Getting the Covid 19 vaccine in Tucson: a true story

Like millions of other people in a high risk category, I was eager to get the Covid 19 vaccine after 11 months of isolation in Tucson. So in mid-January I signed up online at the state of Arizona Health Dept. website. Thinking I’d better cover all my bases, a few days later I signed up at the Pima County Health Dept. website. Then at a local hospital which is about 6 blocks from me.

At each site the page where I filled in all my info had a section telling me that I would get an email to set an appointment within 7 days. 7 days came. And went. No email showed up in my inbox from any of these sites.

I checked again at the Arizona website, which turned out to be primarily for Phoenix where there are two 24/7 mega vaccination sites. Then I saw it: an open appointment at 5:30 p.m.–but it was almost 5 p.m. and Phoenix is a 2 hour drive from Tucson. That flush of excitement became annoyance followed by the realization that the state site was going to be useless for me. (Phoenix, BTW, is not only the largest city in Arizona, it’s the 5th largest city in the U.S.!)

Is it a conspiracy?

“I know there are people in my category getting vaccinated,” I thought. “They show them on the local news every night. Sitting right there in their cars in a parking lot here in Tucson, getting shots. There’s gotta be some secret to all this.” Paranoia was creeping in as I speculated that maybe those people on TV had better connections or an in with a doctor or something. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to embrace some crazy Bill-Gates-type conspiracy theory, but I can’t deny I was becoming a bit suspicious.

So abandoning the internet, I called the Pima County Health Dept. and the phone was answered on the first ring by a real human being! That’s where the good news ended. A very nice lady told me that they were “backed up a bit” and said that it would be 4 or 5 weeks before I would be contacted to set an appointment.

Ignoring the rules

Undeterred, I went back to the Pima County site where a big blazing red box told me not to sign up again. Scofflaw that I had become, I signed up again using a different email address. Another 7 days passed and nothing.

Meanwhile I heard from my sister who lives in Wyoming. She got vaccinated and told me it was easy to get an appointment in Casper. It is the land of Anti-Vaxxers who never wear masks. It’s been very scary for her up there. Tucson, on the other hand, is not the land of Anti-Vaxxers and everyone wears masks and social distancing is observed. I told her about the 4 to 5 weeks wait and that I had given up.

Eureka! An email with choices

Then this last Friday evening there it was: the email for me to set an appointment to get the Covid 19 vaccine! I clicked through and had a choice.

Did I want a drive-thru appointment at a Medical Center or a walk-in appointment at the Tucson Convention Center? I picked wrong, selecting the drive-thru option where the first appointment would be in April! Quickly cancelling that appointment I opted for TCC where 3 days later I could get vaccinated.

So I got my first Moderna shot yesterday, Monday, February 8th, 2021 at 8:35 a.m. (And have had no after effects so far, except a bit of tenderness at the injection site on my arm.)

Was it my persistence that got me this appointment? Or my scofflaw attitude? Or just luck? I now know that I am one of the fewer than 10% of Arizonans who have been vaccinated!

Then I learned last evening that the State of Arizona is setting up a 24/7 vaccination site soon here in Pima County. They claim they’ll be able to vaccinate 8,000 people a day, which is more than twice the number getting vaccinated here now. Things are definitely looking up.

Oh, the photo at the top was taken in the “waiting room” where all people who had just received the vaccine were required to wait for 15 minutes to make sure they did not have an adverse reaction.

I would love to welcome you as a new subscriber to I Saw It In Tucson. Sign up for this free blog before you leave the site today. (And tell a friend about it!)

Take good care of yourself and keep at least one mask in your car so you will always be able to put it on when you are around other people.