I've helped a number of people get appointments in MA and had zero issues securing probably a half-dozen appts for people in the last 10 days. If the trackers are showing say >3-5 appts then there are usually some actually available (the macovidvaccine site is scraping/updating quite frequently).

Also, because of the way the MA state reservation system works -- they give you 25 minutes to fill out the appointment details once you "claim" a slot, often times you'll find a decent number of timed-out appointments showing up after the fact. Not to mention there are plenty cancellations (as presumably people are booking for family or maybe just vaccine shopping).

I was able to get myself and my family signed up through UCI Health. But I got a friend, and his girlfriend, who drove up to the central valley (he's originally from the Fresno area) to get theirs. Another friend, who lives on my street in south OC, drove out to Redlands to get his. Another friend and his wife who live down here got their first shot this weekend up in Livermore, where her family is. They'll make another trip up north to get the 2nd.

It's all pretty dumb and arbitrary to me, the way this thing is being handled. In each case they were unable to get theirs locally, everything was booked with no insight into when the next availability would be.