[AzAuSenior]

For step 4 of the A Gambler’s Guide to Booking a Vaccination with Publix , the rectangle prompt to look for after the list of counties to book an appointment is shown here. Now you know what to look for when successfully booking an appointment.

[Byte1]

Originally Posted by AzAuSenior

For step 4 of the A Gambler’s Guide to Booking a Vaccination with Publix , the rectangle prompt to look for after the list of counties to book an appointment is shown here. Now you know what to look for when successfully booking an appointment.

Interesting. I scrolled down EVERY time it refreshed on all three browsers and I never had the box you show. Seems like being on there at 3:30am would have been early enough to put me pretty far up in line, considering they had thousands of spots. Even Marion county had over 1700 spots and they disappeared pretty fast. I was willing to take anything that was within a couple hours of driving, one way. Didn't even get the chance to choose one.
Like I said before, someone got the vaccination spots so at least we know that there will be less folks vulnerable to the virus. Hopefully, we can get ours before they open it for the younger age groups. We have family coming down in March that have all recently recovered from their virus infection. It only lasted a few days with them, but they are young.
Good luck to those that are wanting to get they chance at being vaccinated so that they can return to some semblance of normality. The hunt continues.........

And thanks to those that are passing on valuable information.

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by Byte1

Interesting. I scrolled down EVERY time it refreshed on all three browsers and I never had the box you show. Seems like being on there at 3:30am would have been early enough to put me pretty far up in line, considering they had thousands of spots. Even Marion county had over 1700 spots and they disappeared pretty fast. I was willing to take anything that was within a couple hours of driving, one way. Didn't even get the chance to choose one.
Like I said before, someone got the vaccination spots so at least we know that there will be less folks vulnerable to the virus. Hopefully, we can get ours before they open it for the younger age groups. We have family coming down in March that have all recently recovered from their virus infection. It only lasted a few days with them, but they are young.
Good luck to those that are wanting to get they chance at being vaccinated so that they can return to some semblance of normality. The hunt continues.........

And thanks to those that are passing on valuable information.

The site goes "live" at 6 am, so being on the site at 3:30 or anytime prior to 6 am doesn't help you. Also, the site doesn't seem to establish a first come first served "line". It seems to operate more like a lottery where you just need to be lucky enough to be selected from the site when a space opens up. Also, the "book an appointment" box doesn't show up until you win the lottery and are instructed to provide personal information. These are just my observations.

[capecoralbill]

Originally Posted by Byte1

I had three browsers open for the Publix site and watched as each vacancy filled up, never getting a link register for the shot.

Would it make a difference if you clicked the refresh button at the top of the page, rather than wait the 60 seconds for it to do it automatically? Thanks

[Byte1]

Originally Posted by capecoralbill

Would it make a difference it you clicked the refresh button at the top of the page, rather than wait the 60 second for it to do it automatically? Thanks

I had the idea also, and did that with one of the browsers, clicking and scrolling down the page until one of the others refreshed and then back again. I tried that with just one to see if that might make a difference. It didn't.
Maybe next time, I will try exiting and reopening the site and see if that makes a difference. I have also hedged my bet by registering at several country health Dept sites that allow you to register for the vaccination when they have it available.
Like I said before, this is to get my wife vaccinated as I am sure I will get mine at the VA when they have sufficient supplies. Right now they are giving the shots to those Vets over 75. Not there yet, but at this rate, by the time I reach the front of the line, I will qualify for "old" enough.....

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by capecoralbill

Would it make a difference if you clicked the refresh button at the top of the page, rather than wait the 60 seconds for it to do it automatically? Thanks

I originally thought that doing manual refreshes may hurt you by moving you to the back of the line. But, now, I don't believe there is a first come first served line. It is just random luck. I agree with the previous poster that manual refreshes probably don't help.

[JoMar]

Publix isn't your only option.....patientportalfl.com, myvaccine.fl.com, are two and you can pre-register your information on both. We used patientportalfl.com this morning and were successful for Orlando. Depends on how far you are willing to travel, my advice is to find alternative provider websites including County sites.

[gpk111]

This post discusses the intricacies of getting from the queue to the sign-in process. A related post (“A Gambler’s Guide to Winning a Publix Vaccine Appointment") navigates you through the sign-up process to raise your odds of getting an appointment.

Once you’re in the queue, you can watch a counter while the page refreshes every minute. You can also see the number of appointments left available in each county.
The official Publix statement is to simply wait at this point: “We do not recommend refreshing the page manually. We are limiting the number of people in our reservation system to ensure our site remains stable. Our waiting page refreshes every minute while more people are let in to book their appointments.” The implication is that applicants are let in on a first come, first served basis.

However, analysis shows that the queuing system does not work as expected. The transfer from the queue to the sign-up system is often not based on timing (nor device type, carrier, or speed). The system is also opaque in that it does not display your place in line.

Here are 6 suggestions below for your consideration.

Caveat: This is pure speculation based on discussions with a number of tech-savvy people and other users, but none of the comments are based on information from any of the Publix web designers or other internal contacts. Ultimately, none of these things may make any difference. The current implementation of the Publix queuing system may just be broken and randomly transfers users to the reservation system.

1. Use multiple browsers if possible. Three or four are probably optimum. If one browser is granted entry into the reservations system, be prepared to abandon the remaining ones immediately, since the active one will require all your attention. Publix says it’s sufficient to have one browser.

2. Confirm each browser is the latest version. Publix also emphasizes this. Also try to use different browsers (Firefox, Edge, Chrome, etc)

3. Sign in early and wait. It looks like the system refreshes the open browsers automatically immediately after launching. There may not be a need to manually refresh at the beginning and try to time the launch. Suggestion: watch the screen to see if the counter started by itself. If it did, do nothing. If you see the screen change (implying that the sign up window has been opened) and the counter has not started, then refresh manually. On 1/29, the window was open at 5:58 AM, so theoretically, whatever browser was activated would have been toward the top of the queue.

4. Watch the counters and the remaining sign up slots for the counties of interest. As long as the counters are running, do not manually refresh. In theory, you would go to the end of the line. If the available slots start to dwindle, you may want to consider a “Hail Mary” pass on one of the browsers. See below.

5. The sign up window should last at least an hour, so there is ample time to make decisions while you’re watching the availability by county. Depending on your gambling instincts, you can “let the clock run out” by doing nothing (the official Publix recommendation) or you can choose to manually refresh anytime before the spots in your selected county are gone. Trying it both ways has proven to be inconclusive. Here is some data to keep in mind, based on observations from sampled counties on both the 1/27 and 1/29 enrollment windows.
o There are about 150 doses allotted per store
o The number of stores per resident over 65 varies by county
o The depletion curves for the two days are remarkably similar.
o It takes about 10 minutes before there are any decreases.
o About 50% of appointment slots are gone in about 30 minutes
o 75% are gone within 45 minutes
o Almost all are gone within about 70 minutes
o Stores in the panhandle get the least amount of bookings and linger to about 80 minutes, but they are still not accessible to those in the queue.

6. If you are admitted to the reservation system, the counter will stop and the text changes. If that happens, make sure you immediately drop down below the county list (you will not be able to select a county on that page) and select “BOOK AN APPOINTMENT.” You do not have to drop down to check for the appearance of that "BOOK AN APPOINTMENT " box. Once you’re “in,” you can book up to four appointments. Note that if a red circle should show up in the “SUBMIT” button (happens frequently after the second or third appointment), you can not fix it by going back to prior screens and changing a selection (store, date, time). Abandon or reboot that browser.

~~~~~

[gpk111]

Originally Posted by JoMar

Publix isn't your only option.....patientportalfl.com, myvaccine.fl.com, are two and you can pre-register your information on both. We used patientportalfl.com this morning and were successful for Orlando. Depends on how far you are willing to travel, my advice is to find alternative provider websites including County sites.

Yes. Also see post # 65 for alternatives.

If you've been Mayo patient, they are also vaccinating, but it's invitation only based on their own priory criteria.

In addition, check out the State's new "preregistration system" announced on 1/29 here: Just a moment...

Also, consider the Orange County system . Very labor intensive, but excellent odds if you're willing to spend the time. You preregister with personal information, then register for notifications, then sign on with password from the pre-registration and keep looping about 100 times until you get a hit. Works (almost) every time !

[gpk111]

Originally Posted by AzAuSenior

For step 4 of the A Gambler’s Guide to Booking a Vaccination with Publix , the rectangle prompt to look for after the list of counties to book an appointment is shown here. Now you know what to look for when successfully booking an appointment.

Senior, Thanks for capturing this all too rare sight. Most people will fly by it rather than taking the valuable few seconds to take a screen shot!

[gpk111]

"Today 08:05 AM
Ricky Dale
When the site go's active at 6AM there will be a 60 second count down indicator (in red) towards the top of the page. That indicator will refresh every 60 seconds. Don't worried about the rest of the page/pages while that counter is active. If you are chosen that counter will disappear. At that point scroll down the page until you see a box that says make appointment. Click on that box. Once you are asked to pick a county and store, do not choose the first store or time in the county you want, you and a few dozen others may have clicked on the same store and time. You are then in a race to see who finishes the information first. (human nature is to pick the first store and time you see). Go into the county a few stores down and an hour or so in, you will be less likely to get bounced out too choose another store.
I have made four appointments in the last three sessions. Good luck."


Quoting Ricky here from the "other" Publix site in an attempt to direct the interesting discussion to one place.


Ricky: You make a great point. You are NOT competing with 300,000 people (the number that according to Publix, use the site), but you are in a time race for only that one time slot, after having chosen the county and store and date. So the fundamental principle is that for each of those choices, you pick the one you think is LEAST LIKELY to be chosen by others.

All that is discussed in my note #13. Of course the problem now is that most can't even get into the reservation system. That's discussed in my note #68 above.

[gpk111]

Copying another note from the other Publix thread to bring it together.

"The panhandle counties have already vaccinated 30% to almost 50% of their residents over age 65. Since there are a smaller percentage of locals needing their first shot those appointments probably are available longer on the app.

In Sumter, Lake County, Marion, and all those counties to the west we are at 20% or less of seniors already having their first shot. With close to 80% competing for appointments it is going tough.

South of us only Orange and Palm Beach counties are at 30%, and I’m not sure Publix is doing the vaccines there.[/QUOTE]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All the "shot in the arm" statistics are here by county. The site is updated daily.
http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_pa...ort_latest.pdf

You have to be careful to select the shots given to those over 65, since a lot of the total administered early have been given to health care workers, who tend to be much younger. You can then compare that to the total proportion of over 65's in that county. Here:
Florida Population 65 years and over, percent by County

Then multiply that proportion by the total population in that county here (estimated 2020 data):
Population of Counties in Florida (2021)

Not sure if the panhandle demand difference is due to saturation of shots, as you surmise, or inconvenient location or availability per population. I suspect it has to do with location, since surrounding states are not eligible to play the Florida lottery.

[charmed59]

Originally Posted by gpk111

Quoting Ricky here from the "other" Publix site in an attempt to direct the interesting discussion to one place.

Ricky: You make a great point. You are NOT competing with 300,000 people (the number that according to Publix, use the site), but you are in a time race for only that one time slot, after having chosen the county and store and date. So the fundamental principle is that for each of those choices, you pick the one you think is LEAST LIKELY to be chosen by others.
.

As I mentioned on the other thread, the panhandle has vaccinated 30% to almost 50% of their Seniors. Leon county is the winner with 49% having received their first shot. So there are less locals vying for slots up there. There are your “LEAST LIKELY to be chosen by others” counties.

Counties west and south of us are in the same boat we are, with close to 80% of the seniors still looking for their first vaccine. You might have a decent chance in those counties around Jacksonville.

[gpk111]

Originally Posted by charmed59

As I mentioned on the other thread, the panhandle has vaccinated 30% to almost 50% of their Seniors. Leon county is the winner with 49% having received their first shot. So there are less locals vying for slots up there. There are your “LEAST LIKELY to be chosen by others” counties.

Counties west and south of us are in the same boat we are, with close to 80% of the seniors still looking for their first vaccine. You might have a decent chance in those counties around Jacksonville.

Counties covered in the panhandle (stores in parens): Escambia (6), Okaloosa (7), Waldron (3), and Bay (5). There is a big void in Publix coverage from there to Marion (12). 2 counties south from Marion are Citrus (4) and Hernando (7). To the east you have St Johns (14), Flagler (4) and Volusia (25).

[PugMom]

Originally Posted by jimjamuser

I am amazed at post #13. It seems like people are doing enough WORK and utilizing math and computer science to the extent of researching for a cure for cancer - just to get an appointment for a vaccine shot. It seems to me that ALL that complexity is what we have paid taxes for all of our lives to have government DO for US! To me, the disappointment does not lie with Publix. It lies with government!

no disrespect, friend, but relying on the gov to get it right is a joke