Cathay1101

Planning to travel to the US this summer and expect we might have been offered a first dose of Pfizer/Moderna/J&J prior to our trip in July, and will therefore probably miss our follow-up appointment.

Friends and contacts in the US have said they're vaccinating anyone who wants one where we're headed, so I'm confident we'd be able to get our second dose in the US, although I'm conscious this may impact our ability to get a vaccine 'passport' to show we're fully vaccinated, as neither country would be able to confirm that we've had the full dose of each vaccine.

The obvious solution is to try and get J&J, but I doubt this will be readily available before our trip and I suspect there may be a requirement to be vaccinated to enter the US this summer for VWP holders.

Any ideas on what the implications of this may be?

jo535

I seriously doubt there will be such a requirement this summer. Hopefully, the travel restrictions will be lifted in combination with a negative test, as with many other countries. I do, however, expect a vaccine to replace testing as they are more readily available.

We are in the same situation. We will travel to our condo in Florida mid June, with 15 nights in Cancun due to the restrictions and then enter the US. I will have received my first dose by that time, Pfizer or Moderna and will get my booster in Florida. It is available for me as I am considered a Florida Resident, since we own property there and stay more than five weeks. This is what all Canadians in our community did when in Florida. I don't know how to get the certificate in Europe but I suspect that it can be entered into the database here as you show them the CDC card.

Farringdon

Seems like this is very much an edge case. If you have 2 different vaccination cards from different countries, you would have proof that you're fully vaccinated, but I can imagine some places not accepting this or the rules simply not being written to deal with this situation.

I would ask at the time of the second dose if they could write in the details of your first dose on the card. That way you would have everything on a single card which might avoid headaches later.

Also, check the eligibility rules in the place you're going to. The couple of states where I've looked into this would give it to anyone who could show a residence or work address in the state - and they wanted some evidence of this (utility bill, payslip or even just a business card).

jo535

That is a very good idea asking them to write the information on the first dose card. Thank you! Worst case scenario could be to get the second dose in the States to be fully vaccinated and then get a third jab in Europe if they cannot validate it but it would be taking a dose from someone else. In Sweden, they now seem to have more vaccines than people interested in getting them so they are making more people eligable faster.

Yes, Florida is one of those States. As we have a condo with an address there, a deed and a utility bill, we tick that box.

nk15

I was concerned about this myself, but I was lucky to be able to schedule both doses in the EU way ahead of my trip. If your national vaccination system allows rescheduling appointments, my suggestion is to keep checking regularly for any earlier dates (in some countries this is allowed and earlier timeslots are released as people cancel/reschedule appointments).

Another obvious option is to delay it and get both doses in either the US or EU, but getting on a TATL flight unvaccinated is semi-suicidal, so that's a no go, way better to have at least one dose.

corporate-wage-slave

There are now wide timeframes emerging from 3 / 4 weeks in the USA and most parts of the EU, through to 12 weeks in the UK and 16 weeks in Canada and Spain. But there are two aspects in common here: though the 3 / 4 weeks is a minima, in no places is it the maxima. So even in Germany the second dose can drift out a week or two. Secondly, if you are late for the second dose in all of these countries, then you simply get the second dose at the time you present yourself, and the course of treatment is considered complete. The only circumstance you would end up with 3 doses outside a medical trial, and leaving BoosterVax out of this for the moment, is if you had the second dose early, so before 3 weeks in the case of Pfizer. That second dose would be considered invalid and the third dose administered after 3 weeks. You wouldn't have to start all over again if you were late with dose2.

From an immunological point of view there are some benefits from delaying the second dose, but that's a broader public health discussion. But you should have confidence in your second dose even if it is a few weeks adrift from the local timetable.

Howmuch

Interesting thread.

I am in Spain and certainly won't be offered any jab this side of summer the way things are currently going with the rollout here.

I will be going to my house in Florida one way or another in the next month and had contemplated trying to get a vaccine whilst there, i did read that they were giving vaccines to anyone months ago but stopped this a while ago due to complaints and are now only giving the vaccines to Florida residents ?

Like others here I own properties, pay tax have utility bills and generally spend months every year in florida so it would be great to hear from anyone already being vaccinated but who isn't a US citizen or full time resident ?

SK AAR

I seriously doubt a second shot any place outside EU will recognised once you return to your EU member state, apply for vaccine passport and allege to have been vaccinated twice. You would need to look carefully into this; if it was me I wouldn't risk missing a vaccine passport due to being unable to get a second shot in your home country.

WillTravel

I think many places giving vaccines in the US do not care at all about your residence or citizenship. Early on, it was harder, but now they are just desperate to give a shot to anyone who will take it. Some explicitly say it's OK not to have ID, although you'd obviously want it for a vaccine card.

GUWonder

Why would a US record of vaccination + EU record of vaccination be considered any less trustworthy evidence of vaccination regimen completed than just a US record record of vaccination shot(s)? When it comes to people having taken one vaccine shot in the EU and one vaccine shot in the US and carrying around records for each of the two shots, there is no great reason to assume that they are any more likely to be engaged in misrepresentation in the EU than US persons who come to the EU with two vaccine shots recorded on CDC cards. And yet the EU will have countries that say they will be opening to vaccinated Americans who will have just a CDC card. So why refuse a record of one vaccine shot in the US + one vaccine shot in the EU?

I've been around enough to see medical systems in the EU recognize medical courses partially performed outside of Europe and partially performed in the EU and then end up marking things as final in ways in systems in the EU after the procedures and/or care are viewed as completed.

There are places in the US that will vaccinate the undocumented without issue, and there are places that try to avoid doing so or want to see something for ID for whatever reason. And sometimes it just depends on who is doing the administrative check-in for a vaccination facility.

Cathay1101

Interesting - thanks all. I happen to know for certain that we're where going in NC they're vaccinating anything that moves and aren't asking for ID, so I'm not worried about access once we're in the US. We'll see how we go.

warakorn

This way it may work. I am not sure how this works in the US at the moment. In the EU it is currently impossible to receive just a second shot. You won't an appointment for that.

Regarding the EU Digital Green Certificate -> it was stated again and again by the EU that this is a voluntary scheme. You paper-based certificates will be accepted, as well.

MaxVO

Florida does not have state-wide residency requirement for vaccination. And now with excess vaccine availability, anyone in FL can likely get vaxxed.

corporate-wage-slave

But you would get a "first" appointment instead, since the local system won't know about the USA vaccination. The second vaccination is identical to the first, so it amounts to the same thing. You just don't turn up for EU dose2 since that would be dose3. In the UK we would just enter the USA information manually first into our database, backdating it to the actual date and then enter the "first" dose as the second dose. There is a button in place to facilitate that, so I doubt elsewhere in Europe would struggle much with this. I know it works in the Irish Republic, for example.

warakorn

At least in Germany you need to fill out and sign a medical questionnaire before getting the shot. It asks specificially if you already get a Covid19 vaccination shot. Moreover, your identity will be checked. If you show an US passport this may raise questions, esp. why you didn't get vaccinated in the US already.

a. You can lie, of course. If you want to get your sticker in the same yellow book or CDC card, you cannot go down this route.
b. You can say the truth. However, this means that you'll be send home without getting a vaccinated.

As I said before "First Dose in the EU, Second in the US" may work. The other way around it probably won't work.