Thousands of Minnesotans Compete for Limited COVID-19 Vaccine Appointments in First Week of Expanded Eligibility

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(KNSI) – Thousands of Minnesotans have grabbed most of the appointments for the state’s 12,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses allocated for seniors, teachers and child care workers this week through its nine pilot vaccination clinics.

Tuesday evening, the state’s “Find My Vaccine” web page says the remaining appointments are very limited.

“There is not enough vaccine for everyone who wants it,” state infectious disease director Kris Ehresmann said Tuesday afternoon. “If you can’t make an appointment now, you will be able to make one soon.”

On Monday, Governor Tim Walz announced the state’s COVID-19 vaccine eligibility pool would expand beyond healthcare and long-term care workers and residents. After a nudge from the federal government last week, Minnesota will start vaccinating people 65 and older, pre-K through 12th grade teachers and school staff and child care employees.

The clinics will administer the initial doses for this group on an appointment-only basis; vaccinations start Thursday. Minnesotans were able to schedule their first and second doses Tuesday.

“Today, at its peak, the registration site was processing over 10,000 unique hits per second, and total traffic to mn.gov/covid19 was over 1.1 million traffic hits — really significant traffic,” Minnesota IT Services Commissioner Tarek Tomes said.

Tomes added that people who successfully scheduled an appointment should receive a confirmation email or text.

Users reported long wait times and other issues trying to book an appointment online or over the phone.

The Department of Health and Human Service’s direction to open COVID-19 vaccinations up to seniors came only a week ago, but Ehresmann said even if the Minnesota Department of Health had more time to work on the launch, the demand for vaccines would have persisted.

“When we say people 65 and older, we’re talking about 918,000 Minnesotans who want to be vaccinated [with] a very limited number of spots,” Ehresmann said. “Certainly the teams that have worked on this have worked around the clock and have really killed themselves to get this set up. … I don’ think it would be fair to characterize this as the result of hurrying; I think this is the result of an incredible, pent-up demand for vaccines and limited supply.”

State health leaders and Walz have been pushing for a higher COVID-19 vaccine allotment from the federal government, saying that the state can pick up the pace of vaccinations if there are more doses to go around. With the promise of about two million vaccines through President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans in his first 100 days as president, Ehresmann said that would represent “a significant increase over the volume we’re getting.”

Minnesota receives around 60,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine per week.

People who could not secure an appointment for this week can try again next Tuesday at noon.