I drove to America to get the vaccine. Here's what you need to know to do the same...
Hellloooo
It’s been a while.
It’s currently around midnight and I haven’t slept for almost seventeen hours so obviously, this feels like the perfect time to write something like this.
I am writing this from a hotel in Bellingham, Washington having today (April 19) received my first dose of the Moderna vaccine. Before anyone who doesn’t know me asks yes, I am a dual citizen and so it is my right to cross the border into the US if I want to which, on this rare occasion, I do.
To get the obvious out of the way yes, I wanted to get the vaccine because I want to be immune to COVID-19. This pandemic has taken over a year of my life away from me and at my core I wanted the vaccine to even perceptually gain some resemblance of normality back. More than that though over the last 15 months I’ve been living with my parents, one of whom is severally immunocompromised, and getting COVID would basically be like handing down a death sentence.
However, excited as I am about finally getting my first dose of the Moderna shot it sucks that it had to be this way. At the beginning of the pandemic, Canada had it so good (at least perceptually, from a general collective perspective). Our case numbers were acceptably low in most provinces and the overarching sense of morale was quite high.
Then something… changed.
I can only speak from a British Columbia perspective but over the past several months I’ve noticed a tangible shift in the discourse around government discussion of the virus. Or rather, the ways in which we understand the pandemic continued to expand but the government action plan failed to keep pace.
Now, the topic of lockdown effectiveness and its epidemiological ramifications is nuanced and complex (and something I am obviously not a professional expert in) however what I do see myself able to comment on is the communication strategy (or lack thereof) which the Government of British Columbia employed.
Decisions started getting made by the top officials in BC’s health ministry that somehow seemed dissonant and disconnected from the reality of our situation. Dr. Bonnie Henry’s tearful and soft-spoken manner began appealing to less and less of my provinces’ population in correlation with our seemingly exponential spike in case numbers. Arbitrary and bureaucratic decisions were being made that had very potent real-world ramifications on people’s health and livelihoods without the government being able to express their solid logic or the reasoning behind them.
The biggest miss-step that I’ve seen so far though is when our government decided to increase the length of time between vaccine doses from 3-4 weeks to 3-4 months. The reasoning I saw for this was to get more people vaccinated with their first dose while we (or Canada in general) wait for the manufacturers to catch up with the high demand. This line of thinking, although admittedly logical, goes directly against the manufacturer’s own usage instructions for how the vaccines should be administered (as far as I’ve been able to research into anyway).
Understanding this my mom and I began planning sometime in February to take a trip to the United States as soon as my age group was eligible. Now in the intervening time, my mom got called for her first shot in BC (her being part of an “extremely vulnerable” group) then roughly a week after her appointment President Biden announced anyone over the age of 18 could book a jab in America.
So I did.
And here’s how you can too.
(The above was written while I was still in the States, the below is the guide I came up with during my quarantine time.)
An Expat’s Step-by-step Guide to Getting Vaccinated in the United States
Step One: The Basics
If you want to book an appointment for a vaccine in the States (and you are currently living in Canada) you’ll need a VPN.
Anytime I tried accessing a US Government booking site with a Canadian I.P. address it fully just would not load the page. This is fixed easily enough by downloading any VPN add-on to Google Chrome; the one I used is called “Free VPN for Chrome - VPN Proxy VeePN.”
This effectively allowed me to trick the site into thinking I was in Virginia and afterwards I didn’t have any problems.
All the states have different websites, systems, and processes to jump through. The ones that I have experience with are Washington State and California State.
For the rest of this blog post we’ll just be discussing the Washington State system however please go to the federal Vaccine Finder to book an appointment in whatever state is pertinent to you!
Step Two: Things to Know Before You Book
Having now localized this article to any ex-pat living in Canada and wanting to get vaccinated specifically in Washington State the next thing you’ll need to have before you book the appointment is an American address, phone number, and social security number.
The address doesn’t need to be located specifically in Washington, you simply need a mailing address somewhere in the States. I’m pretty sure they don’t mail you anything; I think it’s just for their record-keeping purposes.
As for the phone number if you don’t have an American SIM card the easiest solution I found was to go to Skype and purchase a temporary US phone number for like $5.00. It’s a monthly subscription but you can cancel anytime.
Again, no one has ever called me on that number. My guess is as with the address, it’s purely for record-keeping purposes.
One more thing which we’ll get to later in the list but deserves a mention now; be sure to check the Canadian Government website to stay up-to-date with everything you’ll need to bring/know when trying to enter back into Canada once you’ve gotten your shot.
Step Three: The Exciting Part!
Depending on availability and bookings the place where you’ll actually be able to get the vaccine will vary. Also, it depends on how far you want to drive. I currently work full-time and didn’t want to sacrifice more than an entire day in order to drive in and out of Seattle (I was optimistically trying to go there and back all in one day… more on that below) so I opted to look for an appointment somewhere in the vicinity of Bellingham (which is an hour or so drive over the border).
I booked my first dose literally the day my age group was eligible and because of that there wasn’t really a wide variety of time slots to choose from; however, there may be more now that we are a couple of weeks out (at time of writing).
Go to “https://vaccinelocator.doh.wa.gov/“ (remember to turn that VPN on!) and put in the Zip-code of your preferred location (Bellingham Zipcode = 98227, Oak Harbour/Anacortes Zipcode = 98277)
At the time the only appointment north of Seattle was in a place called Oak Harbour. Depending on the location things may look a bit different however I presume they’ll have you enter in your personal info (full name, email, phone number, social security number etc).
They’ll probably also ask you to enter insurance information. If you are American with insurance information go ahead and enter it however for those who don’t have US insurance don’t freak out. They’ll hopefully give you the option to just select “no insurance.” The vaccine is free for all American citizens so you won’t have to pay anything; I’ve just heard that if you have insurance your provider will want you to claim it or something so they can bill the government… I’m honestly not too sure having never had to deal with the chaos that is the American healthcare system.
Step Four: Crossing Over the Border
This was probably the most surreal part for me having not left my home on Vancouver Island in over 15 months.
The actual driving to the US border.
My vaccine appointment was at 10:29 am in Oak Harbour which is a roughly two-hour drive from Vancouver (where I had crashed with a friend after catching the ferry the day before). Just to be absolutely safe I budgeted myself a 45-minute buffer in order to get over the border and to my appointment with plenty of time to spare.
For me the closest Canada-United States border crossing is the Peace Arch; the junction that connects Surrey, British Columbia with Blaine, Washington. I left my friends’ house at 7:30 am and got to the border crossing around 8:15 am.
It was honestly so eerie because, besides my own vehicle and those of the customs agents, I did not see a single other car trying to cross. Mine was the sole vehicle in their entire lineup. I drove up to the only open booth, the man asked me for my American passport and for the reason of my trip. I told him I had a medical appointment in Washington and then he let me drive into America.
Easy as pie!
It was honestly one of the simplest encounters I have ever had with the US Customs and Border Service. I was in and out of the border crossing in under five minutes. The one thing I had planned for which turned out to be unnecessary was I printed out the appointment confirmations of my vaccine appointment and Covid-19 test just to be on the safe side; in case for whatever reason, my phone crapped out on me. However, it was a precaution that I didn’t need to take (although I still would recommend it… just to avoid any technological hiccups).
Step Five: Appointment Time!
Getting to Oak Harbour was also easy, given that I’ve never actually driven around Washington. With the miracle that is my iPhone 12, I simply set Google Maps on its course and let it direct me down the interstate. My Canadian phone provider is Rogers and with their “Roam Like Home” feature I connected to AT&T with minimal difficulty. It might take an hour of being in the States for your phone to really register the change. After restarting it once or twice mine connected perfectly fine.
I have to confess that I was giddy and not a little bit excited.
Yes, to get the vaccine but also just to be going somewhere. Like I said this was my first trip, my first time off of Vancouver Island in over a year. For a decent portion of the ride, I just drove in silence, appreciating the scenery as it passed by.
Now, once I got to my appointment things were honestly rather anticlimactic. I stood in line, eventually gave my name and ID to the receptionist and within five minutes received my first dose of the Moderna vaccine. I was in and out in under half an hour.
Step Six: Canada Making Things Complicated
Getting into America was the easy part; it was getting back into Canada which proved to be exponentially more difficult.
As I alluded to in Step Two the Canadian Government makes you jump through several more hoops than its American counterparts.
Firstly, you’ll need to get a PCR / RT-PCR COVID-19 test in America and bring that to the border crossing with you. Take it from me and make sure that it is the correct test because if it’s not that specific type of test you either have the option of getting turned back into the United States or receive a $3,000 fine for entering Canada in breach of the Quarantine Act.
However, with the benefit of this guide, you won’t make my mistake. Look at the document linked here to find a list of all PCR / RT-PCR testing centers in Washington State. The one location not listed in that table is the Bellingham Airport which also offers the PCR / RT-PCR test. As an American citizen I received a test free of charge however I’m fairly sure you must make an appointment ahead of time. To do so either phone 360-778-6075 or go online and book an appointment at https://www.testdirectly.com/patient/home (You’ll need that American address and your social security number handy again!). After I was turned away at the border I was able to phone them and booked an appointment within an hour.
The linchpin in all of this however is the fact that, unlike an antigen COVID test, a PCR / RT-PCR COVID test takes anywhere between 12-48 hours to get the results back from the laboratory.
This just effectively meant that I had to get a hotel in Bellingham and wait until the following morning for my test results.
So, in a hypothetical world, if you were to go over to Washington State super duper early and immediately get a PCR test you could, hypothetically, get your results back that evening. For reference I took my PCR test at around 4:30 pm and received my results via email at 7:10 am the next morning for a roughly 15-hour total turnaround time. The land border is open 24/7 so you could just hang out in your car until you get the results. However, when all is said and done the more pragmatic solution would be just to book a hotel room for the evening and make a micro-vacation out of it while you wait. Order a pizza, put on a movie, and enjoy your time taking a trip; that’s effectively what I did.
Step Seven: Crossing the Border for Real This Time
At this point, you have the (hopefully) negative PCR test results and you’re ready to cross back into Canada. As I got to the border for the second time the Canadian customs officer asked me the same standard questions: How long was I in the States, what was the nature of my trip etc… The inquiries that differentiate the Canadian side from the American one are they’ll also ask you to show proof of your negative PCR test and discuss your quarantine plan when you’re back home in Canada. Under the Quarantine Act, all travelers entering Canada are required to quarantine for fourteen days upon arrival. After explaining to the guard that I currently live in my parent’s basement and have the ability to cook my own meals I was sent on to a secondary booth where I was given two further COVID tests; one done at the time I entered Canada and one to do on day 10 of my quarantine. After I stuck a q-tip up my nose for what was seemingly the hundredth time I was finally permitted to enter back into Canada.
It is now day six of my fourteen-day quarantine period and, as I’ll most likely be doing this again in May, I thought I would sit down and chronicle my trip in order to help other ex-pats get their vaccines.
I have no idea what sort of reception a guide like this will get or whether they’ll be any pushback from my fellow Canadians for what could be seen as “jumping the cue” however the counterargument I have for that line of thinking is two-fold. Firstly, I completely understand the frustration that due to something that is entirely out of my control I ended up being able to get into a different cue than you; being born American was quite obviously out of my control. But I think the more pertinent way to look at this is I have effectively freed up two doses of the vaccine for other Canadians. I have “gamed the system” in such a way that takes the burden off of our already stressed healthcare system because, at the end of the day, the overarching goal is to get everybody vaccinated as soon as possible in order for life to get back to any semblance of normality.
Thank you for reading through this guide!
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