Houston will expand access to vaccines.Demand exceeds supply on the overwhelming first day

Eyvette Hetherington slid his left arm out of his long pink sleeve, pushed up the gray T-shirt below, and thanked the nurse sitting across from him for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine vial.

“How about New Year?” The nurse asked from behind the plastic shield.

“Well, awesome, this is it,” said Hetherington, two mothers fighting stage 4 colon cancer. “It’s like Christmas.”

Heatherington was one of the hundreds of people who gathered at the Bayou City Event Center on Night Road on Saturday. There, Houston launched the first public vaccination site. Risk of illness.

City officials said in the afternoon that they expected supplies to allow 1,000 vaccinations by the end of the day. Still, vaccine demand far exceeded supply, and Saturday’s surgery was plagued by overwhelming demand, technical glitches, long wait times, and traffic.

Harris County vaccine registration also caught on the weekend.The county’s public health department has deleted its website for vaccine reservations after the agency Allowed residents who are not eligible for the vaccine to register incorrectly.

“Some individuals shared registration links far beyond those in that category,” said Elizabeth Perez, a spokeswoman for the department that allowed unqualified residents to secure reservations. Told.

According to Perez, health staff will carry out secondary tests on-site and refuse anyone who does not meet the criteria. She said 324 appointments were cancelled. Harris County received 3,000 Moderna vaccines on December 28, but hopes to get them sooner.

State Health Services Department Online dashboard Of public and private vaccination sites, including dozens of Harris County.

Mario Rubin, a 68-year-old retired doctor, said Saturday that he tried three hours to get an appointment in the county but was unsuccessful.

“It’s shameful what’s going on. The whole leadership should be criticized,” Rubin said. “They took months to prepare and design a viable system.”

Michelle Foldetta, a former teacher in Montgomery County who is not currently vaccinated, said she noticed that reservations could be made on the Harris County site. She decided not to do so, afraid to take the place of a more suitable candidate.

“It’s frustrating to not be able to vaccinate parents aged 83 and 84,” Foldetta said.

According to Mayor Sylvester Turner, the city’s vaccination center will reopen on Sunday, providing about 750 more doses, but more than 650 reservations have already been requested. By the end of next week, Turner said he would like to open a “mega” site to provide mass distribution of vaccines.

“As you can see, there is no doubt that there is demand, so to exponentially increase the number of people vaccinated with this vaccine, we need to do this,” Turner said. “We need to do whatever we can to meet that demand.”

Turner was scheduled to be vaccinated on Monday. Congressman Al Green received the vaccine on Saturday at the Bayeux City Event Center in his district. He believes it is a patriotic act, as the country is “on the brink of this horrific pandemic.”

“One of the reasons I’m vaccinated today is because I want them to know that I want to do what I recommend to them,” he said.

Initially, city officials instructed people to call the health department to make reservations, but found that approximately 250,000 callers were too much to handle. The call center’s phone line crashed an hour after it opened, so authorities offered to register onsite instead.

To prevent the same snuff, there are various registration options for future vaccination sites, said Steven Williams, director of the Houston Health Department.

Thousands of cars flocked to the event center after the call center crashed. Houston police guided traffic down Holmes Road by at least a mile. Many drivers were worried and skeptical that they would be at the forefront before they ran out of supplies.

“We have no more hope to get it,” said Murat Fleek, 61, who suffers from severe heart disease.

After making hundreds of phone calls, Freak finally received the promise and said he jumped into the car. But when he arrived, he was forced to join the end of a long line of cars. “For now, my chances are very small,” he said.

Others went through the traffic to the registered tent, where they picked up the reserved time and waited for their turn in the parking lot.

Bob and Nell Stinson jumped into the car after hearing that the phone line had crashed. Shortly before 1 pm, they stood on a sunbathing pavement just outside the event center. I was feeling good and looking forward to being protected so that I could eventually meet my family.

“We were waiting for it, and our kids pushed us,” Bob said. “We are 79 years old and a 40 year old says,’Get it, get it, get it.'”

For a 65-year-old Elizabeth Writer, she only calls, puts on hold, disconnects, or waits a little longer for three to four hours to take away the reserved time at 1:50 pm. It was rewarded.

“I got a real person, and I was surprised,” she said near the entrance to the building. “I kept it and jumped into the car. I felt like I won the lottery.”

Staff writer Zack Despert contributed to this report.