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Originally Posted by OtinG
Call it what you will, but for elderly people who are greatly challenged sending a text message, much less attaching a photo to a message, it is a daunting task.
Some states and counties have made the process less confusing than others. Many states and counties have convoluted, poorly designed sets of web pages that make little sense and keep redirecting the user to other pages. In my state and county the system has been a huge fiasco. Those lucky enough to find a doctor whose practice can give them the vaccination are lucky, but there are very few of those.
The Feds have one set of criteria. The states have their own modified sets of criteria. The counties/cities have modified the criteria even further. If an elderly person is highly challenged to send a simple text message with a photo, and many are, they are going to be overwhelmed by the online processes they must go through to set up an appointment for a vaccination. Yes, they can use the telephone, but from the news reports and buzz about town and on social media, the chances of setting up an appointment via a telephone call is way lower than doing so via websites.
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Texts are sent by phone and are not used to set up an appointment. I didn't need to attach a photo either. I did not use my phone. I used a laptop. Maybe the biggest challenge for some is knowing what websites to go to, but that was something younger people needed to learn as well. In New York there is a webpage with many of the places that give vaccines (not all of them, that is what is confusing). There is another website with a list of all the NY State vaccination places. I had to go to many sites. I know people in their 70s who got their first shot (in NJ and GA) before I got my appointments. There have been a lot of people posting the sites on facebook and in NextDoor neighborhood sites. It was through a NextDoor post that I learned that Walgreens was about to start accepting appointments. That is where I got mine (took 5 days though). There are a lot of older people on Facebook and NextDoor.
Older people who live in assisted living or nursing homes did not set up their own appointments but were just told when they were getting them and they were vaccinated at home or at least in the same building.