EDMONTON -- Alberta Health Services says its online booking tool for the AstraZeneca vaccine is back online after network issues delayed its opening for about 90 minutes Saturday morning.
Appointments for Albertans born between 1957 and 1961 were to have opened for booking at 8 a.m. on Saturday.
As of that time, the website displayed a banner message advising of there had been an outage in the COVID-19 online immunization booking system.
"The AHS online booking tool will be back online shortly."
The outage initially affected bookings made both online and through 811.
By 8:30 a.m. bookings were available through calling 811.
An hour later, AHS tweeted its booking tool was back online.
"We anticipate volumes will remain high and there may be intermittent delays. We thank people for their patience."
Apart from Albertans born between 1957 and 1961, the AstraZeneca shot is also available to First Nations, Metis and Inuit born between 1972 and 1986.
Phase 2A of the vaccine rollout is slated to begin on Monday. It will include:
- Albertans aged 65 to 74
- First Nations, Metis and Inuit people born in 1971 or earlier
- Staff and residents of licensed supportive living facilities who have not gotten the vaccine
"Momentum is building in Alberta’s vaccine rollout plan, and we are well on our way to delivering on our commitment to provide a first dose to every adult who wants one by the end of June," Health Minister Tyler Shandro said in a news release Friday.
"The more people who step forward for vaccination when it’s their turn, the faster we’ll reduce the spread of the virus and resume activities that are important to all of us and our communities."
Alberta received an initial allotment of 58,500 doses of Covishield/AstraZeneca with more expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
