Yes, the booster is available for kids ages 6 months and up who have completed the primary series :)

Yes it's open till 5! That's good to know about the website - I will reach out to the clinic directors and let them know so they can change it

It's on the ground floor, in the room on the right hand side of the main lobby

Also you don't have to be Worcester resident! Just need an ID to verify who you are, not to verify where you live.

Yes kids get gift cards! I'm honestly not sure what documentation kids need but I'm guessing just the parent's ID. I'll find out.

But regardless they get gift cards.

I hadn't heard this, but can't hurt to try I guess :)

I appreciate calling out vaccine misinformation and fear mongering, but just a gentle reminder that calling such attitudes "encephalopathy" reinforces stigma against people with encephalopathy as well as other neurological and psychiatric disorders.

There could be people with encephalopathy reading this, including people with encephalopathy who want to get vaccinated!

Yes, you are eligible! Any government-issued ID will work - you don't need local proof of residency.

Sorry, comments got shut off on that thread so I wasn't able to reply there

Unfortunately not 😭

I already got mine too. And as of now there is only one dose of the bivalent booster.

It's for anyone! You just need your ID.

I completely hear where you're coming from with the comparison to blood donations. I agree those should be compensated.

I think one differences is that getting a vaccine also protects the person getting it AND is good for public health, whereas donating blood is not giving any health benefit to the person donating and ONLY is good for public health.

So, from and ethical standpoint, paying for blood donations is a little more complicated. In my opinion that should be more compensated, not less, but there's some ethical muddiness nto offering a financial incentive for a medical procedure that doesn't have the direct benefit to the individual.

There's also the cost. It's cost effective to offer this incentive, whereas to pay people to donate blood products would increase the cost of a medical treatment that's already really expensive, without the indirect cost-saving benefit that vaccines have.

But again, I hear you and agree that the premise of not compensating people who donate blood is problematic. Without direct benefit to the individual, I see even more reason to compensate people instead of less.

Nope, walk in anytime the clinic is open!

Thank you for bringing this up! It does seem odd but when you break down the logic it makes a lot of sense.

Vaccines keep the public from being severely ill, and prevent hospitals from being overrun. In preventing people from getting so sick they have to be hospitalized, so purely from a financial standpoint it is cost saving to not only offer the vaccines for free but also pay people to get them.

It also prevents complete healthcare system collapse. Many patients have had necessary care for non-covid issues delayed, and some have become severely ill or died as a result of lack of care due to complete overwhelm on the healthcare system by the pandemic. The more people we can prevent from being hospitalized with covid, the more healthcare is available for everyone.

It's kind of similar to how insurance companies sometimes give financial incentives to people for having annual physicals or getting a gym membership. Preventative medicine saves money.

It saddens me that we have a for-profit healthcare system. But, in the context of preventative medicine, it is advantageous from a public health as well as a financial perspective to offer this sort of incentive.

I hope that explanation makes sense!

You should check out the Worcester buy nothing Facebook group! Very useful for this sort of thing

Nice! I didn't vaccinate any whole families so you didn't have me, but I was there!

Enjoy your spending spree 🤩

Thank you :)

Yes!

Yep, on Salem street!

Thank you for encouraging readers not to be douchebags!

I have one request/suggestion. I would be more inclined to describe the conspiracy theories you're referring to without insulting people who suffer from schizophrenia by using the word "schizo."

I assume that wasn't your intention. Just wanted to give a gentle reminder that someone with schizophrenia, including someone with schizophrenia who wants a vaccine, might read that.

People with schizophrenia are not to blame for the spread of fake news. Fear mongering and misinformation are to blame for that.

Nope, just show up!

All of the covid vaccines drastically reduce severity and prevent hospitalizations and death. The new bivalent booster is particularly effective.

People who received the bivalent vaccine were 84% less likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 than those who were unvaccinated and 73% less likely to be hospitalized than those who received 2+ doses of the monovalent vaccine.

Adults who received a bivalent booster were 38% to 45% less likely to seek emergency or urgent care than those who received monovalent vaccination only with the last dose 5-7 months earlier and 11+ months earlier, respectively.

I emailed the clinic coordinator and haven't heard back, but I expect I'll hear back sometime tomorrow.

I don't think so but I will double check!

Walk in! With your vaccine card if you still have it. If you lost it they should be able to look up your info and give you a new card.

I'm not positive if they can look it up out of state but if it was in MA they definitely should be able to.

I'm one of the vaccinators, not one of the registration people. Everyone shows up to my station with a card and I haven't seen anyone get turned away, so I assume they can look it up but am not involved with those details of the process so I'm not positive.

Edit: I can find out during my next shift