If you are trying to book an appointment to get vaccinated through the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit's website, do not give up.
Even before registration for those 75 and older opened, a rush of traffic to the website Tuesday morning crashed it.
Registration opens at noon, and unlike the 80-plus cohort, registrants will be able to book a time and location convenient for them. For those who do not have access to a computer, the number to call is 226-773-2200.
"I think what's happening right now is there's a lot of people going to the website hoping to book quickly, and they're hitting refresh. So if they're refreshing the page often, it's creating more traffic unnecessarily," said Communications Manager Mike Janisse. "We will promote on Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In. We'll send it out through emails so everyone will have an opportunity. They don't have to go only to the website."
Janisse said since the start of the pandemic, it typically received the amount of traffic in a month it used to get in a year.
As of Monday night, public health nurses had vaccinated 82.8 per cent of those 80 and older who had pre-registered.
"It's really pretty impressive. We're celebrating that," said CEO Theresa Marentette.
She said the health unit had less than 100 in that age group left to book appointments for, but those people should receive their call by the end of this week, and everyone who pre-registered should get their shot soon after.
Anyone with a general question about vaccination can call 211.
The health unit reported 21 new cases Tuesday morning. The active case count 253. Of those, 43 involve variants of COVID-19, including two identified as the U.K. strain.
There were no new deaths reported Tuesday, and the local death toll stands at 401.
Meanwhile, some pharmacies providing the AstraZeneca vaccine for those 60 and older have run out. Marentette is unsure when they will get their next batch but said the Ministry of Health is aware of the situation and hopes to send more soon.
Late Monday night, the U.S. Data and Monitoring Board said reports the AstraZeneca vaccine was 79 per cent effective for all adults might have been overly optimistic. It believes the company used out-of-date information while reporting the results of its last clinical trial. However, Marentette said Health Canada had raised no such concerns.
"We're not seeing adverse reactions -- other than what is to be expected with any vaccination injection," she said. "Soreness at the site, and sometimes there can be a headache or tiredness. They're all common side effects and nothing of concern."
