COVID19VACCINE
(Hartford, CT/77WABC) As of today, CT’s State Health Dept. says the state’s Covid-19 vaccine program is open to individuals 55 years of age and older.
In addition, public and private school teachers and other in-school staff, volunteers and bus drivers, and childcare
professionals will be eligible to receive vaccines. Educators and childcare professionals will receive instructions
from their school district, town, or employer on how they will schedule their vaccination.
“We anticipate that our online scheduling systems and the Vaccine Appointment Assist Line will be
inundated tomorrow and for the next several days with people eager to make their vaccine appointments. It’s a
good problem to have, and we have increased our capacity to better handle the anticipated surge in volume, but
it will still require people to be patient when signing up,” said Acting Department of Public Health Commissioner
Dr. Deidre Gifford. “To ease the burden on the online and phone systems, we urge residents 55 and older to
consider waiting a few days before seeking an appointment if they are able to do so.
“New appointments will become available each week and this will help reduce stress on the system in the early days of the roll out. We
are all in this together, and we need to work together in order to get out of this pandemic as quickly as
possible,” said the Acting Commissioner.
There are more than 130 vaccination sites throughout the state for appointments. Appointments are available online at ct.gov/covidvaccine or by calling the Vaccine Appointment
Assist Line (877-918-2224), run by United Way of Connecticut/211, where 300 staff are answering calls and questions.
The Vaccine Appointment Assist Line staff anticipate being able to speak with 10,000 callers per day and once that capacity is reached, callers will hear a recorded message telling them to call back the next day.
