NYC Monkeypox Vaccine Appointments Available On New Site After Crash

NEW YORK CITY — A city monkeypox vaccine appointment system dubbed a "total failure" will get a new home days after New Yorkers desperate for a dose crashed the site.

The city's COVID-19 vaccine portal will host monkeypox shot bookings as of Friday at 6 p.m., when New Yorkers will be able to sign up for one of 8,200 shots from the federal government, health officials said.

The switch to the more reliable Vax4NYC site wasn't enough to appease the anger of New Yorkers who saw cases climb from 14 one month ago to 389 as of Thursday.

"This is repeatedly botched, you don’t care," one Twitter user posted to health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan. "We won’t forget."

The changeover follows a disastrous weeks of complaints by vulnerable New Yorkers who had trouble booking appointments through the Health Department website.

Site issues hadn't been resolved by Tuesday when New Yorkers trying to sign up for doses found themselves trying to access a broken site.

"This is not working on any level," Andy Cohen, the television host, tweeted in response.

Demand for the monkeypox vaccine has been high, but supply is low. Problems with the meager supply have only been amplified by the glitches that plagued rollouts of online appointments for doses.

A New York Post exposé detailing failings with the previous system and raising questions why city officials didn't use their Vax4NYC site preceded health officials' decision to change the booking site.

But even with a new site, it's likely many eligible New Yorkers still won't be able to get shots.

"NYC is receiving a limited number of doses from the federal government, and we are making them available to New Yorkers as quickly as possible," the health department's monkeypox website states.

Most cases have been detected in social networks of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, officials said.

But they also note anyone can contract monkeypox through direct contact with rashes or sores, items used by a person with monkeypox such as clothing or bedding, and sexual contact.

So far, vaccine eligibility is only open for people who fit that description, in addition to other criteria. Those are, according to health officials:

• Gay, bisexual, or other man who has sex with men, and/or transgender, gender non-conforming, or gender non-binary
• Age 18 or older
• Have had multiple or anonymous sex partners in the last 14 days

Like previous batches, the next bunch of 8,200 first-dose appointments likely will fill up quickly, officials said.

People can sign up for alerts on vaccination appointments by texting "MONKEYPOX" to 692-692. Check this site for updates on monkeypox.