UPDATE 9:05 a.m.: This story has been edited to reflect that appointments can’t be booked at Portland International Airport by calling 211. People who don’t have internet access can schedule an appointment by calling 833-647-8222.
Thousands of COVID-19 vaccination appointments for Portland International Airport will be available for booking at 9 a.m. Tuesday, with Portland-area residents still able to schedule their own shots and the facility no longer limited to serving only those with mobility challenges.
Apparent confusion over how to book slots at the airport left scores of future appointments uncharacteristically open for hours on Monday.
Those currently eligible to book appointments include people in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas or Columbia counties who are 45 or older with an underlying condition or those who hold frontline jobs that have been granted high priority by the governor.
It took about three hours Monday morning for Portland-area residents to claim 5,845 appointments at the airport and Hillsboro Stadium, said Franny White, a spokeswoman for Oregon Health & Science University, which operates both drive-thru sites. That’s far longer than on most mornings in February and early March when up to 767,000 seniors statewide became eligible for their shots.
But part of the reason might be that there was some confusion about whether Portland-area residents could book appointments online after Patrick Allen, director of the Oregon Health Authority, said last Friday that the state had taken down its chatbot vaccination tool at covidvaccine.oregon.gov, which had been the primary portal metro-area residents had been using to schedule appointments at the airport and the stadium.
The chatbot did go away. But vaccine appointments could still be booked directly through www.ohsu.edu/covidvaccines -- something that wasn’t clear last week, as some thought appointments would be doled out through the lottery registration system used for slots at the Oregon Convention Center. Appointments also can be scheduled by calling 833-647-8222, but OHSU asks that only people who don’t have internet access use this phone option.
The airport site previously had been limited to vaccinations for individuals with mobility issues. That restriction has been lifted now that a wider and younger swath of the population has been given the green light for vaccinations.
Monday was the first day the Portland area’s mass vaccination sites began offering appointments to the latest wave of residents eligible for their shots: People ages 45 to 64 with health conditions such as heart disease, active cancer, type 2 diabetes and obesity as well as pregnant people age 16 and older. Also eligible are frontline workers including those in agriculture and food processing. In all, Allen estimates this entire group encompasses about 800,000 residents statewide.
There are still three primary ways residents of Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas and Columbia counties can schedule appointments:
- Visit www.ohsu.edu/covidvaccines or call 211 at set times, the next being 9 a.m. Tuesday. This week, OHSU also might release appointments 9 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday, but that hasn’t been decided yet, said White, the OHSU spokeswoman. Check back at www.ohsu.edu/covidvaccines for the most up-to-date schedule. The state has sent more than 15,000 first Pfizer doses this week to OHSU for vaccinations at the airport and stadium.
- Register at getvaccinated.oregon.gov, which will enter you into a lottery. The state will send randomly selected names to of people who’ve registered to the operators of the mass vaccination site at the Oregon Convention Center in Northeast Portland. Those on the lists will be sent emails or texts with links that allow them to book appointments. The state has sent more than 18,000 first doses this week to the convention center.
- Go to vaccinefinder.org, which will provide links to pharmacies with available appointments. Or visit covidvaccine.oregon.gov and click on “Vaccine Information by County” to learn if you can book appointments in other areas of the state. The state fairgrounds, for one, is vaccinating thousands of Oregonians each week regardless of their counties of residence.
To view details of precisely who qualifies for vaccinations in Oregon, visit covidvaccine.oregon.gov and click on the chart that outlines the vaccine rollout’s phases of eligible people.
Coronavirus in Oregon: Latest news | Live map tracker |Text alerts | Newsletter
-- Aimee Green; agreen@oregonian.com; @o_aimee
COVID-19 - Latest - Google News
March 30, 2021 at 09:08AM
https://ift.tt/3dn0r34
New COVID vaccine appointments available for booking Tuesday 9 a.m. at Portland International Airport - OregonLive
COVID-19 - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/2VQ2gy8
No comments:
Post a Comment