1 in every 1,000 Americans have died in the past year due to the coronavirus. That milestone happened awhile ago now, but thought I would mention it. That's out of the total population, not just the people who got the coronavirus.
I was waiting to see how more of the people in my family were doing in Tennessee to post more. A lot of people in my family have had it there. In another branch of my family tree, who are family I know, in a small gathering of 10 people on Christmas people from four generations now have the virus. Luckily in that branch and in my branch of the family tree, cases haven't been serious, even among someone in their 90's. So far, they have been lucky.
Vaccine, while very hard to get in most cases, is available for older people, with the minimum age requirement dependent on where you live. Last week I called a thousand times to try to get my dad an appointment. Their website was overwhelmed here in Hillsborough County. It also had a bug I found where when people tried to view the calendar to select an appointment it requested a page exponentially. (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc) Press the button to load it too many times and it would be trying to load it tens of thousands of times. They dropped that website and got a new website this week and it had its own problems, but I was actually able to get my dad an appointment after 3 or 4 tries. You had to redo steps each time, sign something and answer a questionnaire again each time it failed. After 8 minutes of trying, it worked for me. A neighbor tried too but they couldn't get it to work for them. My dad has an appointment for Thursday and an appointment on February 4th for the second dose. I guess the Pfizer vaccine based on the timing.
In Tennessee, for the people in my family that haven't gotten the virus yet, but are old enough, I have some of them wait listed since that is an option in the two counties where most of my family live. (got my 98 year old grandmother on the list) It's a wait list to be able to make an appointment. Not sure how it will actually work to make an appointment. Then family there will have to get her to the fire station that distributes the vaccine, but have to get the 1st appointment first.
If you are 75, or maybe 65, years of age or older, depending on where you live, it's worth trying to go ahead and make attempts at getting it. (and in some cases depending on your profession or your health) I did the research and was able to make some progress for people that didn't know if, or how, they could possibly get it. It's probably a nightmare everywhere. In one state, Alabama, there seems to be one phone number for the entire state. They had hundreds of thousands of people call in the first few hours that the phone line was open.
This should have been done better most everywhere. It's ridiculous there wasn't better planning. Have a system where people signup. Randomly select people in the highest age group. 90+, 85+, 80+ and on down. This trying to signup all at once online or by phone is ridiculous. At least part of the registration now here in Hillsborough County involved signing up for an account and filling out a lot of stuff in advance. (though they asked more before you tried to make the appointment and you had to keep redoing that part due to errors)
It'll be a long time before everyone who wants the vaccine will be able to get it. I still assume that it will be the summer before I'm eligible, if not the end of summer. Of course I'll be wearing a mask until 2022 at least when I go out, even if vaccinated. (I won't be going out much.) It's not 100% with the vaccine, but it helps a lot. Herd immunity worldwide won't happen this year, but hopefully by next winter we'll see a lot of progress here in the U.S. |