Sarasota County working on call-in system similar to Manatee County’s – 311 system… to make it easier to get COVID-19 vaccine appointments
Steve Huard, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Health in Sarasota, said the planning is in the early stages, but the new system will include a call-in option for residents to register for an appointment.
Residents would then be called when vaccines are available.
Huard was not able to say whether Sarasota’s program would be like the lottery type system Manatee County launched last Thursday (1/7/21), or if it would continue with the current Eventbrite online appointment system.
The current online set up, has anyone interested in getting a vaccine appointment, go online, for one of the limited slots. The other big concern is for people without access to the internet or those that may lack the ability with technology to go online an getting an appointment for the vaccine.
“What we want to do is make it so that we launch a system that the community will be able to use, Huard said.
Manatee County’s new program was created, in part, to address both of those issues.
That system includes a newly created website, vax.mymanatee.org, and a call-in option.
Residents in Manatee County register for a vaccination by going online at the above website or by calling the number 311 to preregister. Once you call or go online, you are issued a confirmation number verifying that you have been added to the vaccine pool.
Once the vaccine is available, they are randomly chosen for a vaccination appointment.
Nicholas Azzara, a spokesman for Manatee County, said a large amount of logged on at 10 p.m. last Thursday (1/7/21), when their new system went live.
By noon last Friday (1/8/21), 32,000 people had registered for the lottery in Manatee County, on their new system