How 15 California residents snagged vaccine appointments - SF Gate

Derenik Gharibian, Area Pharmacy Drector from Kaiser Permanente, fills a syringe with the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in preparation for vaccinations on the opening day of a large-scale Covid-19 vaccination site at a parking structure at Cal Poly Pomona University in Pomona, California on February 5, 2021.

California is expanding vaccine eligibility to all residents 16 and over beginning April 15, and hundreds of thousands of people will be scrambling to find appointments.

While health care providers, pharmacies and counties are continually opening appointments daily, they go fast.

One is that some people just get lucky and happen to be at the right place at the right time or log onto a vaccine site when an onslaught of appointments suddenly becomes available.

An even bigger trend we noticed is that finding an appointment online can take time, days even hours.

Many readers told us the website VaccinateCA, run by a group of volunteers who call hospitals and pharmacies for vaccine availability, is a great resource for finding appointments.

"On Wednesday, March 17, my former colleague of Livermore texted me that there were vaccine appointments available at the CVS located in Hanford.

CVS also automatically scheduled the 2nd appointments exactly three weeks from the first appointment.

"I noticed in the paper that Contra Costa County was opening vaccine sign-ups to anyone over 50 that lived or worked in the county.

 I chose a few locations near my workplace and scheduled an appointment at one of them.

 While waiting during the observation period, I received a text with my second appointment, scheduled for April 26th." — David Taylor.

However, I kept scrolling down the site and San Francisco State University came up and they had appointments for the vaccine for my husband (55) and me (59).

Honestly, I felt kind of guilty because I keep hearing that people are having trouble getting appointments and we got in right away." — Mallory Graf.

this morning (not 2 a.m., not 3:17 a.m., but in the middle of the freakin' morning), I optimistically searched for 'COVID vaccine santa clara county' using 'the search engine whose name we dare not speak,' and managed to score appointments for my wife and me (we're just now just now eligible) that are — get this — at the same place, close to our home, and at 'back-to-back' convenient time slots.

appointment on Sunday, April 4, at the Oakland BART Coliseum site.

 When I looked for an appointment I scrolled all the way to September and nothing was available.

I was then able to schedule two appointments for the next day." — Sylvia Hays.

I jumped on that and booked my appointment for this Sunday through MyTurn.CA.gov." — Denise Iwamoto.

About a week before my scheduled appointment, the county backtracked to 75-plus but honored appointments already made.

The county was very organized and getting an appointment online was easy.

It's now reported that Contra Costa County has surplus vaccine.

I sent on my Kaiser Permanente account and tried to book an appointment.

As of right now, there are still appointments available.

It's word of mouth and lots of luck to secure a vaccination appointment." — Dana Hom.

I was not looking to book an appointment as I was not 65 or older, so their call caught me by surprise.

Sometimes the easiest solution isn't the most obvious one — clicking around for hours allows you to book an appointment from your couch, but just showing up guarantees you a spot in the line.

I am fortunate to have many resources including the Veterans Affairs to help me in my search for scheduling a COVID-19 vaccination appointment

But the catch was they were nowhere close to home, and also sort of an inconvenience with most social family holiday gatherings because our appointments are scheduled for this Sunday, on Easter, all the way in Stockton." — Matt Katovich