TAMPA, Fla. — People waited more than 3 hours to receive a COVID-19 vaccine at a state vaccination site in Tampa.
On Thursday, idling cars waited in the University Mall parking lot at the state-managed site.
At times, the line created traffic issues on Fowler Avenue.
"I can tell you the wait time was not what we wanted. The wait time for some people was an excess of 3 hours. That's not how we want this to be done," said Kevin Watler, Public Information Officer for the Florida Department of Health in Hillsborough County.
People told us they were frustrated and confused over how to navigate to the end of the line.
“The line is a couple of miles long, plus there’s packed cars in the whole parking lot of the mall,” said Matthew Barta, who waited with his wife. “We sat there for 15 minutes and didn’t move at all, and I said to my wife, ‘Well honey, I guess probably we ought to just go home and try to reschedule something else at some point because probably, if we sat here for 8 hours, we’re not going to get in today.'”
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People waiting in line told us there was no clear direction or organization at the site.
“I’m so tired of all this,” said David Wilson. “It took us this long to get an appointment for this here, and they called us yesterday and told us to be here at 10:15, no later, no sooner. And we got into this, and we’ve been here five hours about.”
"This is not the way it was supposed to go. We really apologize. We understand people are frustrated and they have every right to be frustrated," said Watler.
"We had multiple issues. We had people showing up too early for their appointments and people not scheduled for an appointment," added Watler.
Watler said individuals who do not have an appointment will be asked to return only when they have an appointment. This is a policy across all state-supported vaccination sites. The date listed on your CDC vaccination card is not a confirmed appointment.
The state said as of 8 p.m. Wednesday night, the site scheduled more than 3,000 first and second dose appointments, but they explain that is a typical number of appointments the site will schedule each day.
The state says people who got their first dose at a state-supported site will be contacted for their second dose appointment. It says those people will get a call from the state before the date listed on their vaccination card to set an appointment.
The state says if you have not been contacted for your second dose appointment and it’s past the date listed on the vaccination card, you can either call a designated help line for your county or visit myvaccine.fl.gov, provide your contact information, and select the box that says, “Are you seeking your first dose?” and select, “No, I am seeking my second dose,” from the drop-down menu.
The state says it's working to schedule second dose appointments as quickly as possible.
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February 12, 2021 at 07:22AM
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