A website designed to allow health care workers to sign up for an appointment to receive the COVID-19 vaccine through the Medical University of South Carolina has gone viral, allowing anyone in the general public who has access to the link to make a programming, regardless of their eligibility.
MUSC spokeswoman Heather Woolwine said the enrollment site was originally sent to external community health care providers, such as dentists, eye doctors and physiotherapists, to allow their employees to be vaccinated in the hospital. . Healthcare workers are considered part of Phase 1A in the development of the vaccine, giving them access to the vaccine before other high-risk groups.
Woolwine said MUSC is based on a system of honor, trusting that these external health care providers will not pass on the enrollment link to friends and family. But that inevitably happened. She did not know if anyone or how many people in the community who were not eligible for phase 1A were able to get a vaccine through MUSC. But going further, anyone with an appointment will be required to provide proof of their employment related to health care, she said.
“The advantage is that these are people who want to get the vaccine. It’s a good thing. We want people to get the vaccine,” Woolwine said. “The concern is supply and demand.”
This story is developing.
Arrive Lauren Sausser at 843-937-5598.