OGDEN, Utah – Seniors in Weber and Morgan County were frustrated on Thursday afternoon to find their efforts to secure vaccine appointments thwarted by technical difficulties.
The department announced earlier on Thursday that new appointments would be available starting at 3 p.m.
Just after 3 p.m., 2News received multiple phone calls asking for more information about what was wrong with the website.
A post on the department’s Facebook page states, “Our website is experiencing technical difficulties. We will update again when it is functional.”
The department told 2News in an email that technical difficulties occurred “as thousands of people attempted to register for an appointment.” There are approximately 22,000 people in Weber and Morgan County aged 70 and older, per census data, department spokesperson Lori Buttars stated.
“We can only apologize for what has been an agonizing experience for all of us,” Buttars wrote.
She said the online registration system will be put on hold until the department can work through its IT issues.
Buttars acknowledged that many people for whom the website crashed were in the middle of registering for an appointment when it happened. If your appointment was completed, you’ll receive an email notification, she said.
In the meantime, “we are doing what we can to work our way through the number of people who are calling and have called,” Buttars said. “Answering all of the messages could take several weeks.”
Weber-Morgan isn’t the only health department to find its website overwhelmed by the volume of people eager to sign up for an appointment to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Since seniors over the age of 70 were added to the list of eligible Utah residents, both Salt Lake County and the Southwest Utah Public Health Department had their servers overwhelmed, leading to crashes and frustration.
Gov. Spencer Cox made it clear last week that the services of the state’s technology department are available to county health departments to beef up their websites and prevent similar mishaps.