SAN ANTONIO — It was a frustrating morning for hundreds of people hoping to get scheduled for a coronavirus vaccine.
“The website and still not working or registrations are full,” one KENS 5 viewer said.
The City of San Antonio says within six minutes, its 9,000 free COVID-19 vaccine clinic spots at the Alamodome were filled.
“I followed the instructions, but it did not give me a time. Logistically it didn’t make any sense to me,” another KENS 5 viewer said.
The city says there were over 11,000 people on the registration website when it opened at 9 a.m.
“We received 187,000 calls and an overwhelming amount of website visits at 9 a.m. today,” said City Manager Erik Walsh. “Thank you for your patience. We understand some may be frustrated that there are not more doses available, but we are sending the message to state leaders that we are equipped to deliver every dose that we receive. We’re looking forward to beginning our operation on Monday, and we will keep the community advised as we receive more information from the state.”
On the southside of San Antonio a new vaccine clinic at the Elvira Cisneros Senior Community Center gave tours Saturday morning showing how they plan to get people vaccinated starting Monday.
“It’s going to be a challenge. That’s why efforts like this are so important,” Chief of Cardiology and specialty care for WellMed Dr. Michael Almaleh said.
Dr. Almaleh, who’s one of the leaders of the San Antonio Covid 19 taskforce says he’s not surprised with the large amount of people wanting to get vaccinated.
“Whenever we start to vaccinate on larger scales we have to anticipate there’s going to be not issues or problems, but the unexpected. So that’s what we’re doing,” Dr. Almaleh said.
The doctor says they plan on vaccinating 1,500 people a day at his center, similar to what the Alamodome is planning but he says those numbers will need to increase significantly if we want a fighting chance at getting back to normal anytime soon.
“We need to establish more vaccination clinics like this where we can vaccinate thousands of people rather than hundreds of people a day and need to do this everywhere,” Dr. Almaleh said.
The city says it will let the public know when more appointments become available at the Alamodome. In the meantime they’re asking anyone still waiting to be patient.