So, up until today, my understanding was that everyone in the county had to go through the county health department to get vaccinated. Trust me when I say I’ve been reading the county website and press releases closely.
Come to find out today that all the local pharmacies are allowing people to book appointments directly as long as you’re eligible.
I now have 6 pharmacy websites and the county website bookmarked for the 18th or whenever we go to full eligibility, and tomorrow at lunch, I will be seeing about getting on the waitlist at the local market – cause I literally discovered today that they are doing vaccinations there. (When I asked a while back, the pharmacist had no idea.)
And I’ll probably be asking VaccineFairy for help, too.
I wasn’t in love with the county’s “you can only register with us and only when you’re eligible” – but it was straightforward. Having to find out from a damn Patch article that it’s not actually the only option kinda pisses me off.
Fairfax County, get your shit together.
Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female. 
I know a lot of people who’ve gone through CVS and Walgreens. When eligibility opened to everyone 16+ on Thursday, both services fully booked in the state within literal seconds, so it’s doable but tough.
With CVS, the trick I’ve been told by everyone is that if their site shows no available appointments in your area, search in a different state. The system will apparently recognize that you’re not in that state and redirect you to “hidden” open appointments (usually cancellation slots) in your area.
That’s similar to how I got my appointment (someone else’s cancellation) after about 6 hours of constant refreshing — I started searching ZIP Codes in far-flung parts of the state, which got me an appointment 3 miles from my house that wouldn’t show up when I searched my actual ZIP Code. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Keeping a Notepad doc with an array of ZIP Codes on the side of my screen helped.
This is all so silly, nationwide. But we will have shots soon!!!
Ooh, good to know!! I’ll remember that when the time comes. *goes to find West Virginia zip codes*