A total of 110,000 meetings will be made available for the United Center mass vaccination site. The first meetings will open at 8:30 a.m. Thursday for seniors. After the senior registration period, anyone who is eligible for a vaccine as part of the Phase 1B + group can begin scheduling appointments at 4pm on Sunday, March 7th.
To register for an appointment at United Center, visit www.zocdoc.com/vaccine or call the multilingual hotline (312) 746-4835 from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and from 8 p.m. : 00 to 16:00 Sunday.
Come at 8:30, the online platform Zocdoc is expected to be on the screens of tens of thousands across the state.
“I think it’s a fairer system to put all availability in one place, than to have hidden pockets where you have to either work the system or work your connections,” said Oliver Kharraz, founder and CEO of Zocdoc. .
Kharraz said all 110,000 vaccinations will be available in the morning, rather than plots per day.
He expects demand to reach at least 300 bookings per minute. That’s 18,000 per hour, at least initially.
“I think there’s a fair chance that all 110,000 will go,” Kharraz said. “I think there’s still a lot more demand for the vaccine than there is supply.”
ABC 7 learned that some of these meetings – up to 19% – will be dedicated to the call center. But some want the system to do more to target communities of color.
“A weighted lottery system,” suggested Dr. Marina Del Rios, Vaccine Corp Partnership. “Or at least you have a list of priority people. If you’re in these zip codes and in these communities, then you get the first words.”
SEE | The Des Plaines mass vaccination site will open on Thursday
Located in a former K-Mart store, the new mass vaccination site in Des Plaines is one of the largest, if not the largest, in the northwestern suburbs. It opens on Thursday, and officials hope to begin vaccinations on Friday or Saturday for Phase 1B people.
Appointments for the Des Plaines mass vaccination site can be made starting Thursday at 1 p.m. at vaccine.cookcountyil.gov or by phone at (833) 308-1988. The site will be open Monday to Friday from 07:00 to 19:00
Cook County Council President Toni Preckwinkle was joined by other public officials as he walked to this new location at 1155 East Oakton Street in Des Plaines on Wednesday.
The site supported by the National Guard will be the first in Cook County to use the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The county expects to receive 18,000 doses of J&J from the federal government on Thursday. The goal is to vaccinate up to 3,500 people a day.
“Because Johnson & Johnson is a single-dose vaccine, patients do not have to worry about scheduling a second appointment,” said Israel Rocha, Jr., CEO, Cook County Health. “This is an advantage we can afford to make sure we can actually see more individuals through sites like today.”
“We will continue to ask for patience in this vaccination process. As we know, the supply of vaccines has been limited and, although it is improving, we still cannot meet the demand,” Preckwinkle said.
This Des Plaines site is the fourth largest vaccination center in suburban Cook County, joining facilities in Tinley Park, River Grove and South Holland. This is in addition to sites supported by the National Guard in several health centers in Cook County.
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