Demand rises for COVID-19 vaccination appointments, as some 700,000 Utahns become eligible



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Monday was the “ official ” registration date for Utahns aged 50 and over with certain health conditions, although some agencies started early.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Angela Bolt administers the COVID-19 vaccine to Robert Morarty, at the Mountain America Expo site in Sandy on Monday, March 8, 2021.

The hottest ticket in Utah this week is an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccination, now that 700,000 more Utahns are eligible for their first shot.

Monday was the first official day for Utahns 50 and over to register for vaccinations, under new eligibility rules announced Thursday by Gov. Spencer Cox. The governor also added people 16 years and older with diabetes, chronic kidney disease and a body mass index of 30 or more – a level considered “obese” – to the list of people eligible for vaccines. .

People rushed to fill the appointment slots as they climbed the websites of county health departments, pharmacies and health companies.

[Read more: Here’s where eligible Utahns can get COVID-19 vaccination appointments]

“We thought we would post the appointments and they would be swallowed up, and that’s what we saw,” said Trevor Warner, a spokesperson for the Davis County Department of Health.

As of Monday, the Warner agency had booked some 1,100 appointments for people 50 and over receiving their first dose – and a total of 1,800 appointments per day. The department plans to distribute about 2,100 doses per day for the rest of the week, for a weekly total of between 11,000 and 13,000 vaccines.

This should match the number of doses allocated to Davis County, Warner said. “By the time our clinic ends on Saturday we should be out of vaccines for the week,” he said.

Salt Lake County did not wait until Monday. Utah’s most populous county health department was scheduling appointments under the new eligibility rules hours after Cox announced Thursday.

The Salt Lake County Health Department scheduled 6,590 appointments through its system on Friday, spokesman Nicholas Rupp said. The county uses the Vaccinate Utah statewide website, and as of Monday the only appointments available on the site for this week were in Blanding, San Juan County, in the far southeast of the county. ‘Utah.

Salt Lake County still has more than 20,000 appointments available after this week, through April 3, Rupp said.

Getting an appointment at the pharmacies was not easy either. The Harmons supermarket chain, whose pharmacies have distributed vaccines to 15 locations along the Front Wasatch, posted on its website that “we are fully booked for vaccination appointments” and urged customers to come back. site next Monday morning.

Intermountain Healthcare had completed 90% or more of its appointments at six of its seven vaccination sites, said Lance Madigan, a spokesperson for the hospital system. The exception, Madigan said, was at McKay-Dee Ogden Hospital, which was about 80% full.

Intermountain staff are calling people on their waiting list to fill the remaining slots, Madigan said.

The appointment schedule at the University of Utah Health was almost full, spokeswoman Julie Kiefer said. Their system does not have an open registration for the vaccine; Instead, U. Health scans the electronic medical records of its existing patients and invites eligible patients to make an appointment to be vaccinated.

U. Health opened three more vaccination sites on Monday, at system health centers in Farmington, southern Jordan and in the Sugar House neighborhood.

The southern Jordan and Sugar House sites are expected to run out of vaccines by Wednesday, due to a “temporary reduction in vaccine supply,” Kiefer said. Those sites should set up more appointments for vaccinations later in March, she said.

Nomi Health saw an increase in the number of people making appointments immediately after Cox’s announcement on Thursday, spokeswoman Jenny Olsen said on Monday. The company operates vaccination sites at five Megaplex cinema sites along the Wasatch front and has opened a sixth clinic in Orem.

Correction, 5:15 p.m., March 8, 2021: An earlier version of this article miscalculated the weekly number of vaccine doses the Davis County Department of Health expects to administer this week.

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