I was there....

[greerwatson]

Trying to book my second shot has been incredibly frustrating.

The provincial online booking portal initially seemed to be fairly well managed, barring the curious notion that everyone has a most up-to-date browser. Vaccine delivery was relatively slow; so we were cohorted by age, starting with the frailest of the elderly. As Flo gave me a new computer for my birthday last year, I had no trouble booking my first shot when my age-group came up, i.e. back at the beginning of April. The shortage of vaccines meant, though, that the emphasis was on getting as many people as possible at least one shot; so second shots were vastly delayed. My second appointment was prebooked for the 24th of July,

However, once the vaccines started rolling in regularly, things changed. With the threat of the Delta variant, it became important to move up the timing of second shots; so the Premier kept announcing larger and larger cohorts of people eligible to rebook for an earlier date. As a result, when I went on line, there could be over a hundred thousand people ahead of me in the booking queue, meaning a wait of an hour or so just to input my data. Then, when I'd finally get into the system, there'd be no slots in any of the mass clinics in Toronto. Instead, I'd be told that the nearest clinics I could book at were in Brampton.

Let's just say that Brampton is not near downtown Toronto. Not even remotely. It's nearly thirty miles away. And I don't have a car. I might as well have been told I could book my vaccination for the far side of the moon.

After trying several times, I just gave up for a few days, and decided that I'd have to stick with the prebooked date, even if it did mean waiting for a month. However, early Wednesday morning I decided to try one more time. And lo and behold! up popped the ScotiaBank Arena, with slots available for the coming Sunday, i.e. today. It's a big sports arena down near the lake, not far from the convention centre where I got my first shot. This puzzled me: I had no memory of there ever being a second mass clinic downtown.

Still, I wasn't about to cavil. I quickly booked a slot.

Only when I was reading the paper over breakfast did I learn that this was, in fact, a one-day clinic set up as a special event. "Toronto Vaccine Day" they're calling it. They hope to vaccinate 25,000 people today. When I was there, they announced that they'd just got over 17,000 people jabbed already; and that was only at five p.m.

Edited to add: at the close of the clinic, they'd actually administered 26,771 doses.

What is more, the TTC was offering free rides down to the arena for everyone with a confirmed time slot, and free rides home for everyone with their vaccination certificate!

It was all very well organized. From which I conclude that our much unloved Premier had nothing whatever to do with it.

So I was there. I even have a little souvenir "towel" to prove it. Also (and rather more important) I got my second shot.

:D

Comments

[nicholas_lucien]

That's great you were able to get it and one so close and had arranged travel already set up!

[greerwatson]

I think it was probably my only chance of getting the shot without waiting another month. Demand has been enormous; and slots seem get booked up lightning fast.

[rivulet027]

That is really cool that they had transport arranged! I'm glad you were able to get in!

[greerwatson]

Well, "transport" is the subway (or bus/streetcar, depending on where you live in the city). As the city sponsored the clinic and run public transit, it must have been fairly straightforward for them to arrange it.

But yes: free both ways was a great little extra.   :)

[queen_ypolita]

Yay for the second vaccine dose! It sounds like the clinic was really well organised.

[greerwatson]

It really was. On the way in, there were hundreds of volunteers taking down people's health card info and steering traffic. And once inside, the whole arena was filled with a matrix of desks, manned and womanned by public health nurses and doctors giving shots.

I'd thought there'd be a lot of standing in queues; but, in fact, though the lines were certainly long, you didn't do any standing at all (except at the end when you stopped by someone who entered your info into their computers). You were in line walking all the way. Surprisingly quick.

[queen_ypolita]

It really sounds well organised! I had my first dose at the vaccination centre at the local football team's stadium, the only place where effective queue management and keeping people moving seemed to fall apart was in controlling access to the car park to the extent people ended up being late for their intended appointment slots, and the weather that didn't cooperate that day, with some really heavy showers when you really didn't want to be outside, especially if without an umbrella or a raincoat with a hood, and they ended up letting people queueing up immediately before the entrance in faster than planned. If you have enough volunteers to help people along, and a steady flow of people coming in, rather than bunching up irregularly, it can wor impressively,

A colleague who had his first dose there several weeks before me said he didn't have to queue at all, and actually spent the better part of an hour queueing for his second dose in a local pharmacy.

[greerwatson]

Yes, my impression is that most of the long, long nigh-on stationary queues that make such dramatic news clips have either been at pharmacies or pop-up clinics. The places with proper appointments that service truly large numbers of patients are much better organized.

There was an article in today's Toronto Star which described the humungous, zig-zaggy queue for the arena as the "Jörmungandr of a line to get in". When was the last time you saw that name in a newspaper? Umlaut and all!

[queen_ypolita]

Now that is an imaginative and evocative word choice!

[fawatson]

So...

Given the problems you describe in the booking system: was your late July appointment cancelled automatically for you by virtue of having booked the closer date?

Or is it still there as a booking in your name which you need to cancel?

[greerwatson]

No, it was cancelled automatically.