Monday was the “official” registration date for Utahns 50 years and older and with certain health conditions, although some agencies started early.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Angela Bolt administers the COVID-19 vaccine to Robert Morarty at the Sandy Mountain America Expo on Monday, March 8, 2021.
The hottest ticket in Utah this week is an appointment for vaccination against COVID-19, now that 700,000 more Utahs can qualify for their first punch.
Monday was the first official day for Utahns ages 50 and older to enroll in vaccines, according to new eligibility rules announced Thursday by Gov. Spencer Cox. The governor also added people 16 and older with diabetes, chronic kidney disease and a body mass index equal to or greater than 30 (a level considered “obese”) to the list of people eligible for vaccines.
People rushed to fill the appointment time slots as they went up to websites of district health departments, pharmacies and health companies.
[Read more: Here’s where eligible Utahns can get COVID-19 vaccination appointments]
“We thought we’d post the appointments and they’d be wrapped up, and that’s what we saw,” said Trevor Warner, a spokesman for the Davis County Department of Health.
On Monday, the Warner agency had booked about 1,100 appointments for people 50 and older who were receiving the first dose, and a total daily of 1,800 appointments. The department plans to administer about 2,100 doses a day the rest of this week, for a weekly total of between 11,000 and 13,000 vaccinations.
That should match how many doses will be allocated to Davis County, Warner said. “By the time our clinic ends on Saturday, we should be out of the vaccine during the week,” he said.
Salt Lake County did not wait until Monday. Utah’s most populous county health department was scheduling appointments under the new eligibility rules within hours of Cox’s announcement Thursday.
On Friday, the Salt Lake County Health Department scheduled 6,590 appointments through its system, spokesman Nicholas Rupp said. The county uses the statewide Vaccinate Utah website, and on Monday, the only appointments available at the site for this week were in Blanding, San Juan County, in the southeastern tip of Utah.
Salt Lake County still has more than 20,000 appointments available after this week, through April 3, Rupp said.
It was also not easy to get an appointment through pharmacies. Harmons supermarket chain, whose pharmacies have been vaccinated at 15 sites on the Wasatch Front, posted on its website that “we are fully booked for vaccination appointments” and urged customers to return to the site on next Monday morning.
Intermountain Healthcare had met 90 percent or more of its appointments at six of its seven vaccination sites, said Lance Madigan, a spokeswoman for the hospital system. The exception, Madigan said, was at Ogden McKay-Dee Hospital, which was about 80 percent.
Intermountain staff are calling people on their waiting list to fill the remaining vacancies, Madigan said.
The appointment schedule at the University of Utah Health was almost complete, spokeswoman Julie Kiefer said. Your system has no open registry for the vaccine; instead, U. Health analyzes electronic medical records of existing patients and invites eligible patients to make appointments to get the vaccine.
U. Health on Monday opened three more vaccination sites at the system’s health centers in Farmington, southern Jordan and the Sugar House neighborhood.
The South Jordan and Sugar House locations are expected to run out of vaccines on Wednesday, due to “a temporary reduction in vaccine supply,” Kiefer said. These sites should set more appointments for vaccines later in March, he said.
Nomi Health saw an increase in people scheduling appointments immediately after Cox’s announcement Thursday, spokeswoman Jenny Olsen said Monday. The company has managed vaccination sites at five Megaplex Theaters locations along the Wasatch Front and has opened a sixth clinic in Orem.
Correction, at 5:15 p.m., March 8, 2021: An earlier version of this article incorrectly explained the weekly number of vaccine doses the Davis County Health Department expects to administer this week.