There are still a lot of 65+ who are not registered
or vaccinated, for many reasons. I've helped several get registered/vaccinated and have more that I am currently helping. The lack of a focused outreach to them is a failure at this point. I do agree that general availability will happen sooner than later, though, as long as supply keeps up and more vaccinations are approved.

My parents have been trying to get it, and neither have been able to get vaccinated yet. There's a lot of vaccine out there, but I'm not sure I'd say it is widely available yet. Hopefully we are getting close.

You can sign up online at all of those places, but that does NOT mean you're getting it there anytime soon.
Collin County is on number 70,874, but has a wait list of 275,000+. They've closed the wait list to new registrants. I know numerous people whose number is lower than 70,000 who haven't been called and they don't know why, so they're trying to reach the county to find out. Some have luck. Others don't.

I, too, have been able to get my elderly parents registered at CVS, but there is almost no way that would have happened if I hadn't stepped in. They were determined to get it at their doctor's office. Thankfully he told them last week to let me handle it.

I had already gotten them on the lists at multiple counties plus the city of Garland, but they still haven't been called. As soon as I saw that CVS was taking registrations, I jumped online. The whole sitting in an online queue would have blown their minds and I guarantee they would have disconnected. I also used two devices at the same time, so was able to get them registered on the same day at the same location, but two hours apart. There is no way they could have done that on their own.

They didn't even know how to access their insurance information. "But Tom Thumb has it..." Well, we're not registering you with Tom Thumb. I need it for CVS. Luckily I was able to create online accounts and access their printable cards to input the information at CVS.

So, I don't know how people without support systems are dealing with this, but my college-educated, business-owning, English-speaking parents have struggled. I think it's a bit early to claim that it's widely available.
It's getting better, but not widely available.

Another anecdote, my FIL in WI called this morning and was super excited that he was heading to Walgreen's for his first dose. He got there and was turned away because he wasn't in their system. He doesn't know why. We're certain it was user error because, again, technology. We're trying to figure it out, but he's further away, obviously, and it's more complicated because of that.

Walgreen's, CVS, and Walmart are all making it harder than it needs to be and need to simplify registration. Walgreen's and Walmart require logging into their account and CVS is asking for insurance info. None of those things are necessary to receive the vaccine. In my experience, local health authorities and HEB only ask for Name, DOB, Phone, and E-mail. This is all that should be required.

Quote:

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there are 20 MM adult Texans. Today, we passed 5 MM vaccines administered.

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Those numbers can be misleading because some folks have been given 2 doses. According to the link above, as of 11:59pm yesterday, 2.9 million people have had at least one dose, with approx. 1.2 million of that group have had their second dose (for a total of 4.1 million total doses administered).

GAC06 said:

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As soon as it slows distribution we should stop. But to begin, it's the best way to save the most lives.

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maybe. While mortality is very high case numbers are not. The elderly are more likely to self isolate to begin with. Maybe targeting middle aged workers would have been a better middle ground to both slow spread and protect at risk people.

A highly contagious virus requires contact with other humans to spread. Focusing on individuals with a lot of contact would have been a better roll out, IMo.