Lee County fills 1,800 vaccine appointments within minutes on Wednesday

The phone lines opened up at noon Wednesday to book appointments for vaccines this week in Lee County. But as we’ve seen, the slots can fill up very quickly.

The county said it filled all 1,800 appointments for Thursday and Friday within just a few minutes of open the reservation phone line.

Many people have said they’re frustrated with this call-in system after having called dozens of times to no avail.

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“It was so frustrating because you’d hang up, you’d dial again, you’d get the busy, you’d dial again,” said Cherie McArthur of Lee County. “People I know just never got through or never got a callback.”

Tidal Basin, the company the county uses to schedule the appointments, says it made some upgrades over the last week to try to eliminate those issues, that it’s transitioned to a larger call center to increase call capacity as well as avoid dropped calls and busy lines. It’s also updated the technology to make sure anyone waiting on a callback gets one.

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