Find your COVID vaccine in Hawaii County
3:25 AM · Mar 24, 2021Being 65 I was a bit taken aback when comorbidities were completely eliminated from category 1b in Hawaii and ages were sliced into smaller pieces. Eventually vaccination opened up for 65+ and so I started looking. As at least Hilo Medical Center has opened up pre-registration further this looks like a good time to share the information I found. Hawaii County has a long list of places where you can get vaccinated here: https://coronavirus-response-county-of-hawaiihawaiicountygis.hub.arcgis.com/pages/vaccine-information. Starting with Hilo Medical Center (aka Hilo Hospital, HMC) I found it covers Hilo Medical Center as well as Bay Clinic, HMC organized mass vaccinations including their kupuna vaccination site at the ARC of Hilo, and DOH mass vaccination sites once you have signed up. HMC has started accepting pre-registration for people 50+ now. Their vaccine sign-up page can be found here: https://www.hilomedicalcenter.org/covid-19-vaccine-sign-up-information/ . HMC has the most doses of vaccine scheduled to be available. Next on the list is CVS/Longs. This is also covered by https://vaccinefinder.org/search/, which also covers Safeway and Walmart (caveat with vaccinefinder: it doesn’t let you search past 50 miles from your zip code so you may have to search for a few zip codes, e.g. if you’re in Pahoa you may also want to try Hilo if you’re willing to drive as far as Waimea or Kona if you’re willing to drive there). Vaccinefinder lets you specify which vaccines you are willing to accept (for me having to go only once counted, so the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was definitely not out of the question though I understand that it is for some people). As vaccinefinder also covers KTA, Safeway and Walmart I did not separate these out. Most of these are also covered by https://www.goodrx.com/covid-19/hawaii I have been told that CVS/Longs does not schedule vaccination appointments for more than 4 days in advance - and I noticed that not all CVS/Longs pharmacies have the same vaccine. Kaiser Permanente accepts non-members for COVID vaccination from here https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/hawaii/health-wellness/coronavirus-information . I did not look into details because I’m not a Kaiser member and would have had to create an account. The County website says “Any non-member 65+ that calls Kaiser will be referred to our website (kp.org) to generate a KP membership number then schedule an appointment online.“ Hamakua Kohala Health doesn’t list anything on their website https://www.hamakua-health.org/covid19/ that I can find. If this is where you normally go I would call them. Queens North Hawaii Hospital provides vaccination information here https://covid.queens.org/north-hawaii-vaccination/ Example of vaccinefinder map as of March 23, centered on Hilo with a 50 mile radius.
As I had time to check: as of this morning (3/24) the Pfizer vaccine is out of stock at all the pharmacies covered by vaccinefinder, Moderna is available at Downtown Hilo Longs, and possibly at KTA in Waimea and Waikoloa (both of these have 2 entries and one shows it in stock and one out of stock for each of them). J&J is available at Longs Ponahawai, Target, Puainako, Pahoa and Pahala.
Mar 24, 2021