Kelly Hayes
Pinellas County reopened registration for vaccination appointments for seniors Saturday morning, only for the site to quickly shut down.
The server reopened at 1:45 p.m., and filled all available slots in less than 45 minutes.
The county’s current online registration method through CDR Health Pro at patientportalfl.com went down this morning, shortly after opening up to new registrations at 10 a.m.
According to the vendor, Salesforce, it experienced a national server outage this morning that prevented vaccination appointments for Pinellas going live.
As of noon Saturday, how many appointments currently remain open. The county announced that it has 8,000 vaccines available to administer this week to those 65 and older.
This week, the county will also require proof of Florida residency to receive a vaccine, as per a new state advisory to prevent “vaccine tourism.”
In Pinellas, those without internet access or who need assistance with the portal can call 844-770-8548. The call center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and can provide guidance in English and Spanish. Wait times can be lengthy.
This is just the latest in a long line of mishaps in Florida’s vaccine rollout to seniors.
Gov. Ron DeSantis recently reported the state’s vaccination of 1 million seniors, which is close, but not quite where the numbers are. DeSantis walked back his wording, saying the state is “rapidly approaching reporting 1 million vaccinations just to Florida seniors.”
The state’s “senior first” approach has led to the vaccinations of 833,578 individuals 65 and older as of Friday, according to the state vaccination report. Of those who have been vaccinated, only 31,910 have completed the series. Seniors account for about 66% of total vaccines administered.
State officials acknowledged that it could take a few more days to reach the 1 million milestone for seniors in documented reports.
While the state has been focusing its vaccination rollout with a “senior first” focus, the coordination of registration and appointments has been riddled with clogged phone lines and overwhelmed servers.
3 comments
Lin
January 23, 2021 at 12:25 pm
OMG 😳 these people/systems are so messed up!
Robert C. Neff Jr
January 23, 2021 at 2:06 pm
Hmm, Salesforce national server outage coincides with the Pinellas COVID vaccination web site launch. CDR Maguire is trying to blame this on @Salesforce. Was Salesforce notified and prepared to provide bandwidth??? Were the CDR Maguire app and database servers designed to scale?
Was Salesforce notified of the extrme load? Did CDR McGuire load test the servers?
Salesforce post their server activity. This outage appears to be the same time as the portal was launched and is a direct result of the user load.
https://downdetector.com/status/salesforcecom/
Need to request the Pinellas County’s $3million contract to CDR McGuire. Who is responsible and do they have the experience to manage a project like this? Did they conduct “load testing” and was this a part of the contract.
Appears the Application and Database servers were not designed to handle the load.
Salesforce has resolved their national server outage. Vaccination appointments for Pinellas County will go live at 1:45 p.m. at http://patientportalFl.com/s/
@HealthyPinellas
As of 2PM, two my CondoSeniors were able to make an appointment and salesforce server usaeg s still high but not the spikes seen at 11 AM.
I do not accept that Salesforce servers went down. There needs to be an independent assessment.
Vernon Noerenberg
January 23, 2021 at 5:17 pm
County residents should be given a number for the vaccination. When your number is called, you go for your shot. I live in Clearwater, my wife and I should be given a number by our county or city of Clearwater. When our number is called by phone and email we are given a time and date . If we cannot make the time we have the opportunity to reschedule.
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