Wow, where are you, if you don’t mind saying?
Here in Maine, I checked and saw a plethora of open appointments for boosters when there were still some conditions. As soon as the state lifted those conditions (we didn’t meet any of them), we went back on to schedule and the slots had quite obviously filled up a lot. But not too much. I found it quite heartening, really.
Our first jabs, we had to drive about an hour away but these are right up the street.
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We’re in the Rochester, New York area. My wife has had similar problems scheduling an appointment. IIRC, there was about a three-week delay when I scheduled my first dose.
My wife owns a small gift store, and has ongoing issues with non-maskers. She was talking with a (vaccinated and masked) customer visiting town from Arkansas yesterday, and described her frustration at not being able to get an appointment scheduled; the customer was surprised, because her experience back home were that so few people were getting vaccinated that you could just walk in off the street and get it - no appointment necessary.
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Digital proof of vaccination? That’s gonna be a problem. 
Just when I thought providing Zoom tech support to seniors in my family were some of the most stressful at-home experiences during the pandemic, now this. Ok, does AARP have a list of inexpensive, easy-to-use smartphones with very large buttons? Asking for a friend… 
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Also…what about folks crossing borders who don’t wish to keep their phones on or expose private data? Snooping technology is real, and being used.
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I don’t know how they’re planning to do it in your part of the world, but here in Melbourne Australia, the Federal records certify our vaccination status, and there’s a function to export that cert to not only things like Google Pay, but to the State-based check in apps, so when I check in it also shows a “hologram” (the app hooks into the motion sensor and shows a background that shimmers and changes colour when you move the phone.)
But not everyone has phones which can do all this, and the first wave went through the elderly, so there’s also the possibility of printing out your cert, and that printed cert has a QR code which goes back to the government system and verifies that the document is correct.
That’s a more interesting problem, and the QR coded paper certs are probably the best bet there too. At least it doesn’t require your phone to be on to be useful.
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I’m sorry to hear all that. As a head’s up, you might want to stay on the eastern side of the border of Orleans County for at least few weeks after you two get your boosters. It’s a total shitshow over here right now with how we have the highest transmission rate in the state. The ya’ll qaeda types still feel like they’re being oppressed even though the one hospital here is being pretty taxed with patients.
Getting back on topic.
^The kremlin the day they thought this was a great idea.
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They fucked around and found out
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In one case, the infected person was bedridden and the guests are said to have gathered around the sickbed to try to breathe in the virus
And upon seeing the consequences, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR OWN EYES, they proceeded anyway. JFC!
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Moon Township GetGo staff walks off the job.
(https://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/comments/qv7fa9/moon_township_getgo_staff_walks_off_the_job/)
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Yuk. Thanks for the advice! I hope you’re able to stay safe out there.
Just to make life more interesting, my wife told me last night that she had finally managed to make an appointment for her booster. She got an appointment November 30 - a full week before my appointment. I don’t know whether people are switching up their appointment slots and one happened to open up, or if this is more along the lines of what happened last Spring while scheduling our appointments for the first dose. Back then, you would go to the NYS site to schedule an appointment; it would tell you “No appointments available at any site within N miles of you”, but if you clicked on through to the vaccination site pages themselves, they would say “Sure, here are a bunch of open time slots on that day!”. Isn’t technology wonderful?
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They were sticking to the libs!!! /s
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You know I’ve found it really hard to get a slot for a booster in my area. I guess that’s good while I’m here but it means that I won’t have one when I see family from a low vaccination area. I also found the online tools for scheduling really awful and tedious. The CVS website, for instance, feels like it is designed to make it hard to use or to deliberately take the longest amount of time for the end user that is humanly possible. I kind of wish I could have gotten one in but I didn’t think I’d have to schedule like a full month in advance.
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Cazzoni.
The fucking north of Italy and their worries about lockdown and impact to capitalism are one of the reasons Italy suffered so horribly from Covid initially, in fact, a volleyball team from that area came down to play a team near where I lived, and nearly killed some of my partner’s family. TBF, it was when very little was known about Covid, but still, loads of assholes up there.
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Did you try calling a private pharmacy? The shot is free and they often are overlooked.
(It took me a week to book my booster, but it’s because I wanted a Friday afternoon slot.)
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@TornPaperNapkin Might be different now that the floodgates are open, but Costco made it easy to schedule a booster shot.
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For those having troubles getting an appointment, we went through Meijer because they are our normal pharmacy. That was a couple weeks ago before boosters for all but if there is one in your area their website is really easy to navigate for an appointment.
When the shots first came out and it was difficult to get an appointment we went through my cardiologist who set up the appointment. If you’re under the care of a doctor you could check with them.
I do think it’s a good sign that appointments are filled up though. People seem to be taking the advice seriously.
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I guess I should have written an “independent” pharmacy rather than private. The non-chain pharmacies are often overlooked. Since the booster is free my pharmacy will take Kaiser patients, too.
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Same here. When vaccines were made available, my doctor’s office had no access to them. So, I used the state appointment site for both doses. With the booster, there’s no current appointment availability through the state site. However, my doctor’s office has the vaccine now, and I made an appointment for a booster in early December. 
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