Philadelphia residents seeking to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine can now use the city’s official vaccine registration website to express interest in scheduling appointments to receive their vaccines.
The website – published in English and Spanish – allows city residents to submit contact information and some personal background to help the city’s health department determine when users will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. This will be based on the supply and updated priority guidelines established by the Philadelphia vaccine task force.
Those who fill out the interest form posted on the website will be contacted later by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health or one of the city’s vaccine partners, when it is their turn to schedule appointments.
Health department employees have ensured that the website is secure and the personal data collected from the form is protected with the same level of security as other health information maintained by the department.
“Having a vaccine against COVID is a big step forward, but we understand that many Philadelphia are frustrated by not knowing how to get vaccinated,” said Philadelphia Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley. “While we cannot get more doses of vaccine to appear, with this application, we can at least guarantee interested philatelines that they will be contacted when the opportunity to be vaccinated arises.”
The city’s supply of COVID-19 vaccines remains extremely limited at the moment. The city hall website does not allow residents to make an appointment, but requests contact when possible.
It may take weeks or months before people who have registered for the COVID-19 vaccine receive calls to make an appointment.
The health department is also working with other organizations that have created “pre-registration sites”, including Philly Fighting COVID, the Black Doctor’s COVID-19 Consortium and Acme. The city’s goal is to ensure that the information that these groups have already collected is added to the city’s database.
There was some confusion among residents about whether existing vaccine partner sites, such as Philly Fighting COVID, would transfer updated information to the city’s official website.
“As our database is being built, this is being done with the intention of being able to easily combine with others,” said a health department spokesman. “While it is possible that some people who signed up with these forms will be contacted in the future, after they have already received the vaccine, we do not imagine that this is necessarily a bad thing.”
The health department said it is developing tools that will allow residents to register on any partner site – or on all sites – so that they can be contacted when they are eligible to be vaccinated.
Philadelphia is in Phase 1B of its vaccination plan, which includes certain groups of essential workers, elderly people over 75 and people with certain high-risk medical conditions, as well as health professionals who were already covered by Phase 1A.
“It is important to stress that at some point in the future, everyone who indicates that they want to get the vaccine will be contacted and will have the opportunity to make an appointment,” the health department said in a statement. “There is no reason to call your personal health care provider to ask about making an appointment.”
The city has been informed that it will continue to receive a combined total of about 20,000 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines per week – plus the appropriate second doses – until the end of February, which Farley described as a “very limited supply. “
COVID-19 vaccine production is expected and expected to increase significantly in the coming weeks and months.