PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Coronavirus vaccinations have been open in Pennsylvania for group 1a for several weeks, which has recently been expanded to include people 65 and older. But just because you're eligible doesn't mean it's easy to find an appointment.
Nicole Fring of Yardley has spent hours online trying to get her mom a vaccination appointment.
"She is on 25 to 30 waiting lists for anywhere that we could possibly do a 1-hour drive radius," she said. "It's very, very frustrating."
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf defended the decision to distribute the allotted vaccine doses to individual locations across the state instead of having a central database.
"Right now," he said, "we're doing it, figuring that local folks know what's best going in on their area and they can do the best job of connecting quickly with their citizens."
But nothing was quick about how Lauren Bruzek of Collegeville helped find an appointment for her dad.
"I basically spent all day, every day in the Rite Aid (online) queue," she shared. "My parents are retired and they were willing to drive to get their vaccines so I used zip codes within two hours of their house."
"If we had registration for every county that had their own health department, we'd basically be talking about central, state-wide registration and I'm not sure that that would be a better alternative than farming it out to 1,000 decentralized, distributed pretty equitably across the commonwealth," said Wolf.
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But some argue that without a central database, it's up to the individual to navigate where they can get their COVID-19 shot.
"It definitely helps to have some computer skills," said Ike Richman.
Many of those in the eligible category right now, however, arguably aren't computer-savvy.
"What would these people do if they didn't have other people who could help and continue to search for them?" asked Rachel Cohen of Queen Village. For her, securing a vaccination appointment for both her mother and her mother's partner requires time, patience and computer know-how.
"It's been multiple websites that I check throughout the day," she said.
Fring said the hot commodities these days are links to vaccine registration websites that are forwarded among friends.
"I try to pass off any information that I can to them and then I hear from others that their elderly parents had gotten vaccinated but you know someone," she said.
Still, that can leave those who are not so well connected still waiting for their vaccine shot.
"It's pretty much every man, woman and child for himself," said Melissa from Villanova, who has been looking for appointments for her 102-year-old grandmother.
Wolf has said that he has faith that the Biden administration will ramp up distribution. Part of the problem, he said, is not enough doses have being distributed to the state. He expects that to change at the federal level in the coming months.