COVID-19 vaccines finally became available to teachers, cops and the elderly in New York on Monday — but only if they can navigate the city’s baffling registration system.
Would-be vaccine recipients say the Big Apple’s system to sign up for a shot is a confusing mess, involving three buggy websites, lengthy questionaires and a phone line with long hold times.
“These people have no clue what they’re doing,” groused transit worker Lawrence Chan of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, at the city’s newly opened 24/7 coronavirus immunization site in Sunset Park.
“I tried to make an appointment yesterday on the website, and it just kept reloading,” he said. “For three hours I tried, nothing.
“I was here at 8:30 this morning. They came out and said, ‘Here’s a phone number to make an appointment.’ So I went home to call the number, but it turned out to be off by one digit.
“So I came back here, got the right number — and now I can’t get through because it requires a pass code. I asked someone what the pass code is, they said they don’t know, there’s something wrong with the line.’’
Joseph Codispoti, an 83-year-old cancer survivor from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, futilely tried to get his vaccine at the same site Monday, too.
“I called 311 yesterday, and they said, ‘Make an appointment and come to the Army Terminal,’ ” he said. “I said, ‘How do I make an appointment?’ They said, ‘Go online,’ which means you have to have a computer. Well, I don’t have a computer.
“I came down here this morning. I asked the security guard. … Twenty minutes later, they came out with a number and posted it on the garbage pail.”
Codispoti, a retired federal agent with the Department of Interior — who was wearing his old gold badge in hopes it gave him a little clout at the vaccine site — was referring to a sheet of paper that workers taped to a barrel that read, “To make a vaccine appointment call 1-877-VAX-4NYC.”
The debacle couldn’t come at a worse time for New York, which Monday opened up vaccinations to millions of people after its sluggish first round immunizing front-line healthcare workers and nursing-home residents. Teachers, first-responders including cops and firefighters, public transit workers and those aged 75 and older are among those who became newly eligible.
Those seeking to make an appointment can either attempt by phone or by using the city’s seemingly simple vaccine-finder system on its web site.
That then leads users to either private or public vaccine sites. If you choose a public one, you then land on one of three different city-run websites.
There is one site for the city Department of Health’s community clinics and another one for its larger vaccine “hubs,’’ which are mainly at converted high-school campuses.
Neither site appears to coordinate the information it receives with the other — suggesting someone could sign up on both, snagging two appointment slots.
Then there is a third separate website operated by the city’s public Health + Hospitals system which doles out vaccines at its own hospitals, clinics and the new 24/7 sites.
That website also does not appear to coordinate between either of the other two.
Even when a user gets on to the sites, he or she must fill in dozens of fields to create a new account and password before booking an appointment.
Disgusted city Comptroller Scott Stringer fumed in a tweet process is “complex, burdensome, and buggy.
“It will present an obstacle for too many people—particularly seniors—trying to sign up. This is a major problem,” he said.
The H+H site “is more user-friendly, but both are buggy,” Stringer said.
“We should be #1 in vaccinations in the nation from day one … Instead we’ve set up a gauntlet that requires tech support.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio — asked about the process at a press conference Monday — claimed, “We absolutely want the simplest possible system.”
“That said, there is really important information that is required by law, and we [have] got to get it right up front,” he said.
“But what we do find, as we put any system into play, that we improve it as we go along based on customer feedback. So, I’m certain that’s going to happen here.”
The city had delivered nearly 60 percent, or 524,425 of the 885,325 doses of vaccines it’s received from the federal government, to distribution sites as of early Monday, according to its online tracker.
About half of the 524,425 doses have been administered so far, the majority being first doses of the two-dose shot, the city said.
De Blasio said there have been 55,000 new appointments for vaccinations made so far for this week.
The city expects to administer a total of 175,000 doses before the week is out, officials said. That’s compared to the 102,000 shots given out last week.
As of now, there are a combined 2.5 million city residents eligible to get the shot — 1 million in the initial group and an additional 1.5 million added Monday, state sources said.
But Anthony Acevedo — a 56-year-old eligible MTA bus driver who was among those who showed up at a just-opened ’round-the-clock immunization site in Morrisania in The Bronx in his uniform Monday — wound up leaving in disgust without receiving his dose.
“I made the appointment on Sunday, and I called this morning to confirm, and [a worker] said, ‘Yeah, you have a 2:30 appointment. I get here, and they looked my name up in the system, and the lady said, ‘Sorry, you need a certification number,’ ” the exasperated city worker said.
“My dad passed away of COVID in April! I want to get this done!”
He said he then called one of the city’s online vaccine-site phone numbers and was put on hold for 12 minutes.
“This is nuts!” Acevedo said. “Now they say I have to go online and do it over. That’ll be another month! Man!”
Felix Bonilla, 62, a city Department of Environmental Protection worker, went to the same Bronx site Monday to get vaccinated — also to no avail.
“I asked for help, but, yeah, forget it!’’ he said. “They tried to explain the website, but I’m getting discouraged. I’m not that good on the computer.
“[A female worker] said, ‘Just tap on it,’ but look, I couldn’t get it to, it’s complicated.”
Mark Ryan, 49, a psychotherapist from Brooklyn, was first in line at the center Monday and got his shot — but noted that the workers still seemed to be learning on the job.
“They’re flying the plane as they build it,” he said.
Additional reporting by Natalie Musumeci