Florida’s seniors use the grapevine to uncover loopholes and get hard-to-find COVID vaccines

Bob Knorr, 71, had been talking with a golfing buddy at his Fort Lauderdale condo when the conversation turned to vaccines. His buddy told him not to bother to sign up for an appointment and instead, just arrive at Markham Park in Sunrise and ask for a vaccine like the rest of their golfing group had done.

The next day, Knorr arrived at Markham Park at 7 a.m. and pulled up to the vaccination line. After a 41/2-hour wait, Knorr left with his first dose of the COVID vaccine. “I felt thankful and happy to get it,” he said. “I told three or four other people, who did the same thing,”

In the chaotic race to get vaccinated in Florida, it’s every man for himself. That means using your connections, mining the grapevine and taking advantage of loopholes in the system to get your COVID vaccine when traditional routes to land an appointment meet with frustration and dead ends.

Although more than 1.8 million doses of vaccine have been given in Florida, demand far exceeds supply. The rollout has been bumpy and filled with distribution snags, and has frustrated people in every county as they try to get an appointment.

“Every shipment is a contest to see who can sign up for them,” AARP Florida State Director Jeff Johnson said.

“On personal Facebook pages, I see person after person who is crowd-sourcing solutions for how to manage this process,” Johnson said, “That’s an indication of how widespread the exasperation is around this process.”

Making bold moves

Exasperation has led some seniors to make bold moves.

Marlene Patterson spent two weeks glued to her computer, trying desperately to get a vaccine appointment. Then a friend in her Delray Beach senior community shared some insight. The friend had just returned from Vista View Park in west Broward where she had gone without an appointment, waited and got vaccinated. Patterson and her husband went the next morning and simply said they had not received a confirmation.

After an hour, they both left vaccinated with their first dose. This week, they returned for their second dose.

“I feel like I won a prize,” Patterson said, adding that she has encouraged others in her community to follow her lead. “I don’t want to see one vaccine wasted.”

Even as seniors desperately seek vaccines, reports are emerging across the country and in Florida of health facilities throwing out unused and spoiled COVID-19 vaccines. As of Tuesday, 3,523 doses have been reported as wasted to the Florida Department of Health. Doses were broken or left unused after thawing, Florida Department of Health spokesman Jason Mahon said.

This means more than 99.8% of doses administered to date are being administered without any issue, spoilage or waste, Mahon said. He added that the Department of Health has told providers administering the vaccine to make every effort to ensure that no doses are wasted or discarded.

The effort to avoid waste is where knowing the right people — and reacting quickly — pays off.

Across South Florida, people are running to long-term care facilities at the end of the day when doses remain unused. They are rushing to senior communities when fewer people show up than the designated allotment from the state. And they are hanging out at community vaccination sites with their upper arms ready should leftover doses become available.

On Facebook, one South Florida senior outlines how she lurked around a vaccination site until the end of the day, pestering workers until she landed a leftover unused dose from an opened vial. Another writes of her score at Wynmoor Village in Coconut Creek where word spread quickly from friend to friend about extra vaccine doses available to people outside of the 55-and-older community.

“If you are active, you hear things … people talk,” Patterson said.

What happens to leftovers

Although the majority of sites require appointments, medical workers at some locations have reported being faced with unused COVID-19 shots at the end of the day. The choice is either vaccinate whoever is available or waste precious doses that will spoil if left unused.

Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines require storage in ultra-cold temperatures and must be used or thrown out within six hours after a thawed vial has been opened. Moderna has 10 doses in a vial and Pfizer has six.

Some hospitals and providers have come up with solutions for vaccine waste, drawing up waiting lists to have patients on standby for potential extra doses.

Melida Akiti, vice president of ambulatory and community services, said she has a wait list at Memorial Regional in Hollywood.

“People are making appointments all over and they forget to cancel,” Akiti said. “At 1:30, I review to see how many no-shows we have, and then I look at our waitlist of 65-and-older and I call to see if they can come at 4:30 or no later than 5.”

Akiti said don’t try to come without an appointment or with someone else’s appointment; that won’t work.

Memorial spokesperson Kerting Baldwin said the hospital’s wait list actually comes from people already scheduled for vaccination through MyChart.

“If they have additional doses before the end of day, they are calling those folks who are registered the next day and moving up their appointments,” she said. “This is the same idea as if I had an appointment with my doctor, and they have a cancellation and I’m due at his office the next day or that week, they will call me to see if I want that slot.”

Broward Health says its site coordinators are calling people in their registration system to come to Inter Miami Stadium in Fort Lauderdale when doses are available due to cancellations or no-shows. Broward Health spokeswoman Jennifer Smith said the hospital system is giving out 1,100 vaccinations a day at the stadium.

“We do call people in the queue and bring them in the day-of to make sure there is no spoilage,” she said. To get on that list, you must register on the Broward Health website, which opens sporadically for signups as doses become available.

The Florida Department of Health, Broward, said a new system to register for vaccination went into effect Jan. 21. Spokesman Todd Templin said health officials don’t want lurkers, and people need appointments at their vaccination sites for their first doses. You can pre-register for vaccine appointments and be notified when appointments are available by visiting myvaccine.fl.gov or by calling 866-201-6313.

“We take steps to carefully minimize the amount of reconstituted vaccine we have leftover at the end of the day at any given site,” Templin said. “When leftover doses are unavoidable, we vaccinate front-line workers.” Some volunteers at sites also have been able to receive leftover vaccines, but shouldn’t expect to receive one.

More tech-savvy seniors are turning to the online grapevine to learn how to game the system. Apps like Nextdoor and social media platforms like Facebook are filled with tips and stories about vaccine experiences and shortcuts. One Parkland couple, Katherine Quirk and her fiance Russ Schwartz, run a Facebook group, South Florida COVID-19 Vaccination Info, with more than 21,000 members.

The group has a Google form where people can request help in getting the COVID-19 vaccine for themselves or a loved one. Volunteers have helped at least 1,000 people get an appointment. Members have shared comments like this one: “be proactive … don’t sit back and wait for a call … keep looking and calling,” and tips such as this one: “Try setting your computers or mobile devices to the Publix vaccine site the night before. It should start refreshing before 6 a.m.”

The “get the vaccine when and where you can” attitude may start to ease soon as Walmart, Winn-Dixie and Publix pharmacies begin distributing the COVID-19 vaccine in Florida through the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program. While specific locations haven’t been announced, participating pharmacies will begin receiving shipments next week, increasing the state’s vaccine supply.

Meanwhile, health officials continue to create standby lists.

Health Care District spokeswoman Robin Kish said Florida Department of Health-Palm Beach County keeps a waitlist for its vaccination sites. “At times when we’re unable to reach enough individuals from the waitlist on short notice, we have provided the extra doses to individuals 65 years or older who were waiting on site.”

Publix has been Palm Beach County’s primary vaccine distributor, receiving the lion’s share of supply from the state. The supermarket chain requires appointments.

“Our goal is to administer 100% of the vaccines,” Publix communications director Maria Brous said. “We have a process in place to immunize our associates 65 and older if there are any remaining doses at the end of the night.”

In Palm Beach County on Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said, the state encourages all sites to give out anything left in the vials.

“You can’t put it back in the freezer,” he said. “Guidance has been find someone who needs a shot. It’s easy in Publix because you can walk up to someone 65 or older and ask them, but even if they are not, get it in someone’s arm. Don’t let it go to waste given how much demand there is for it.”

DeSantis said about 30% of seniors or about 1.5 million have received at least a first dose. “Obviously we want to keep going.”

This story has been updated to reflect Memorial Healthcare’s vaccination wait list procedure.

Sun Sentinel health reporter Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@sunsentinel.com