Demand crashes pediatric vaccine booking systemCOVID-19

Children ages 5 - 11 can now receive the Pfizer COVID vaccine in Sask. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

High demand and traffic on the SHA website this morning caused the site to crash after 10 minutes, officials said.

SHA spokes people said that in the first two hours of appointment availability, 9,900 vaccinations were booked for children ages five to 11 on the first day of availability.

“There was about a 30 minute down time related to high traffic volume on the site,” said Sheila Anderson, vaccine chief responsible for the Saskatchewan Health Authority’s COVID-19 immunization campaign.

People trying to book would have seen an error message at the time.

“I would encourage people to continue to book into that system. If you did have problems this morning, please try again,” she said.

Wednesday is the first day appointments will be available for this age group anywhere in the province and they will primarily be in the larger centres.

By Friday, most areas should be able to book appointments.

In Prince Albert, walk in clinics for five to 11 year olds are available the afteroon of Thursday in Gateway Mall, next to the Family Resource Centre and on Friday and Saturday, during the day.

As of Wednesday, the SHA said that 40,000 appointments were available in Saskatchewan.

An issue with the group booking system has also been resolved, said Anderson.

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