It could be ‘ months’ before Palm Beach County vaccine appointments open.
If you requested a COVID19 vaccination appointment in Palm Beach County, don’t expect to hear back within a few days. It may be more like “weeks to months,” the county’s top health official said Thursday.
The Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach is accepting vaccine appointments by email only after its phone system crashed under the weight of thousands of calls from desperate seniors.
Like other counties, Palm Beach County has struggled with the demand from a large, fearful senior population that is impatient to be protected at a time when the vaccine supply remains limited and the pandemic is racing.
Dr. Alina Alonso, Palm Beach County ’s Health Department director, stressed patience as the county moves through the vaccination process, saying the low supply has hindered the rollout.
“We’re going to add a statement when [ people] sign up saying the call- back is not going to be within days; it’s going to be weeks to months,” Alonso said during a news conference Thursday.
“It ’s simple math. At 4,500 vaccinations per day, I cannot vaccinate 400,000 people. You can do the math. It’s not possible. So we need to manage that expectation.”
The Health Department was forced to switch its appointment booking to email Monday after the phone system crashed due to receiving “thousands and thousands of calls per minute.”
“The errors or the glitches we’ve had in the system are done and they have happened,” Alonso said. “We acknowledge them and are trying to make things better.”
According to state data, the first vaccine dose in Palm Beach County has been distributed to 23,188 people. Alonso said supply issues across the state are preventing the county from conducting more inoculations.
Alonso added that she’s “talked to everybody up at the state and can guarantee you every day I request more vaccine. However, the state does not have sufficient quantity to give everybody what they are requesting at this time.”
The county, t hough, expects to receive “sufficient quantities of vaccine in the weeks to come to begin a large- scale vaccination effort,” Alonso said.
Vaccination emails sent to the Department of Health will be held in a queue until the county receives more doses. The county will then reach out to those individuals about setting up an appointment.
Another challenge in the vaccination rollout is the time it takes to conduct each inoculation. Unlike COVID19 testing, which can be performed relatively quickly, the vaccination process is more time consuming.
“The vaccine is very different then taking a swab on your nose,” Alonso said. “We have to have chairs in place, we have to observe after the vaccine is given for 15 minutes. And all those factors including the registration take time, so it’s a much slower process and a very detailed process.”