The City of San Antonio’s first week of vaccination appointments at the Alamodome are now full just minutes after opening registration at 9 a.m. Saturday.
All 9,000 appointments filled up in just four to six minutes, according to a city spokeswoman. The city estimates that 11,000 people were trying to access the registration page when it opened. The appointments were for people who fall under Phase 1A and 1B vaccination categories under state guidelines. It was the city’s first major vaccination campaign event with plans to vaccinate more than 1,500 people per day.
Many people attempting to make appointments found themselves at an unresponsive web page when accessing the city’s COVID-19 website or were unable to get to 311 where registration was taking place. After about eight minutes, the registration page indicated registration was full when someone tried to select an appointment time.
San Antonio’s COVID-19 Incident Commander Dr. Colleen Bridger said more appointments would be available when the state sends additional doses of the vaccine.
“I want to thank the community for their patience as the City works with our State partners to make more vaccine available,” Bridger said in a statement on Saturday. “The registration system worked as designed, but there is far greater demand than available supply at this time. When we receive more doses from the State of Texas, we will have more appointments available in the coming days and weeks, and we will keep the public informed about registration opportunities.”
City officials announced the vaccine campaign on Friday and encouraged residents to sign up for the first week, which begins on Monday. Several thousand doses are expected to arrive every week thereafter.
“We’re expecting weekly shipments to Bexar County – around 20,000 to 25,000 doses – that will be divvied up across various providers,” Bridger said on Friday. “We expect to get at least 9,000 doses per week for this site.”
Officials expected high demand for the vaccine. Phase 1A and 1B includes healthcare workers, certain first responders, long-term care residents, people over the age of 65, and people who are between the ages 16 and 65 who have a chronic condition like diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer and other ailments.
Bridger said last week the expansion to Phase 1B makes more than 60% of Bexar County’s 2 million residents eligible for the vaccine.
A similar vaccine campaign by University Health System saw 17,000 appointments fill up in less than five hours on New Year’s Eve last year; and like the City’s campaign, additional appointments are expected when more vaccine doses arrive.
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