My family and I got our shot here last week on Wednesday. The process was amazing. It took 25 mins to drive there and 25 back, but it only took 20 mins to get the shot. We stopped for breakfast after the shot, but wow what an operation! They are the model for any successful mass vaccination process.
I highly recommend TMS to get your shot. Denton county can be proud of their TMS operation. It runs as good as a drive through line at Chik-Fil-A or better. Great job to everyone working there and especially you Russell.
The White House actually contacted Denton County Health because of how smoothly itās run and how many vaccines theyāve been able to administer each time. I havenāt heard a single negative complaint from anyone that went through them.
I agree they are doing a great job, though as with anything of that scale, there will be an occasional exception.
Our first experience was very well done. Our second left some room for improvement. The person reviewing the forms missed my wifeās immune compromised status. Then, when asked, he put the pink card on the dashboard, not tucked under the wiper, so those directing traffic couldnāt see it to send us to the 30 min wait line. And they were directing us to pull up so tight that we couldnāt move lanes once we asked if we were in the correct lane. What they finally had us do when the rest of the line was released wasnāt either of the first two things we had been asked to do. At least we had a timer running on our own.
When a patient first presents at the TMS Mass Vax, they are handed a Survey Form with 13 questions; the most important of which is whether they have previously had a strong allergic reaction or ever experienced anaphylaxis. The answer determines if they get the vaccine; and if so, how long they are compelled to wait after the injection before being released into the wild. If they have never experienced anaphylaxis or an acute allergic reaction, they are sent to the 15 Minute Waiting Lot. If they have experienced anaphylaxis, they should be questioned further, and if approved, monitored in the 30 Minute Waiting Lot after injection.
When I was injected during the early phases of the Pfizer Trial, the default waiting period was 30 minutes for everyone. After 30 minutes, the Nurse would visually inspect the injection site, ask some questions, and determine whether to release us. This is because they were varying the dosage, and some test subjects reacted adversely. mRNA vaccines are surprisingly potent and fast acting. The dose administered to the public today is 30ug; in the Trials some subjects received 200ug and were overwhelmed. I didnāt have any adverse reactions; besides just the expected sore arm and a very slight dizziness for about 5 minutes. The vast majority of people only have the soreness at the injection sight, and no signs of other adverse reactions. This, with the superior immunity imparted by the Spike Protein antibodies conferred by these vaccines make them amazingly safe and effective drugs.
We have the means to safely and effectively end this plague. I think it is important that we proceed swiftly with mass vaccinations, to limit viable vectors for SARS-CoV2, before it has the chance to mutate away from our current vaccines and therapies. Now that Coronavirus is in the World, we will never be completely rid of it. But like Polio, Smallpox, and Measles; we have the tools to control this virus, and mitigate the future damage to our Society and Economies.
I got my second one last month from Denton County and I couldnāt agree more. All the govt should be run that way. No problems, no wait, easy to use software.
I got my first shot last week at UTD through UTSW. Was quick and easy, they have it running quite efficiently. For anyone registering with UTSW they have been opening spots at 8am on Monday and Thursday. Seemed to stay open for a reasonable amount of time too.
I would also like to relay a first hand experience I had personally with exposure to covid since being fully vaccinated. I received the Moderna Vaccine. As most know, there is a 4 week wait and then a 2nd dose. Then, 2 weeks after the 2nd dose is when you graduate to maximum protection. :-).
Side:
We (my wife and 3 kids in late teens/early 20s) have been very careful over the past year and have been fortunate that none of us have gotten Covid despite 6 relatives (including my 76 and 79 year old Mother and Father, 3 Aunts in late 60s and my 100 year old Grandmother) having gotten together on Christmas day and all contracted C19. It was the classic case of one person having it but not realizing it until Christmas night after the get together. We, wife and kids did NOT attend. Over the next 5 days, all the rest started to have symptoms. We lost my Grandmother (their mother) unfortunately. And my Dad ended up going to the hospital 13 days after his symptoms began with full Covid Pneumonia and was there for an additional 23 days on Oxygen without our ability to see him once. All of the others had a rough go but all recovered taking on average about 12-14 days till they had turned the corner.
Sincerely I donāt share that to make a dramatic point as Iām the last person in the world that thought I would have such a story but It feels like itās worth sharing.
So, to my first hand experienceā¦ 10 days after my 2nd dose I decided to get together with my best friend. He has not been vaccinated but has been careful like us. I decided to get together primarily because I was safe now (assuming the vaccine does what itās supposed to do). So we met. I gave him a big āfirst time in a yearā hug, and we rode in his car for ~ 3 1/2 hours on a Sat. On Wed he texted me that he started feeling bad that morning and went and got tested and he had tested positive. Long story short, Itās now been over 3 weeks and I nor any of my family have gotten C19. My friend and I are both agree that there would have been a high probability that it would have been transmitted to me otherwise. No, we canāt say that for sure but I definitely believe the vaccine did what it was supposed to do.
Glad you came out of the exposure A OK. Sorry about your family members passing. That is whole crux of not knowing you are infected and people letting their guard down. Thanks for sharing your experience.
So sorry to hear about your family. The exact same thing happened with my parents back home. We lost my father and my mother had 3 separate hospital stays.
We are all vaccinated now and finally able to go home to see my family.
It gives me hope to see how well the vaccines are being distributed now and how many people are taking advantage of it. Hopefully we get past this very soon.
There are far too many sad stories like what yāall have shared, but Iām hopeful that with the vaccine rollout progressing so quickly weāre through the worst of it now. Nicole and I got our 2nd shots yesterday, so hopefully weāll be able to spend some time with family again in the near future.
Besides the two times we went Iāve also driven two other friends/family members through the Denton county site and each time Iāve been incredibly impressed with the efficiency of the process and friendliness of the people, especially with how they handled someone with a severe panic disorder. I think my family is tired of me raving about it in our group chat!
I have heard nothing but good things about the side at Texas Motor Speedway now Iām ended up at the site at Fair Park. And the first time there was a long line but it seem to be moving fast and in spite of a line wrapped around the park we were through in less than 2 and 1/2 hours longer than I expected but not horrible went back for the second vaccination and we were in and out including white in less than an hour. I understand now that at least some guys awake youāre not requiring appointments the people thatās been there recently had been in and out in like 30 minutes
The only real delays are early in the day. People canāt follow directions and show up early, which creates a giant backlog early. If everyone showed up at their assigned time then everyone would be out in 30 minutes and everyone would have gotten a vaccine.
Instructions are just hard for some people. I bet their teachers let them slide on homework instructions in elementary school.
I took my MIL to Potter House in far south Dallas for hers. She lives in Denton so it was a haul. They had the site set up so that if you exited from Spur 408 you couldnāt turn left into it so we had to go make an illegal u-turn down the road to get in. Once in, the line moved fast and it was less than 10 minutes to get her shot.
The 2nd time we took the Mountain Creek exit just before and went the other way and had zero problems getting in. It was less than 10 minutes again to get her shot. They had it down to almost military precision.
Nah. I think itās much more complicated than that. Now, it may well have to do with how poorly we educate the neuro-diverse, and how much trying to teach everyone the same way is ineffective for quite a few. Reading comprehension, ADD, and other issues with neuro-diversity. I was surprised to hear one of our members saying that having words on a poster meant she didnāt see the big QR code in the middle of it.
Having lots of retail and quasi-retail experience has led me to understand that many people Just Donāt See Words. Personally, my attention is caught by anything that even remotely looks like a word, but I know that Iām way off the edge of the bell curve when it comes to reading.
I ended up there 30 minutes early because last time it took 90 minutes to drive there the first time and the only 40 minutes the second. Gerrymandering means that I am technically in Denton County even though Denton is quite far from me, and traffic has been real bad on that route for obvious reasons. Once I got there, there wasnāt anything else around so I was just like āmeh whatever I will go in nowā. I coulda stayed away for 30 minutes but there wasnāt a wait for me and I donāt think there was a big wait behind me. Unfortunately, it seems vaccine demand is dwindling.
