After traveling hundreds of miles for the first COVID-19 shot, can you get the second dose closer to home? Vaccine providers are divided.
To get her first COVID-19 shot, Chris Galvin left her west suburban Elgin home before dawn in mid-March and drove roughly 600 miles round-trip to a Walgreens in downstate Quincy, the closest spot she could find open appointments.
But for the second dose, Galvin was able to schedule another appointment on Thursday at a pharmacy about 20 minutes from her house, saving her another full day of driving.
With vaccine supply still limited in the Chicago area, many city residents and suburbanites are traveling hundreds of miles across the state to get inoculated, often finding appointments in Quincy, Danville, Springfield and other downstate cities.
If the provider uses Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the traveler only needs to make one trip be fully vaccinated. But two-dose regimens of Pfizer or Moderna require a second journey across the state a few weeks later.
Now some Chicago-area residents are trying to reschedule that second dose closer to home, with mixed results.
In Galvin’s case, a glitch in the Walgreens scheduling system had mistakenly canceled her second appointment in Quincy, a problem that affected some customers across the country; but she was grateful the drugstore was able to reschedule her second appointment at another location much closer to home. It was a relief in part because she felt fatigued and nauseous after the first dose and worried about having to drive so far if she became ill again.
“I just wanted to get this over and done with as soon as possible,” said Galvin, 51. “That was my goal. And if I couldn’t have switched it, I would have driven down again.”
On various social media sites, posts seek guidance on the best way to cancel second doses and reschedule to a more convenient location. Some of these vaccine-seekers cite a number of hardships that make travel difficult: The long drive is tough on older patients. Employers won’t allow more time off. Unexpected car problems suddenly make travel impossible.
But vaccine providers locally and across the country have different policies and philosophies about changing locations for the second dose: While some public health officials and private pharmacies say they have no problem with folks booking appointments in different locations, some counties in Illinois and providers in other states forbid the practice and turn away vaccine-seekers if they received a first dose in another location.
Illinois Department of Public Health guidance says patients should schedule an appointment to receive their second dose of vaccine at the same location where they received their first dose, to help ensure proper allocation of doses to providers.
“Many providers conduct second dose appointment scheduling on-site while patients are waiting in the observation,” said IDPH spokeswoman Melaney Arnold. “Allocations to providers include both first and second doses. When individuals do not get the second dose of vaccine from the same provider they received the first dose from, it adversely impacts first dose and second dose allocations for all providers.”
Ethics debate
Some local county health departments say they won’t provide second doses if the patient received a first dose elsewhere, because planning multiple doses of different vaccines becomes a logistic quagmire.
Galvin tried unsuccessfully to schedule a second dose with the Kane County Health Department. Under COVID-19 vaccines questions, the agency’s website states: “You will need to get your second dose where you received your first dose. If it was out of town, refer to local pharmacies to obtain the second dose.”
Neighboring DeKalb County has similar stipulations.
“At this time, you must have received your first dose of vaccine from DeKalb County Health Department in order to be eligible for a second dose at our clinic,” the health department website said. “Our second dose allocation is directly tied to first dose administration.”
DuPage County says people are “highly encouraged” to get their second vaccine at the same location they received the first shot.
“Second doses are shipped to each provider so that they receive the same number of doses as the first doses they administered, with the intention that people will return to the same location for their second dose,” the health department website states.
On the Facebook site Chicago Vaccine Hunters — a group with about 93,000 members who share tips and help others book COVID-19 shots — a small debate broke out recently on the ethics of canceling existing appointments to reschedule at a more convenient location.
“I’m tired of seeing people say they have two or more appointments scheduled for themselves at different locations, and that they’re going to pick whatever is more convenient for them and cancel the rest,” one member posted on the site. “This group is filled with people who can’t find appointments. No one should be scheduling themselves for more than one. Plus, this HAS to be causing havoc on scheduling systems.”
Others defended the practice in some cases, and called for more compassion.
“I tend to believe most people are just doing the best they can,” one woman responded, “and we should all be a bit more kind and less judgmental of someone else’s considerations going into their (appointment) we know nothing about.”
Another member on the site concurred.
“The point is you don’t know everyone’s story,” a local woman posted. “The communication is rough at best about getting appointments and getting second doses. Everyone’s doing what they can as best they can.”
‘I didn’t want to chance it’
The landscape is similar in other states, where a dearth of vaccine has spurred much travel for open appointments.
Medical providers in Colorado reported an increase in calls for specifically for second doses, which can be tricky and complicated to schedule in part because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines require the same vaccine brand for both doses. There’s also the issue of timing, as second doses should be scheduled three or four weeks after the first dose, depending on the vaccine.
After driving long distances for the first dose, some in St. Louis were turned away from local providers for the second dose and instructed to return to the first location.
Yet other vaccine providers say they don’t have a problem with scheduling doses at different locations.
The Cook County Department of Public Health permits residents to schedule a second dose at its vaccination sites, even if the first shot came from another provider.
“This is not an issue,” said spokesman Thomas McFeeley. “For the second appointment, a person is required to bring their CDC vaccination card that shows they received their first shot.”
Yet he also cautioned that “when possible people should get their second shot where they got their first shot because appointments are not guaranteed.”
A CVS spokesman said patients are able to book first and second shots at different locations. Walgreens also offers second doses even if the first dose wasn’t administered one of their locations.
“We are committed to honoring all appointments and providing second doses to all patients, regardless of where their first dose was administered,” a Walgreens corporate spokesperson said.
Danville, in downstate Vermilion County, has been a popular vaccination site for many Chicago-area vaccine seekers. A few weeks ago, the state provided Vermilion County with Illinois National Guard personnel to aid in vaccine rollout, greatly expanding resources there.
Vermilion County Health Department Administrator Douglas Toole estimated that roughly a quarter of those inoculated at county vaccine clinics are Vermilion County residents, while the other 75% or so come from out-of-town.
Toole said he understands why some travelers might want to find a second dose closer to home. While he conjectured that this could throw off allocation and planning a bit, he believes a variety of factors might even out distribution in the end.
“It kind of remains to be seen,” he said. “I’d like to think that overall it balances out a bit. If there’s one person who got their first dose of Moderna here and then their second dose closer to where they live, we’re going to have some snowbird who got their first dose in Florida and then comes back and gets their second dose with us.”
He added that it would be helpful if patients who need to cancel appointments for any reason do so as early as possible, because providers need to plan how much vaccine to thaw prior to appointments.
“It’s always been a bit challenging because once you open a vial you have to use all the doses that are in there in a short amount of time or they get wasted,” he said. “We are always very conscious of that.”
Some vaccine travelers decide the hunt for another dose isn’t worth it, and just hit the road a second time.
Dianne Wrobel of Naperville recently traveled about 260 miles round-trip to Peoria for her first dose. When she called to try to get a second shot closer to home, she said a pharmacy advised her to cancel her appointment in Peoria and start the process again.
But she didn’t want to risk losing her appointment, so she drove to Peoria second time, the two trips totaling roughly 520 miles.
“I didn’t want to chance it since they had already scheduled me over the 21 days for shot two,” she said. “And I take care of three elderly that are over 85. So I did the drive.”
