Florida officials on Friday rolled out a statewide website for people to pre-register for COVID-19 vaccinations.
MyVaccine.FL.gov allows Floridians to sign up for vaccinations within their home counties.
People who are eligible for the shots, including front-line health care workers and Florida residents ages 65 and older, will be contacted when appointments become available, according to Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz.
The website will provide a portal for people to enter their personal information “so they can stop hunting for an appointment,” Moskowitz told The News Service of Florida.
The data will be available to health officials in each of the 67 counties.
The website notes that COVID-19 vaccines continue to arrive in Florida in an “extremely limited supply.”
The registration system also provides county-by-county phone numbers to allow residents without internet access to make their appointments by phone.
The announcement of the state-run website comes as several counties across the state have run out of the vaccine and are not currently taking applications, and as individuals are experiencing website delays and long waits.
“The reason it feels chaotic is because demand dramatically outpaces supply. Too many people descending on too few locations with not enough appointments, which crashes websites and phone numbers. I know that people are hunting for appointments at 5:45 in the morning every day, only to come up empty. It’s all related to supply,” Moskowitz told a Senate committee on Thursday.
As of Wednesday, about 1.8 million vaccinations had been administered in Florida. A total of 1.567 million people, including 1.1 million people ages 65 and older, had received shots, with some receiving two doses, according to the Florida Department of Health.
