Where is the Best Place for a Russian to Get Single Dose Vaccine?

[JayFromTexas 58]

My Moscow-based girlfriend received a tourist visa and wants to visit me in the US. She must travel and get vaccinated first. What would the best place for that? Istanbul? Dubai? Israel? Ideally, we would like to find a place reasonably close to the airport where she can go, get jabbed and fly back to Moscow all in the same day. We are looking only for the Janssen/J&J vaccine since it is single dose.

 

Thank you in advance.

Edited November 8, 2022 by JayFromTexas

[slavaskii 885]

Does she have a Schengen Visa? Croatia would be my number one pick if they're still doing it, but that either requires their visa or a Schengen one. 

 

Also be aware that she will need to wait 7-10 days after receiving the Janssen shot before being considered 'vaccinated' for purposes of travel.

[JayFromTexas 58]

Unfortunately, she doesn't have the Shengen visa. She is limited to countries that don't require a Russian citizen to have a visa.

[millefleur 5,035]

9 hours ago, JayFromTexas said:

Istanbul? Dubai? Israel?

If they offer J&J to foreigners, it should be doable. It just might cost a lot more.

[slavaskii 885]

This article should be of help. It is recent enough that I think the information could still be accurate. The only thing I question is whether Turkey indeed is vaccinating foreigners; I did a quick search and the answer appeared to be no, so I'm not sure. 

 

Also, the Vinskyy Forums typically have good discussions on this. That's where I found out about Croatia back in September 2021.

[Zoothie 8]

I can confirm Turkey does it - my wife got it there (Pfizer), took 2 trips. It costs some money (like $30 per shot). I do not think they do J&J (they did not in the sprint for sure).

One thing I would recommend is that at least Belarus has Sinopharm [Vero Cell], and it's WHO approved, and should be OK for the US entry requirement. It's 2 trips as well, but much easier/cheaper...

Edited November 10, 2022 by Zoothie

[Simplytex 386]

1 hour ago, Zoothie said:

I can confirm Turkey does it - my wife got it there (Pfizer), took 2 trips. It costs some money (like $30 per shot). I do not think they do J&J (they did not in the sprint for sure).

One thing I would recommend is that at least Belarus has Sinopharm [Vero Cell], and it's WHO approved, and should be OK for the US entry requirement. It's 2 trips as well, but much easier/cheaper...

Just wondering, how come your wife decided to get the vaccination? 

 

I just am hoping someone can help me clear up the requirements:

 

Medical:

• Moscow: acceptable to not have an 'approved' US/WHO vaccine at the time of the medical
• Warsaw: needs to be vaccinated to pass medical?

 

Air travel:

• Spouses holding immigrant visas do not need a vaccine to board the plane (but, you may need to get vaccinated regardless, depending on where the medical is done?)
• Fiances holding K1 visas DO need a vaccination record to board the plane

[milimelo 4,196]

Or wait until the requirement for vaccine proof is lifted in January. 

[Zoothie 8]

Why? Two reasons, of which one is that we believe vaccines work ))

The second is that it made things much easier to travel at the time:

1. She got SputnikV and it made Turkey accessible without any hurdles. 
2. She got Vero Cell because we were prepping for an interview and it opened the US. 
3. Lastly she got Pfizer as we wanted to go to Paris and Turkey issues EU certificates. 
 

As to the “requirements”…

1. She did her medical in Minsk in October and they asked for a covid vaccination! In fact, they even required a flu shot!

2. You will find here a plurality of cases where what the rules say does not work! For example:

a. Warsaw embassy web (and that of NVC) site says police certificates are valid for 2 years. Yet, just two months ago a couple went through hell while in Warsaw as they said anything beyond a year is invalid for RU certificates. 
b. Same couple also ran into a problem with their AS evidence, as the officer requested a tax transcript while the rules say the fax return + W2 is also enough!

c. Warsaw web site says citizens of Belarus do not need to register to get their passport back (says it right now!). And yet, as I discovered on other forums it’s not so - no one will be allowed inside without the QR code! And I confirm that after our interview. Make sure you register!
 

So…hard work never killed anyone, but why take the chance?! ))

 

 

[JayFromTexas 58]

Well, we found a place to get vaccinated! ☺️

 

We were in Mauritius because my girlfriend had an appointment with the Embassy there to get a Tourist visa to the US. We were very happy that she was successful and now has a 3 year multiple entry visa to the US. We then started worrying about the next obstacle, where to get a CDC approved vaccination. I had searched for the past couple of months for a place in Mauritius. Our AirBnB host had friends in that country's Health Ministry and was told by them that the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine was no longer available in Mauritius.

 

My girl was on the Vinsky forum and another Russian posted that he got the J&J vaccine in Mauritius just 3 weeks ago. We went to the clinic that he got his vaccine, but were told that they had stopped providing Covid vaccines just 4 days before. We were very sad and were just about to leave when a nice young man came up to us and said the vaccine was available at a nearby hospital. He saved the day for us. He even called over to the hospital and told them we were coming. We were due to fly out that evening so we were concerned about having enough time because there is a second step to this process, which I'll talk about shortly.

 

We rushed to the hospital and they took us right in and she was vaccinated within a few minutes. They had her wait an additional 15 minutes to make sure there were no immediate adverse effects from the vaccination.

 

Once that time was up, we caught a taxi to Port Louis and started the next step. You see, the vaccine only comes with a local certification. We had to go to the Mauritius "International Vaccination Center" and request a WHO International Certification document. Normally, this is a 2-3 day wait, but we told them we had a flight out in the evening and that we needed it ASAP. A very kind lady accommodated our need and processed our request within 2 hours.

 

Icing on the cake was the total cost for all of this was: $0

 

We were (and are) elated that we could get both the tourist visa and a WHO certified vaccination in one trip. Getting vaccinated there saved us a lot of money and time. As we all know, a Russian has to travel long distances to get a certified covid vaccination. Hopefully, the US will drop this requirement soon.

[TBoneTX 43,058]

1 hour ago, JayFromTexas said:

We were (and are) elated

As well you should be!  How energizing to hear some good news in this forum.

1 hour ago, JayFromTexas said:

Hopefully, the US will drop this requirement soon.

[slavaskii 885]

10 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

As well you should be!  How energizing to hear some good news in this forum.

Agree fully! It's wonderful when posters come back to update on rapidly-changing events.

 

Jay's experience is also phenomenal because of the fact his girlfriend procured a B2 on the trip. I heard Mauritius was taking third country applicants, but for some reason I was under the impression it was super prohibitive to get there (plus, I doubt they do renewals). At least it's good to know that if someone has the means, there's B2 availability somewhere besides Poland.