When the San Antonio City Covid-19 vaccination registration site went live at 9 am on Saturday, the 9,000 available slots were filled in six minutes. In Michigan, more than 20,000 people tried to log into a health care system to vaccinate Covid at the same time, paralyzing the system.
© Sarah Blesener for The New York Times
Health workers are preparing to administer Covid-19 vaccines at a facility that opened Friday in Morris County, NJ. The demand for the vaccine is so great across the country that many people have difficulty obtaining reserves.
As states try to expand vaccine implementations that have been marked by confusion and error, online registration sites – operated by a number of agencies and using a range of technologies – are crucial. But the problems they are facing reveal another challenge for inoculating Americans: there are many, many more people who want to be vaccinated than opportunities to get the vaccine.
“The registration system worked as designed, but there is a much greater demand than the offer currently available,” said Dr. Colleen Bridger, an assistant municipal manager, in a statement. “When we receive more doses from the State of Texas, we will have more consultations available in the coming days and weeks and we will keep the public informed about registration opportunities.”
Michigan’s largest healthcare system, Beaumont Health, had problems with its website on Friday, said Hans Keil, the system’s chief information officer. Beaumont Health, which operates several hospitals in the metropolitan Detroit area, recently announced plans to offer residents aged 65 and over vaccines, and about 25,000 people have tried to access the online portal simultaneously, Keil said. The portal did not crash, but many users were unable to enter.
“We are really having to rethink how we should do our capacity planning,” said Keil.
On Thursday, Miami-Dade County launched an online appointment registration tool. County officials said they would have a limited number of seats for people 65 and older. The vacancies were filled in 20 minutes, said Luisana Pérez Fernández, a spokesman for the mayor’s office.
In Georgia, authorities tried to distribute vaccines to individuals aged 65 and over, starting on Monday in DeKalb County. On Thursday, the DeKalb County Health Council website was experiencing “latency issues” as individuals signed up for the injection.
High demand was apparent offline as well.
In Montgomery County, Tennessee, more than 1,000 appointments were scheduled for Tuesday via a telephone system before the lines broke in the afternoon, officials said. On Wednesday, a new website and phone number were added to help handle the load.
Even in states where online registration seemed to be doing well, some people were stuck in long waits.
In Indiana, more than 21,000 people aged 80 and over signed up in the first 90 minutes when registration opened on Friday, and a total of 35,000 people signed up an hour later. (An earlier version of this item mistakenly indicated the age group as 65 or older.) State Department of Health officials said about 200 people were delayed.
“Individuals may encounter waiting times due to the high volume of interest,” said a statement from the department. “The registration system was designed to put visitors in a queue when the volume is high.”
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