BEAUMONT, Texas — The fight to get on the COVID-19 vaccine waiting list continues. A new vaccine hotline was created to help Southeast Texans get registered more easily, but it's proving to be just as difficult to use.
That’s not the only service people find frustrating.
The vaccine registration process across Southeast Texas has been a trial-and-error experience, not only for residents but also local leaders.
“We're still hitting a dead end,” said Linda Spike Jones. Frustration with the old Beaumont vaccine registration hotline is spilling over as people try to navigate the new one.
“I called the number ‘550-2536,’” Jones said.
Jones qualifies for the shot under the phase 1B group. She's 65-years-old with diabetes, and she's been fighting to get on the vaccine waitlist.
“But the number that you call, it immediately asks about transferring, but when you transfer, you're going to get a busy signal," Jones said.
Jones said the roadblocks she's hitting makes her more concerned about the elderly population.
“Who's going to look out for them? There is no advocate for that age group,” Jones said.
12News reached out to county leaders on Wednesday to address these glitches and are still waiting to hear back.
But Beaumont isn’t the only place where people are experiencing a few difficulties.
“We utilize a different company, that would fine tune the restoration time a little more finely,” said Chambers County spokesperson Samantha Humphrey.
This is week two for Chambers County's online vaccine pre-registration program, and switching to a different server provider came with a few problems.
“For a long period of time, that constant pressure on the website actually caused the website to glitch,” said Humphrey.
The county spokesperson said it slowed down the process and even kicked people off of the registration site. But, they were quick on their feet to address the issue.
“We've already been in contact with the developer to let them know the changes that we need to make, the issues that we were having so on and so forth,” Humphrey said.
She said she hopes the kinks will be worked out for the next online pre-registration.
“Unfortunately, there's just going to be challenges along the way. and the best that any of us can do is learn from those challenges. Learn from the errors, from the mistakes and mitigate that at future events,” Humphrey said.
Chambers County pre-registration for tomorrow's event is full.
As for Beaumont, we'll continue to keep you updated as we press officials for answers.
