April 23, 2021
As you can see by the image above, I got my second dose of the Moderna COVID 19 vaccine in 02/12/2021. I finally got the card today! Here's the story:
I had my second dose at a "pop up" vaccine clinic in the lobby of an Orlando Health Medical Pavilion in St. Cloud. The vaccine clinic was for Orlando Health patients only. I got the shot quickly, with no ill effects. I even wrote about it on this blog. BUT, the clinic staff didn’t give me my vaccine card back. I didn’t realize this until a few days later. The “pop up” vaccine site in the medical center lobby was already discontinued. None of the clinics in the med center had anything to do with the temporary vaccine clinic. Everyone I called said they couldn't help me, since their clinic did not run the vaccine clinic.
I called the Orlando Health main offices to get a record, or to find out who at Orlando Health had managed the pop up clinic in St. Cloud. They couldn't give me a name or even a department. They said to call Osceola County health department. The health department voice mail was full.
Today, the Orlando Sentinel ran a story with county-by-county instructions for how to get replacements for lost or missing vaccine cards. For Osceola County, the article said to go in person to the health department. So I drove (45 minute drive) to the health department. The health department did not have any records for my COVID vaccine. They said many patients from the St. Cloud medical pavilion were having the same problem.
So I drove to the medical pavilion. I finally found someone willing to do something that was “not her job.” She searched in her computer and found my vaccine record. It was entered without a date of birth, and defaulted in the computer to 1/1/1900. I’m old, but not that old.
Medical records are filed and found by using the date of birth as the first sorting mechanism. Orlando Health won't do anything with a patient without knowing the date of birth. Why was mine wrong?
I went back to the health department. They found my vaccine record under the default date of 1/1/1900. Evidently most, if not all, of the vaccines from that clinic were entered with no date of birth. And evidently many of the patients did not get their vaccine card back after the second dose. Now that the health department knows how it happened, it can try to work with Orlando Health to correct all these faulty records. And I got my replacement card, and finally have proof of my vaccine.
