Within minutes of being resuscitated Monday morning, the Hillsborough County registration website for seniors hoping to get the Sewide-19 vaccine crashed, apparently due to the amount of traffic.
The plan was for Hillsborough County residents aged 65 and over to start making appointments to get the high-demand vaccine on the county-operated website that survived Monday morning at: HCCCOVD 19 Shot.A.S.M. Delivery is yet to begin on Wednesday and will last for four days.
But by 9:45 a.m. Monday, the website was still not working. Instead, visitors saw only one blank page with the words “500 internal service error”.
County officials said vaccination appointments can also be made with a phone call to 888-755-2822. The phone line should be open Monday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. However, the flood of phone calls in the line on Monday morning also caused problems, there were many reports that the call was falling or just received a busy signal that did not end.
Similar issues were reported with a jammed phone line in Pimelas County, which also opened its vaccine registration to the public on Monday. Residents of Pinelas County can contact the local health department office fee at 727-824-6900 or call their COVID-19 call center at 866-779-6121.
In response to frustrated residents’ social media comments and phone calls, Hillsborough County officials will only be able to make the following “valid” statement:
“Due to high demand, external registration system and phone center services are experiencing disruptions. Expect constant delays when trying to make an appointment while technical issues continue to be addressed. “
Only 1,500 doses of coronavirus vaccine were initially distributed to residents from the state of Florida, operating in the local office fee of the Hillsborough County, Florida Department of Health. On Monday morning, however, the county announced that Tampa General Hospital had delivered an additional 3,000 doses of the vaccine for distribution to seniors aged 65 and over.
With Tampa General’s surprise vaccines and the state Department of Health’s second expected shipment, county officials said they hope 9,000 people will receive the first dose of the two-shot vaccine this week.
Vaccines will be given at four locations spread across the county from Wednesday, Jan January, but appointments are mandatory and there is no waiting list, the county said.
This week’s schedule is as follows:
Wednesday 6 January
- Strawberry Festival Fairgrounds: 2700W. Risk St., Plant City, FL 33563
- Ad Radice Sports Complex: 14720 Ad Radice Drive, Tampa, FL 33626
Thursday 7 January
- University Mall (parking space): 2200 AD. Fower Ave., Tampa, FL 33612
- Vance Vogel Sports Complex: 13012 Bullfrog Creek Road, Gibsonton, FL 33534
Friday, January 8th
- University Mall (parking space)
- Strawberry Festival Grounds
- Ad Redis Sports Complex
Saturday 9 January
- University Mall (parking space)
- Strawberry Festival Grounds
This is a developing story. Stay tuned to www.tampabay.com for more updates.
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