PORTLAND, Ore — Despite assurances by the people running Portland’s mass vaccination sites that the online tool would not take reservations before noon on Monday, it actually opened up around 9 a.m. and allowed people 80 and older to pick times and days to get their shots at the Oregon Convention Center.
By the time noon rolled around, when many people thought they could start reserving appointments, all the times for this week were gone. By early afternoon, some of next week's appointments were gone as well, and the reservation tool stopped giving access.
The site also offered appointments for the drive-thru shot clinic at Portland International Airport, for people who said they had mobility issues. Those reservations also opened early, around 11 a.m. And despite having four times the number of doses the convention center had, the PDX appointments were all gone within an hour.
Many seniors, and those trying to help them, were furious about the changed times. The time change was kept under wraps all morning, even as KGW asked officials about it several times starting early Monday morning.
Kristina Haddad did not trust the timing from the get-go.
“So I did wake up around 12:15 in the morning and I called the 211 number and it kind of gave a recording, it wasn’t open yet, and then when I tried again at 6:15 and appointments were taken, I was starting to feel like, 'Oh boy, here we go,'" she said. "Then I went online for the portal and it still wasn’t showing the 80-plus.”
Kristina was trying to sign up her 84-year-old mom and was fine with going to the convention center, which is a second choice for many because of the walking involved inside the building.
Around 9:15 a.m., she got through.
“I was trying different refreshes," she said. "Then it popped up and there were a few glitches: When I did actually secure a time, it went away a few times and I had to go back and re-type in the information, probably about three times before it actually took."
Kate Joseph also spent the morning working to sign up her 87-year-old mom.
And she was also surprised to find the portal open early and had trouble with glitches.
“I went through that, all the way through, and the server timed out again," she said. "And so I had to go back in and select and do that twice. But it worked the second time."
Did you have trouble trying to sign up for a vaccine appointment? Send a message to Pat Dooris at pdooris@kgw.com
Watch: COVID-19 vaccine updates