Miami-Dade had 1,900 vaccination slots to book. They were gone in minutes.

Miami-Dade had about 1,900 reservation slots for a new vaccination site at Tropical Park, and they were filled 15 minutes after the registration site went online Thursday.

The rapid bookings were the latest sign of the high demand from older residents for Florida’s limited supply of COVID-19 vaccine doses. Miami-Dade’s county government received 5,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to be administered first to firefighters and paramedics, and now is offering up the leftovers to public housing residents and the general public.

Under current state rules, the doses were limited to people 65 and over. The county announced a reservations website would go up at 2 p.m. Thursday. By 2:20 p.m., the site had an unwelcome message: “Registration is currently closed. Please check back periodically as additional vaccines become available.” Rachel Johnson, communications director for Miami-Dade, said the nearly 1,900 appointment slots were booked in about 15 minutes.

Maria Byrd, an accountant in Coconut Grove, said she failed to land a slot for her 70-year-old mother this week when the Jackson Health hospital system opened up 12,000 vaccination appointments and then filled them up minutes after the announced 11 a.m. launch.

When she saw the county announcement Thursday, Byrd said she was ready for the 2 p.m. launch and found a faulty link. She tried again. No luck. “The third time was the charm,” she said of her mother’s Saturday appointment at Tropical Park. “We are all thrilled, and hope things might be back to normal soon.”

The Tropical Park site forbids walk-up appointments, so the location is only accessible to people who received appointments through the site. It’s the first county vaccination center. Tropical Park, a county facility in the Westchester area, is already a popular COVID-19 testing site.

For now, local hospitals are handling the bulk of COVID-19 vaccinations. Florida is bringing vaccinations to Hard Rock Stadium, another testing site, and appointments are expected to open there by Friday. Miami-Dade maintains a website with links to various vaccine options at miamidade.gov/vaccine.

The county site followed other efforts to quickly use up the state vaccines not wanted by county firefighters and paramedics, who largely declined early access to the doses. The county’s Housing Department has been arranging vaccinations for home-bound seniors in public housing complexes. Older county employees were also offered the vaccine. When the booking site went up, the county had roughly 1,900 of the 5,000 vaccine doses to offer.

Rescue workers were given high priority in the vaccination plan implemented by Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose administration controls most of the doses statewide.

Despite easy access to the vaccines, most county firefighters and paramedics have declined to be vaccinated. As of Monday, the county reported Wednesday, only 412 people from the agency agreed to the voluntary vaccinations.

A survey of the department, one of the largest in county government, found about 45% of first responders said they weren’t interested in the vaccine. As of this week, only about 20% of the agency’s first responders have been vaccinated

The president of the fire union, Billy McAllister, said part of the problem was an overworked department not wanting to take the time to get vaccinated before or after their shifts. Because of possible adverse reactions to vaccines, the Fire Department doesn’t want first responders vaccinated while on duty, Chief Alan Cominsky said. McAllister also blamed the weak interest on so many firefighters and paramedics having contracted and recovered from COVID.

McAllister described those first responders as having “already been immunized nature’s way.” Federal guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control do recommend a 90-day window after someone contracts COVID-19 where a vaccine isn’t needed, but Cominsky said he didn’t know how many of his employees fell into that criteria.

Cominsky said he received the vaccine in part to encourage rank-and-file employees to follow suit and get vaccinated against a virus that had infected about 20% of the department in 2020. “I thought I could be an example,” he said. “We’re definitely encouraging them” to get vaccinated.

This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 11:18 AM.