Need Help Getting A COVID Vaccine Appointment? Fanwood Mom Helps

FANWOOD, NJ — Sarah Moshenberg, a Fanwood mother of three, is usually up at all hours of the night caring for her youngest three-month-old daughter. Aside from being sleep deprived, she finds this works to her advantage to be able to find COVID vaccine appointments for those most vulnerable.

Moshenberg has become quite an expert on working the system to find appointments after she and her husband found out they were eligible for a vaccine.

"We signed up through the state website and then we didn't hear anything. We were waiting and waiting. And then we started hearing about people being able to register in Union County at Kean University," said Moshenberg.

The catch was the appointments were released online at random times.

"You would have to be on there within 5 seconds before it was all booked up," said Moshenberg.

And since the release time was random Moshenberg had to sit at the computer all day and refresh the page.

"Who has time to sit at the computer and check and refresh?" said Moshenberg. "It is completely ludicrous to expect people who are not tech-savvy, working all day, to refresh their phones or computers all day."

Even Moshenberg's in-laws were unable to find appointments. They had another residence in Florida and ended up registering there to double their chances and it worked. They landed a vaccine appointment in Florida and took the drive but had to wait there for the second dose and quarantine so they were unable to see their grandkids for over a month.

"As much as we admire [Moshenberg’s] actions, and are totally in awe by her willingness to stay up the night or wake up at weird hours to succeed getting the appointments, we also feel anger at the registration systems and procedures here in Jersey, that are geared towards the apps savvy, internet wizards and night owls but not to the elders," said Moshenberg’s mother-in-law Orly of Clark.

Being tech-savvy is definitely an advantage to getting an appointment in New Jersey. Moshenberg began following specific Twitter accounts or Facebook pages that could help give her an edge on landing an appointment.

Moshenberg learned CVS would post appointments anytime between 4 to 6 a.m. and Rite Aid at 11:45 p.m. But the times can change.

She found the following social media pages helpful to find appointments:

• Facebook Group: New Jersey COVID vaccine info - facebook.com/groups/891546924927251
• Union county: https://twitter.com/UCNJ_VaccineBot
• VaxxUpdates (all of NJ): https://twitter.com/C19VaxxUpdates

These pages also helped to find appointments locally:

• Meadowlands Megasite: (ignore the yellow box that says they are all full and still navigate to the box for your correct category) - hackensackmeridianhealth.org/covid19/
• Union County Vaccine Appts scheduling page - ucnjvaccine.org/index.php/vaccine/vaccine_availability
• CVS scheduler - cvs.com/vaccine/intake/store/covid-screener/covid-qns
• Rite Aid - riteaid.com/pharmacy/apt-scheduler
• vaxxmax bot - vaxxmax.com

Moshenberg also said it is good to have the person's (you are trying to register) information ready to go. She suggested using Google Chrome since it has an auto fill feature to save information like a name, address, phone number, etc.

Taking time to fill out the pages each time could be the difference between getting an appointment or not.

Using her new knowledge she has been able to help more than 30 elderly or at-risk people get appointments in the past month. While she is a mother of three and working full time, this is not something she can do all the time. Moshenberg is just hoping to share her knowledge to help others.

"I want more people to get help or navigate the system," said Moshenberg. "Everyone deserves the vaccination."

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