Our AB government said it was the best in the nation. Uh no.....

If we ever have to go through something like Covid again, I hope our province irons out the inoculation process, because it definitely was NOT without its problems.

In chronological order:

I found out that retail pharmacies were going to be inoculating the public, so once a reservation system was established online, I booked a reservation. This doesn't get me an appointment, just a place in line for when bookings become available. I waited many weeks and never got one call, text or email to offer me an appointment for a shot.

On the advice of a colleague who had heard about the mass inoculation site in downtown Calgary, I called 811 and asked for an appointment at 10:30am. I had a shot in my arm that very same day at 4:30pm.

I finally heard back from the pharmacy reservation system 2 weeks afterward.

Meanwhile, my wife wanted to book a shot, but because of her surgery, she was advised not to get it until after her surgery. She used the same pharmacy reservation system and after many attempts to book an appointment at a pharmacy near to where we live, she managed to get an appointment for 4 weeks or so from when she called. Three days before the appointment day, she was texted that her appointment had been cancelled. No explanation was given. My wife was still recovering from surgery, so I had to go to the pharmacy to ask why the appointment was cancelled. They said it had to do with the system. It was not related to vaccine availability. They promised to call my wife so she could rebook. They never called. When my wife finally called them, she tried to book an appointment 3 weeks out and they couldn't do it. They were only booking a few days at a time.

My wife went back into the pharmacy reservation system and managed to get an appointment booked for 20 Jun at a pharmacy that is not close to where we live. She tried to get a closer location, without success.

I decided it was time to book my 2nd dose and chose AstraZeneca (again) and was given an appointment for 25 Jun. Some new data on my chosen vaccine motivated me to switch to either Pfizer or Moderna. I called 811 again to make a switch. I was able to get a new appointment on the same day at the same time (but a different location) for an mRNA vaccine. No problem at all.

On 20 Jun we prepared to go get my wife her first vaccine at the retail pharmacy and followed the instructions sent to us via email, "to save time, please print out and complete this screening form and bring it with you to the store." When we arrived, we were told that we had to complete an online version of the form because they did things differently.

In summary, getting inoculated using the retail pharmacy system was so much more problematic than the regular AHS system that uses the mass sites.