Is this the same in DC and MD?
Just got off the phone with our Silver Spring office -- yes: smoking puts you in 1C in MD. I'll see if I can get someone on the phone in DC in a bit.
So if you claim that you're a smoker, do they actually check on that?
I really can't speak for every facility handing it out but I will say from personal experience this week that the pharmacy I got the shot at was really doing no employment verification. It was just "and who do you work for" and that was it. The link to get an appointment was mostly passed around thru health care circles but there would have been absolutely nothing stopping me from sending the sign up link to a buddy, them getting an appointment, throwing an $8 scrub top on and claiming to work for a doctors office and getting the shot.
Now, that said, I know of another clinic that was only injecting people who were in VAMS which required an authorized agent of a provider loading the employees into the system -- that would be hard to fake your way through.
I bet the smoking thing will turn out the same way. Some places will be fastidious and make you bring a medical record where a doctor notes a history of smoking (or obesity, or COPD, or type 2 diabetes). Others will be more loosey goosey and just take people's word for it.
I will say to people wanting the vax ASAP -- if you know of a place that is administering (not a facility but like a pharmacy) call them and ask about walk-ins if people cancel and shots are about to expire. Place I went was totally doing that. Between no shows (!!!!!) and people signing up and not knowing it was 1A only and being honest they're not health care workers, they said they have about 15 doses extra per day and if they can't reschedule waitlisters by end of week, they were first-coming, first-serving on Thursdays so they don't go to waste. My wife is calling like 5 places twice daily to see if she and some elderly neighbors who can drop everything and be there in ten minutes can get the shot too.
