As the state of Illinois slowly began rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine to its pharmacies, medical centers, and eventually to vaccine supercenters, the whole process became a waiting game for me.
And rightfully so, as the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) announced that COVID-19 vaccine priority would be determined in phases after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Dec. 11.
Phase 1A would include those who work on the frontlines in hospitals and long-term care facilities, 1B involved the inoculation of essential workers like first responders and grocery store employees.
My turn would come during Phase 1C when the state would allow higher education support staff to get vaccinated.
Knowing what phase I would fall in was not the issue, getting an appointment to get vaccinated was the problem.
Everywhere I looked, whether that be the Peoria County Health Department’s website or pharmacies at retailers like Kroger, CVS, and HyVee, appointments are nowhere to be seen.
Even with my struggles finding appointments, Illinois governor JB Pritzker is confident that people like me and other adults will have the ability to find slots to get vaccinated and to put the pandemic to rest.
“The systems are ready,” Pritzker said during a Mar. 18 press conference. “We know the software that most of the local public health departments are using, it’s the software that the state also uses.
Pritzker was right because right after his press conference, more appointments opened up, and I was lucky enough to snag one of them.
Through the Walgreens in East Peoria, I got my first dose slot scheduled for 8:30 AM on Mar. 29.
I learned the hard way that if there are conflicts with the dose date like there was with mine, appointments once again become hard to come by. Because I was unable to make the Mar. 29 appointment, the next and only available time was April 1 at 9 PM.
Once I snagged that appointment, then there were none left in the Walgreens system for the next two weeks.
After making it through the most difficult part of the process in scheduling an appointment the rest of the process was quite smooth.
I went into the Walgreens store with my prepared consent forms and insurance information and came out with both a record card, but more importantly an inoculation that might not only protect me from this virus but also the ones that I love most.
Pritzker acknowledges that while it is great seeing people vaccinated, that the virus is not just going to disappear overnight.
“Unfortunately, COVID-19 has not gone away,” Pritzker said. “Each day people in Illinois and across the nation are getting sick and being admitted to the hospital with this deadly virus and people are still passing away from it. But the light that we can see at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and brighter as more people get vaccinated.”