In hours, vaccine launch in Vermont attracts more than 21,100 takers

Updated at 21:51

Mary Barton believes she was one of the first people to sign up for a Covid-19 vaccine date in Vermont.

Barton spent Monday morning refreshing the Department of Health website. When the registration link finally appeared, she clicked and booked a slot for her 80-year-old mother for Wednesday – day one clinics will open.

“I was so happy. I was crying,” Barton said.

Her mother lives alone in Burlington. For the past year, she hasn’t been in close contact with Mary or any of her other 13 children.

Barton said while his mother’s date on Wednesday won’t immediately change that – her mother will still need a second dose of the vaccine, and even then she will maintain her precautions – it will provide relief for the whole family.

“We won’t be so afraid of making her sick,” Barton said.

All Vermonters 75 and older can now register for immunization appointments online and by phone.

The Department of Health launched the online registration system around 9 a.m. and the call center opened about two hours later.

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By 6 p.m., more than 21,100 people had registered, according to the department. This is more than 50% of the available appointments.

“It’s a great day for public health,” Deputy Health Commissioner Tracy Dolan said Monday afternoon. “Best day of the past 12 months.”

About 80% of the department’s slots were scheduled online, Dolan said, a sign that Vermonters had heard the state’s call to help less tech-savvy parents with the website. The rest was scheduled over the phone – the department’s call center, which numbered around 350 people, operated all day.

Some users are having technical problems. Several people told VTDigger that they never received an email required to confirm an account on the website. Without an account, they cannot make an appointment.

Dolan said users should check their email addresses for typos when starting an account – by 11 a.m., the department had registered more than 500 bad email addresses. If registrants try again and still don’t receive the account confirmation email, she said, they should plan over the phone instead.

Users should also check their spam or junk mail folders, in case the confirmation message is misclassified.

Others have expressed frustration when trying to schedule dates for multiple friends or relatives under one account. An email address can only be linked to one account, which creates problems for those who do not have an email address or who share an email.

The Department of Health offered a workaround: “Create a unique account and add the other person as a ‘dependent'” by following the system prompts, according to the ministry’s updated FAQ. There should be no limit on the number of dependents, Dolan said, but the ministry is asking users to limit the use of this feature to close relationships.

Some people signed up on a completely separate website: Kinney Drugs, the regional drugstore chain, schedules vaccine appointments at 20 of its 21 locations in Vermont (only Barton is excluded). About a quarter of the appointments for vaccines scheduled for Monday afternoon took place at the pharmacy.

The state contracts with Kinney to provide vaccines, Dolan said, and pharmacies will report the figures to the state for follow-up. “The state is overseeing all of this and we are counting it all,” Dolan said.

But the two recording systems are completely separate. Registrants should choose one or the other, Dolan said – they shouldn’t make an appointment with Kinney if they also signed up on the Department of Health site, or vice versa.

Another problem is reaching the people of Vermont. The state plans to work with home health agencies and emergency medical services to reach those who cannot make it to a clinic, but details for enrollment are likely in a few weeks, Dolan said.

If anyone isn’t sure if they’re included in this group, Dolan said, they should contact their local home health agency or their local agency on aging.