Second Cerro Gordo County COVID vaccination signup completed (AUDIO)

MASON CITY — The second registration for COVID-19 vaccinations through the Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health took place on Monday.

Director Brian Hanft says the online signup for 1100 of the 1400 doses went in only about five minutes with the vaccine’s high demand.  “There’s that many people who are all simultaneously trying to log in and access the same opportunity, and that’s what happened yesterday, and will likely continue to happen because we’re in a situation where there’s a very high demand and a very low supply, and that’s just what we’re dealing with.”

Hanft says the other 300 registrations were taken over the phone with the phones constantly ringing for a few hours.  “A lot of people had said they tried to call in for a long period of time and got nothing but busy signals. I have no other response other than to say those who do get through, it’s just a matter of luck or chance. So it’s a matter of one person in our call center who is taking a call hangs up and the phone immediately rings, it happens to be that one person or that caller who is lucky enough to get through. We took calls for right around two hours and filled up those 300 slots. That went rather quickly.”

Hanft due to the small supply of vaccine they are receiving each week, he asks people for patience in the signup process. “People have got to keep trying to get through. We’ll have more vaccines, likely going to be following the same days, Wednesdays and Fridays next week. We anticipate about another probably 600-700 doses that will be made available to those over 65, so we should be putting out that notification here later this week. We should have another 800 doses at the end of February, the last week.”

Hanft says it’s too early to say what March will look like with vaccine distribution, and he emphasizes for everyone to be patient.

Hanft made his comments earlier this morning on AM-1300 KGLO. You can listen back to his interview via the audio player below.