it.

sbenois said:

If you show up at Sears on  a date you selected - but it was not yet confirmed - you will not get the vaccine that day.  You must have a confirmed appointment.  

 JerseyJack received his confirmation a full week after the date, he has screen shots that clearly show this.  He received his vaccination on the date he originally selected.  Luckily he did not wait for his confirmation otherwise he would have missed his appointment AND a scheduled slot for that day would have been wasted.

Check your junk/spam folders for the email that includes a QR code that you need to print out and bring with you to the appointment.  Both wifey and me had that confirmation email land in our Junk folders.

bak said:

Check your junk/spam folders for the email that includes a QR code that you need to print out and bring with you to the appointment.  Both wifey and me had that confirmation email land in our Junk folders.

 What do you do if you lack a device that reads QR codes?