Allegheny County says it has fixed glitch affecting its vaccine registry

Allegheny County said Friday it has made corrections to its new COVID-19 vaccination registry that had prevented people from scheduling second shots.

Email notifications that were sent out lacked a first dose appointment code that was necessary for people to sign up for their second doses.

In a news release, the county said following “testing and resolution of several issues, the Health Department has begun second dose appointment emails” with the code.

It also included a few “caveats” for users:

• Since some people using smartphones have been unable to confirm their registration, individuals should schedule their second appointment on other devices when possible.

• The system automatically searches for available appointments for the next five days from the start date; if a “no appointments are available” message is received, re-search using the next week’s first day as the start date.

• Original emails indicated that the code would expire in 24 hours. That has been reset to 72 hours, and the corrected emails will say the same.

First dose appointments and pre-registrations were apparently not affected by the glitch.

Earlier, the county summed up the two problems:

“Shortly after the emails began going out, we were advised that a sentence that should have contained that code was omitted from the template and so those seeking second dose appointments were not able to schedule,” the department said. ”When the issue was corrected, and new emails went

out, others experienced a message that the clinics were full, or new appointments were unavailable. As a result, no further emails were sent.”

Those who want to schedule their first vaccine appointments can do so by visiting the county site at https://vax4.alleghenycounty.

According to the county, visitors have four options to choose from: schedule a first dose, schedule a second dose, reschedule an appointment and cancel an appointment.

By clicking on “schedule first dose,” visitors must answer four questions. Three are used to gauge whether they are eligible for vaccination before completing health screening questions. If the visitor is eligible for vaccination and appointments are available, the next step will be to select an appointment.

Individuals who are not eligible yet, or for whom appointments are not available, will be invited to pre-register. Pre-registered people will be notified via email or text — based on their preference — when they are eligible and when appointments are available.

Pre-registered individuals will be given priority to schedulean appointment before remaining appointments are opened to the generalpublic, the county said.

The state Department of Health has a new timeline for vaccinations and said it will be moving on to scheduling for Phase 1B on Monday. Until then, people in Phase 1A — as well as people working in law enforcement, firefighters, grocery store workers, and food and agriculture workers — are currently eligible to receive a vaccination.

Scheduling for people in Phase 1C is scheduled to begin April 12.

On April 19, “everyone will be eligible to make appointments for vaccination,” the county said.

According to the county, the site can schedule up to 50,000 appointments every hour.