Miami-Dade’s vaccine website buckles from high demand, and mayor apologizes
Miami-Dade shut down its COVID-19 vaccination website shortly after it went live again Monday as demand for vaccine doses continues to overwhelm supply.
A county spokesperson said traffic on the reservation website spiked as the site went live at 2 p.m., overwhelming the system and prompting a brief shutdown of the portal. It was back up before 3 p.m., and about 2,000 appointments were scooped up within 10 minutes.
“The site never actually crashed,” said Rachel Johnson, communications director for Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. “We took it down to try to make adjustments, given the high demand.”
It was the third time in five days that Miami-Dade released vaccine appointments for people 65 and older, but the first time the reservation website shut down to users. Levine Cava posted a statement on Twitter thanking people for their patience “as demand is extremely high.”
“We apologize for the issues with our vaccine appointment site,” she said in the 2:32 p.m. statement. “We are working hard to bring the portal back up.”
Later Monday evening came news appointments were available again. Levine Cava announced on Twitter the site would reopen at 7:15 p.m. with a “very small” number of appointments the county had held back earlier in the day to avoid over-booking. The county didn’t announce the new slots in a press release, and the site was still open until about 7:45 p.m.
While the last two times saw Miami-Dade open the reservation site hours after announcing the planned release of 2,000 vaccination appointments, news of Monday’s launch went public on Sunday.
The extra notice for the Monday afternoon re-opening likely had more people trying to book appointments when the site went live at 2 p.m., Johnson said. She said about 36,000 people were trying to use the site within the first five minutes, meaning there was 1 open vaccination slot for every 18 people trying to book one.
Miami-Dade received about 5,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine from Florida and initially offered them to about 2,000 first responders in the county fire department. With fewer than 450 employees in the agency agreeing to be vaccinated in the first round, Miami-Dade set up an internal vaccination website for all county employees 65 and over, and a public website for others who are 65 and older to book appointments.
Miami-Dade has received additional doses from the state, Johnson said, with about 6,000 appointments booked during the three short windows of online reservations.
On Thursday, it took about 15 minutes to book 1,900 appointments for the county’s new drive-thru vaccination site at Tropical Park. And on Friday, it took about 25 minutes to book 2,000 appointments for injections at Tropical Park and through the Baptist hospital system or facilities run by the state’s Department of Health.
On Monday, Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins said the county was adding an appointment-only vaccination site at Zoo Miami in South Miami-Dade. She later deleted the Twitter post announcing the news, but Johnson confirmed Monday evening the vaccination site was opening Friday at the county-owned zoo for people who managed to get appointments there during the Monday booking window.
Miami-Dade’s vaccination website, miamidade.gov/vaccine, has links and telephone numbers for vaccination options in the county, including the state-run site at Hard Rock Stadium (which requires appointments) and reservation portals for hospitals taking reservations for the injections.
This story was originally published January 11, 2021 at 7:51 AM.
