The state is only asking health care professionals to use a new pre-registration tool for vaccines against coronavirus, after a crashed launch on Tuesday morning, when many users received an error message when trying to sign.
The problems were caused by the high volume on Tuesday morning, the state Health Department said.
While the portal, called New Jersey Vaccine Scheduling System (NJVSS), remains open to anyone who wants to be on the vaccine waiting list, the Department of Health advised the general population to wait before signing up, since users started to report the problems.
“If you are a healthcare professional in category 1a who has not yet been vaccinated, the Department of Health encourages you to go online and pre-register,” said Leusner. “As the vaccine is limited, the Department encourages only healthcare professionals to pre-register at this time.”
The website is covid19.nj.gov/vaccine.
She said that some vaccination sites – particularly hospitals – have their own registration systems, so using NJVSS is not necessary for these workers.
But, she said, two-thirds of healthcare professionals are located outside hospitals, as teams in emergency care centers, doctors’ offices, dental offices and surgical centers.
“NJVSS is a form of pre-registration,” she said. “The value of NJVSS is to connect the people who want the vaccine with those who are administering the vaccine.”
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She said that when more vaccines are available for essential workers, older adults and members of the public in the coming weeks and months, there will be announcements that people should apply.
In the meantime, she said, some users may experience a temporary delay “as the system is scaled to meet demand”.
Even if the Ministry of Health requests that only those in category 1a use the enrollment tool, others are still allowed to enroll if they manage to enter the system.
Users reported several different problems on Tuesday, including error messages, changes to the information they provided about medical conditions and dates of birth that were not accepted by the system.
“We understand that a small number of people have had problems entering a date of birth and we are working to resolve this issue,” she said.
Leusner said the department’s technical team is analyzing the other problems.
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Karin Price Mueller can be contacted at [email protected].