It took less than two hours for all of the senior COVID-19 vaccination appointments in the London region to be fully booked.
The Middlesex London Health Unit launched online and phone booking for seniors 80 and older at 7 a.m. on Tuesday. By 9 a.m., the region's Medical Officer of Health Dr. Chris Mackie announced all of the spots had been snapped up for the next two weeks.
"Tremendous response from 80+ crowd! Booked out all appointments for the next 2 weeks: over 5,000 booked in less than 2 hours," Mackie said in a tweet.
The health unit is not booking beyond a two week period due to "uncertainty in vaccine supply," Mackie added.
The newly created website - www.covidvaccinelm.ca - was able to handle the high demand from those seeking appointment times at the region's two vaccination clinics at the Western Fair District Agriplex in London and the the Caradoc Community Centre in Mt. Brydges. There were nearly 30,000 hits on the website with no significant outages. However, the phone booking system was overwhelmed with more than 200,000 calls. The high call volume essentially crashed the system within half an hour, with those trying to get through receiving only error messages instead of appointments.
The phone booking system was established to allow people without internet access to still be able to get a vaccination appointment by calling 226-289-3560. The phone line was to be operational from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. seven days a week.
The health unit’s booking systems will reopen at 8 a.m. on Wednesday to allow seniors 80 and over to schedule vaccination appointments for March 17.
Indigenous adults over the age of 55 and additional high-priority health care workers have also been added to the vaccine eligibility list. To see the expanded list of who is currently eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine click here.