How to get vaccinated when it's not "your turn."

I have gotten my grandparents, my parents, myself and my wife vaccinated in Jan without breaking any rules, having any connections, or bribing anyone. You'll pay what economists call a "search cost".

This post is an instruction manual for having the COVID-19 vaccine go into your arm rather than into a garbage can. These instructions worked on day 1 in multiple states for everyone I know who tried it.

The first and most important fact to understand is that this vaccine rollout is a clumsy government effort. This clumsy government effort leaks vaccine. Every day. At every single vaccination center. From what I can tell, every vaccination center in America has a few doses per day left over when they close up shop for the evening.

The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccine doses spoil within a few hours after the vial is opened and vaccine drawn (~5 hrs for Moderna) and they -cannot- be refrozen. Combine this with the fact that our vaccine clinics are not running 24/7, and there comes a time at the end of every day when, after everyone who was scheduled has been vaccinated, any vials that were opened or syringes filled must either be thrown in the trash or given to people who did not make appointments.

Step 1: Find the time that vaccination clinics near you stop vaccinating people.

Surprisingly, many people who schedule vaccine appointments don’t actually show up. When this happens, the staff begin calling people on a waitlist to come and get the extra vaccines. Sometimes, these phone calls will take care of everything, but in my experience, they generally do not. People often simply don’t answer their phones or can’t be bothered to come in . The staff might go through 50 phone numbers to get one or two people, and at some point, they stop making themselves a call center.

This is where you come in. Your job is to be a juicier target to throw a vaccine at than the bottom of a trash can. So you have to know -when- this end of day crunch is happening at a vaccine clinic near you and be ready to show up.

Step 2: Show up early enough so they know you’re an option, but late enough so they don’t just kick you out.

The exact timing here is a bit of an art, but I’d say if you walk in 20 minutes before the final dose is scheduled to be given, that should be about right. If you find that it is either too early or too late at your local areas, then adjust it. The reason you might be too early is that they might not want people just hanging around plugging up the system, infecting old people or something. Which reminds me of another thing, wear a good mask that medical people will respect. N95, KN95, or my personal favorite, KF94 which is the Korean willow leaf design that pro gamers use. The reason this might matter is that you need to not be a risk to the other patients. Give them no reason to kick you out.

Step 3: Repeat the following reason for you being here:

“Hello, I am just here in case you have an extra vaccine at the end of the day that would have otherwise been thrown out.” If they pause and wait for you to say more you can add, “I don’t want to jump anyone’s spot, I only want to be here in case you can’t find anyone else.”

The response you get might vary, but so far it seems to work great. You’ll probably be moved to some waiting room, told that they aren’t sure they’ll have anything but it’s possible. They will probably now also ask you if you are a healthcare worker (you should already have been vaccinated by now) or if you are at the age cutoff (I’m assuming most reading this are not old enough). What I find interesting is that after this, they may ask if you are an essential worker or if you have health problems, etc. Although those aren’t qualifications for getting the vaccine at this point, they ask. I don’t recommend lying, it could destroy your present (and future, if needed) potential at this clinic for no benefit. I told them I had nothing wrong with me and worked from home and it all worked out (again, reiterating I’m not here to skip lines, etc etc). Remember, you aren’t here to convince them you are WORTHIER than anyone else. In fact, going that route can be a red herring to them. You are just here to literally be better than a trash can. Don’t overplay your hand.

Step 4: Profit

At this point if they haven’t tossed you out or said they don’t want your kind here, you’re probably sitting in a waiting room, fingers crossed that more people don’t walk in. But really, don’t worry, none of that means anything. Sometimes that extra person will just be late for an appointment, meaning they may have to open a new vial, leading to several more fresh shots for bottom-feeders like yourself. This part could take over an hour or it could, in the case of some of my family, take about 5 minutes. They get all the people they can from the phone or in person, and eventually they say “okay, we still have another dose and nobody else is here, go ahead and sign up.” Once you are giving your information, you’ve done it. You’re going to get vaccinated; this nightmare is over. They are also required then to schedule your second dose, so you won’t have to do this twice.

Hurry up, the window is (probably) closing

The longer time goes on, the more likely vax centers will plan better, fill their spots better, and develop longer waiting/call lists. Also, as this information starts getting out, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a strong uptick in the amount of people trying this out. Finally, the more people get their first shot, the fewer spots are available later because all of those people are getting scheduled to come back. So there will be a serious congestion in a month or so as states expand the section of the population that can sign up at the exact same time that all the first rounders are coming in for their second shot. I don’t know how long this window will be open, but it is wide open right now and I’m going to give you a few more pointers for how to keep it wide…

Maximizing your chances of success:

I learned throughout this process that there are at least two kinds of vaccination facilities. One run by hospitals by hospital workers, and one run as a pop-up by volunteers like at a health department or community center. Though both have worked for me, the latter is more likely to pan out. Hospitals and their workers are used to throwing away extra medicine all the time; waste is not that surprising to them. Meanwhile volunteers at vaccination clinics are zealots. Think about it: in the middle of a pandemic, you stop doing whatever that is safe and dedicate yourself to go save the world through vaccination. And in January, you’re still bright eyed and bushy tailed! The volunteers will do everything in their power not to throw away vaccine. They will probably be super excited to see that someone like you is helping them on that mission. So all else being equal, go to the volunteer/pop-up places instead of hospitals run by doctors and hospital staff.

The second tip for increasing your jackpot odds is to see if there is an online scheduling service where you can keep track of which locations have open spots when. You aren’t actually going to try to schedule yourself, but if you find a location that has open spots at the end of the day, it is -overwhelmingly likely- that they will have extra vaccine and extra manpower to vaccinate you. This is neither necessary nor sufficient for you getting your dose, but if you can show up to a place in this situation, you will be in play.

It goes without saying, but don’t be a burden and don’t be a dick. I mean, I managed and I’m a dick a lot of the time. But it’s not hard to just fake be nice for an hour! Don’t be frustrated if you get told you had a chance but then they tell you no luck. You can go back the next day. Plus, you might even get invited back or put on the call list!

The economics lesson

This vaccine, including the end-of-day extras, are price-controlled with a price ceiling of $0, and they cannot be resold. The reasons for doing this are undoubtedly due to politics and optics. They don’t want to distribute the vaccine “only” to those who can afford to pay its $20-$30 cost. But let’s ignore that as well as the question of how many people could muster $30 (my estimate is no less than 99% of the 18+ population).

Instead, let’s focus on what actually occurs when you set a $0 price ceiling on something that people would pay thousands of dollars for: -You do not eliminate competition!- Instead, competition takes a different form. You merely force people to compete and pay in different ways. The most common way we pay, in this case, are through time costs and search costs. The process of reading and even finding this post, searching out all the needed information in your area, waiting around for potentially hours in the lobby or parking lot of a clinic, etc., are all costs that you prove you’re willing to pay! In Florida, we saw several hour-long lines (a classic time cost) when they moved to first-come-first-served.

Are we actually helping everyone have a “fair and equitable” shot at getting a shot? It seems quite obvious to me that there are -far more people- able to pay $30 than who are able to run this gauntlet I’ve described above. If you could pay people $30 to go through this, nobody would do it. So by setting a $0 price control even for extra vaccine, we have made it go to an even more elite group. It is also far more wasteful not only in the sense that you put in more than $30 of labor to do it, but if we were to be able to pay cash, that cash would at least go to someone! It would stay in the economy, likely to incentivize more vaccine production and distribution. Meanwhile, nobody else gets any benefit from our spending so much time and search effort refreshing the scheduling website.

A beautiful video explanation of the concept here:

The price system works, we shouldn’t be afraid of it, but there are too many so called “ethicists” standing in the way of ethical policy…a topic for another post.

Please let me know if you have success with this strategy, it would brighten my day.