CHESAPEAKE, Va. — As many Virginians across the state are waiting their turn to get the COVID-19 vaccine, seniors 65 and older are trying to secure their shots right now.
However, it’s been a challenge for one Chesapeake senior citizen to get an appointment anywhere close to home.
On Thursday, Vera Mann, 65, will take quite the road trip.
“I won the lottery with getting that vaccine appointment, even though it entails a lot of work,” Mann said.
She’ll drive almost three hours from her apartment in Chesapeake to a CVS in Clarksville for a vaccine appointment and then head right back.
“In this timeline in your life and you don’t have quite as long to wait as you once did,” Mann said. “Sometimes that will motivate you to strike some things with a little more urgency than you might.”
Mann battles COPD. She said she’s on vaccine wait lists with the health department and two doctors’ offices but hasn’t heard anything for weeks.
“I just got done waiting,” Mann said.
Mann said she found the appointment through a website called Vaccine Finder, which is promoted by the CDC. The closest available appointment had her going to Clarksville, which is in Mecklenburg County.
She said her North Carolina friends are fully vaccinated, and other people in her apartment building are getting it.
“My neighbors around me are going, ‘Well, I am getting my second shot tomorrow,'” Mann said.
Chesapeake Health Department Director Dr. Nancy Welch said there are more than 30,000 people on their waitlist.
“Until we are finished with the essential workers and the second shots, we are only allotting about 25 percent of our clinics to the seniors,” Dr. Welch said.
But she added the Chesapeake Health Department gives half of its vaccine allotment to Chesapeake pharmacies and private practices that are focused on seniors 65 and up. She said they have done this from the start.
“We have at least 20 different partners in this process and we have close to 20 more who are eager and signing all the paperwork.”
Rite Aid is a partner, but Dr. Welch said other pharmacies asked not to be named so people book appointments and don’t line up outside. She said seniors could get vaccines faster through these partners.
“I will tell you that most all of our pharmacies have received the vaccine,” Dr. Welch said. “And so, you let your fingers do the walking and call.”
She said the health department should finish with essential workers and second shots in the next few weeks and then power through more senior vaccinations.
Dr. Welch also said people can call the health department with questions. She said she personally listens to voicemails: (757) 382-8627. You can also try calling the state’s hotline at 1-877-VAX-IN-VA (1-877-829-4682).
If people who are on the state’s waitlist get vaccinated elsewhere, they don’t need to worry, according to Dr. Welch. She said vaccine information is stored in the state’s "Immunization Information System," where pharmacies and other providers update vaccinations into that system and the health department can see it.
For Mann, the long trip means getting one step closer to hanging out with her grandsons, again.
“I want to see them, but it is not the same,” Mann said. “It is a totally different space. It comes with rules and regulations that no grandma wants.”
It’s an opportunity she won’t miss. But she hopes she can get her second shot closer to home.
“My family is my love,” Mann said.