How to Get on the Vaccine Reserve List
If you are anxiously waiting for your turn to get the vaccine, you probably already know all the tricks to make an appointment. (Otherwise, we have a guide .) But there is another route you can take: a waiting list. Sometimes clinics have extra doses available at the end of the day, and if you’re in the right place at the right time, you can get them.
Each clinic handles this situation differently and different state laws may apply, so there is no one size fits all solution. But we can offer some tips, including signing up for Doctor B , a service that says it will text you if additional doses suddenly appear in your area.
Why are additional doses sometimes available?
All three vaccines are supplied in multi-dose vials of five or six doses per vial. After opening the bottle, its contents must be used up within six hours.
Vaccines also have limits on the amount of time they can spend at a given temperature: for example, Moderna vaccine can be refrigerated for 30 days, but you cannot re-freeze it to buy more time. In addition, the vaccine vials also have an expiration date.
Vaccine clinics try to schedule their appointments according to the doses available, but sometimes they have to open the bottle at the end of the day. Or, on rare occasions, the freezer could fail and staff might have to administer a large number of doses in a short amount of time, as happened in Seattle with a freezer containing 1,600 doses of Moderna.
Who is eligible for one of the additional doses?
It depends on government priority groups as well as government and local regulations. Additional doses are usually given to people who already rank high on priority lists, but in some cases they can be assigned to anyone.
How do I register?
There is no organized national or state registry (which I could find) to serve as a backup list. Clinics often maintain their own lists of people to call when additional doses are available, including people who were scheduled for vaccinations but had to miss an appointment, as well as clinic staff or hospital patients who fall into priority groups.
Healthcare startup Dr. B is aiming to find people who want vaccines with clinics that have additional services, although The New York Times reports they only work with two clinics so far . The company aims to provide people with additional doses across the country and says 200 clinics have applied to partner with them. They seem to work within each state’s existing priority groups, so this will prevent you from crossing the line if you are not already eligible to be vaccinated.
In order to register, you must provide personal information to a commercial company that The New York Times says has not yet described its business model. Although many people, no doubt, will subscribe to an attempt to boost their chances of getting the vaccine before, you can also just sit on your hands and make an appointment as soon as may be entitled .