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Five people told The Globe about what it was like to navigate the online system to get appointments for themselves or their loved ones.
Joseph White, 76, started limiting the number of times he checks COVID-19 vaccination appointments to twice a day after realizing in the first few times he tried that “if you don’t don’t show up the first time, you ‘you’re not going to continue.
White and his wife, who live in Swansea, have yet to secure an appointment to get their COVID-19 vaccine and are among many older people who have been frustrated with the process. White said he was annoyed that the Walgreens website was forcing you to create an account with an email address and password before you could verify available appointments. They couldn’t find anything available through CVS, and he couldn’t find a place that would allow him and his wife to make dates at the same time.
“I’m pretty good at computers and we found this all to be complicated,” White said on Friday. “There are too many links and too many clicks, and it’s not as easy and straightforward as it should be. The last two or three days, we haven’t accomplished anything except wasting our time trying.
He said he noticed some people managed to make appointments by going online at midnight, so on Friday he planned to leave his computer on and set his Amazon Alexa device to wake him up so he could. try again.
White said he was impressed with Gov. Charlie Baker’s response to the pandemic in the initial stages when Baker began to implement restrictions on businesses and gatherings. But he’s not so excited about Baker’s handling of the vaccine rollout.
“It all seems like a disaster,” White said.
On Wednesday morning, Freda Shapiro noticed her 76-year-old boyfriend, Mario, on his computer while holding a magnifying glass reading the screen when she stepped in to help him look for a COVID-vaccination appointment. 19.
Shapiro is not yet eligible for vaccines, as she is in the 65+ age group that is eligible later in phase two, past those 75+ and some essential workers.
She said she started trying to make an appointment by checking the availability of mass vaccination sites the state had established, including Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, but after spending 20 minutes uploading photos of Mario’s insurance card and entering personal information, she found that no appointments were available.
Then Shapiro, who lives in the Boston area, moved on to trying places in drugstores and markets all over the state: north, west and south of Boston, on Cape Cod, in the western Massachusetts and “wherever possible,” she said, but she couldn’t find an available appointment.
“It was incredibly frustrating and very upsetting because not only did I not get anywhere with it, but I was also thinking about all the other people 75 and over and trying to deal with it,” she says. “I don’t know how they’re going to do it. It’s too many steps and it’s very, very difficult. Simply uploading the photos to your card is a heavy task. “
Shapiro on Thursday heard from her sister, who was able to secure dates for herself and their 94-year-old mother in Gillette, and began to guide Shapiro through the steps she’s taken.
Shapiro and Mario both received COVID-19 last year, although she said Mario had a much more difficult time with the virus and had been experiencing symptoms for three months. For them, the best part about getting an appointment for Mario to get the shot is the overwhelming sense of relief they get.
“Having that extra layer of protection will give [Mario] some peace of mind, ”she says.
Karen Barnett, 77, was originally told by her doctor’s office that she would be sending out invitations to patients to book vaccination appointments. But on Wednesday morning, she called their office and learned that the invitations weren’t going to go out until next week, so she reached out to other people online looking for a niche.
Barnett, who lives in Boston, found appointments available in Pittsfield and North Adams and decided to choose the Pittsfield location. She didn’t like the idea of making the trip this far on her own, but she had the surgery in March and said she was determined to receive both vaccines before the procedure.
The next day, she woke up at dawn to see if there was anything available that was closer to her home and found a date for that weekend at Gillette Stadium. She considers herself very lucky to have a reserved seat.
“I would think in this valley of high tech we are in the fact that they could have done a much better job in setting up the website,” she said. “So many people of a certain age can’t take it.”
Barnett said she looks forward to a return to something that feels like normal.
“I’m waiting for what it’s like to come out of the cocoon,” Barnett said. “For those of us aged 75 and over who are retired, living alone if you don’t have a partner, this is truly a cocoon.”
Diane Huster, 77, was among those ready at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday to book a vaccination appointment. She searched for half an hour for slots at Lawrence General Hospital and DoubleTree Hotel in Danvers, but saw no opening hours.
Huster, who lives in North Andover, tried again at 7 a.m. the next day. She accessed the state map and went through the Lawrence General registration process seven times, entering her information only to be told there were no more slots.
“Seven times I passed and signed up. I had picked a time, I went through the registration process, and he said “sorry is no longer available,” Huster said. “It was so frustrating to come in, to think you had that time slot, but you didn’t, and all of your information was erased, so you had to start over.”
She tried a few pharmacies, but didn’t like the fact that their websites tricked her into creating an account with an email address and password.
By noon she had given up.
At around 5 p.m., she came back to her iPad to try again, just in case, and was able to get an appointment with Lawrence General.
“I just got lucky,” she says. “I immediately sent it to a friend and said ‘there are slots at Lawrence General’, and by the time she got there they were gone.
For Huster, who lives alone, the months spent indoors due to the pandemic have been a lonely experience, she said.
“It means to me, once I have the second [shot], that I can go to the grocery store without fear, ”she said. “That I can visit my daughter and my granddaughter. We probably still won’t kiss because she’s in school, but at least I can visit them.
Bruce Jones tried to find a vaccination appointment somewhere in Cape Cod on Wednesday morning, with day one appointments open to people 75 and over.
The 75-year-old took to the Stop & Shop website and saw an opening for a date on February 9 at the Hyannis location which is not too far from his Barnstable home. The website told him he would have to wait an hour to make an appointment, and to Jones it looked promising, with a graph counting the time left. But an hour later, the screen flashed that no appointment was available.
He hasn’t tried to get a date since.
“What is frustrating is the lack of information at local and national levels,” he said.
For Jones, receiving the vaccine marks the beginning of the end of a period that has prevented him from traveling and seeing family and friends. He misses volunteering at the Cape Cod Hospital, interacting with colleagues and clients at the LL Bean where he worked in Mashpee, and supporting his 23-month-old granddaughter whom he and his wife all babysat. Mondays.
“I’m on the verge of tears to talk about it,” Jones said. “I want to move on.”
Amanda Kaufman can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ amandakauf1.
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