Minnesotans Flooding COVID-19 Vaccine Appointment Website

By Rilyn Eischens, the Minnesota Reformer

January 19, 2021

Minnesotans over age 65 are rushing to get vaccinated as part of a pilot program for early vaccination.

As of mid-day Tuesday, more than 4,100 appointments had been booked out of the roughly 6,000 slots available this week for Minnesotans 65 and older at pilot sites. The signup website has been experiencing 2,000 hits per second and peaked at 10,000 hits per second, according to a state official.

The pilot program expands vaccine eligibility to the general public in Minnesota for the first time. Until now, vaccines had been available only to health care workers and people in long-term care facilities under the state’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan.

Starting at noon on Tuesday, Minnesotans 65 and older can make an appointment to get vaccinated at one of the nine pilot sites across the state at mn.gov/vaccine, or by phone at 612-426-7230. Appointment availability will refresh every Tuesday at noon, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.

Teachers, school staff and child care workers are also eligible, and will receive information about scheduling appointments through their employers.

The state announced the change to vaccine eligibility last week after the Trump administration issued new guidance recommending that states prioritize vaccinating people over 65. The administration had also announced that it would release all the doses in its vaccine reserve, leading state officials nationwide to believe that they would receive more vaccine doses — but there was no reserve, the Washington Post reported.

Gov. Tim Walz blasted the federal government during a news conference last week, asking, “Who’s going to be prosecuted for this? What are the states to do when they’ve been lied to and made all their plans around this?”

Sen. Karin Housley, R-St. Mary’s Point, the chair of the Aging and Long-Term Care Policy Committee, criticized the vaccine pilot program rollout in a series of tweets Tuesday. “Gov. Tim Walz’s vaccine pilot program is absolutely unacceptable! All it did was give seniors false hope. The website is down & phone lines overloaded,” she wrote in the tweet.

.@govtimwalz’s vaccine pilot program is absolutely unacceptable! All it did was give seniors false hope. The website is down & phone lines overloaded. Seniors are competing with MN Zoo employees & prisoners to get vaccines. This is NOT prioritizing our seniors! 1/4
— Karin Housley (@KarinHousley) January 19, 2021

“We need more vaccine from the feds,” said Teddy Tschann, spokesperson for Walz. “Since noon, call centers have received over 83,000 (calls). The vendor that processes the registration system experienced delays, but the state site handled the traffic well, and across the system nothing crashed.”

Minnesota receives roughly 60,000 doses of vaccine from the federal government each week. There are nearly 1 million Minnesotans over 65, so health officials are urging Minnesotans to be patient and continue to practice COVID-19 safety measures as they wait to be vaccinated.

The state is still vaccinating high-priority health care workers and nursing home residents — about 500,000 people — and hopes to complete that phase of vaccine distribution by the end of the month. So far, more than 200,000 Minnesotans have received at least one dose — roughly 3.6% of the population — and 38,258 have received two doses, according to MDH.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..