How To Beat The Rush And Score A COVID Vaccine In NYC

NEW YORK CITY — The last batch of adult New Yorkers is about to experience the joy of becoming eligible for the coronavirus vaccine.

And they're likely to have that elation turn to frustration as they scramble to book appointments for a limited number of shots.

The clamor for vaccines has spawned person-to-person whisper networks and makeshift online tools to alert New Yorkers the exact moment the coveted slots open.

But as Evan Coleman — who built @nyc_vaccine, one of several Twitter accounts providing updates on appointments — recently pointed out, learning about open shots is quite different than being able to book them.

"The unintended side-effect of building @nyc_vaccine is now people are mad at _me_ when they can’t get an appointment," he tweeted.

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Starting April 6, all New Yorkers 16 and up can receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Their slightly-older 30-plus peers became eligible the week before and found themselves navigating an often unwieldy search and sign-up process for doses.

Patch can't guarantee it'll help you land an appointment, but it can (with hard-earned personal experience) cut through some of the confusion.

Do I need to book an appointment?

Short answer: yes.

Only three vaccination sites — Citi Field, Brooklyn Army Terminal and Bathgate Contract Postal Station — in the city offer walk-in shots.

Those shots are reserved for people who are 75 and up, along with any eligible New Yorker who comes in with them.

OK, where do I find appointments?

It depends on who's offering the shots.

City and state government both run vaccination hubs or sites in New York City. Pharmacies like CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens also offer shots. And there's hospital networks, physicians office and other health care providers who do so.

The problem is there's no central booking site.

New York City's vaccine finder website provides the widest selection of locations. Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he wanted to turn it into a single finder and booking site, but so far officials have been unable to wrangle agreements from all providers.

"I want to remind everyone, you can go to vax4nyc.nyc.gov, and that's how you can book a reservation for an appointment, or you can call 877-VAX-4NYC, and again, it's not perfect by any stretch, but we've had almost four million vaccinations," he said. "So, something is working for a lot of people, thank God."

People looking to get shots at the state-run Javits Center mass vaccination site can go here.

That all sounds complicated. Help?

If you're savvy online, you have a leg up.

Generally speaking, appointment spots are updated on a rolling basis throughout the day. It appears the state sign up page refreshes spots for Javits in the morning, while the city's vaccination site does so in the late afternoon or early evening.

And there are sites and Twitter accounts that help keep track of open slots, such as @nyc_vaccine.

Turbovax.info constantly culls information on open appointments and provides minute-by-minute updates.

For instance, on Thursday at 12:40 p.m. it noted 4,837 slots at Javits. Two minutes later, it counted 5,084 spots.

Since eligibility opened up to 30-somethings, Turbovax has noted that the city and state only have a relative trickle of appointments.

"Both NYC/NYS have not yet released meaningful amounts of availability since increasing eligiblity [sic] to 30+," the site stated Thursday. "Follow the twitter account to be notified when it happens. CVS tends to release new availability around 12–1AM ET."

Likewise, nycvaccinelist.com provides rolling updates on open appointments.

Council Member Mark Levine also recently posted a handy rundown of all the different sign-ups and resources.

Once I find an appointment, then what?

Even if you find an open slot, that's no guarantee you'll score it.

Prepare to be disappointed. Over and over.

Many New Yorkers — again, including certain Patch writers — repeated the process of finding open appointments, trying to sign up for them and learning they're no longer available.

The best advice we can offer is to learn the various ways to reload sites without having to fill out your personal information — or doing the dreaded "CAPTCHA" — over and over.

For the city's site, clicking on the calendar refreshes the results for open appointments. For the state's, hit the "Back" link on the page instead of your browser's "refresh" button.

Also, some people have claimed better luck scoring appointments at Javits by calling 833-697-4829.

I don't see any appointments until May. Is there anything earlier?

There are no guarantees here, but the city, state, various pharmacies and other providers have updated appointments as more supply comes in.

Vaccine shipments to the city and state usually have arrived on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but, again, there are no guarantees.

"We're hearing good things about the April supply levels, we're hearing that there could be really extraordinary supply in May," de Blasio recently said. "So that says to me going into May, going into June, it's going to be easier and easier for people to get a shot."

All we can say is check back on the sites frequently and hope for a little luck.