APPLETON, Wis. (NBC 26) — According to city officials, people who register for an appointment at the Fox Cities COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic will be put on a waitlist and assigned a new appointment slot sometime over the next two weeks.
“We would like to extend our gratitude for the patience and understanding from those affected,” said Natalie Vandeveld, Public Health Officer and Manager for Outagamie County Public Health Division. “Our efforts in supporting this clinic, in a collaborative manner, helps vaccinate as many people as we can knowing the vaccine is a scarce resource that is currently in high demand.”
Appleton city officials said the new appointment system assign people to timeslots based on when they completed their registration, not accounting for time preferences. For example, someone who registered last week Friday at 9:30 a.m. will get a spot sooner than someone who completed registration at 9:35 a.m. the same day.
If you have an appointment for next week's clinic you will get an email confirmation over the weekend as well as an automated phone call asking you check your email. It should be noted these email confirmations will not be sent all at once, according to Appleton city officials.
“Balancing the need to maintain people’s personally identifiable information with the desire to expedite appointments and vaccine administration, this process was identified as the best option,” said Kurt Eggebrecht, Appleton Public Health Officer and FCCVC Incident Commander. “Individuals that receive an appointment maintain the option to decline their opportunity to be vaccinated at this clinic. This will provide us an efficient way to redeploy vaccines assigned to those that have already received the vaccine elsewhere to others in need.”
If you already got your vaccine somewhere else or need to cancel the appointment for other reasons, you will have the ability to do so. However, clinic workers said if you cancel your assigned timeslot you will need to wait until more appointments are offered to the general public in order to reschedule.
Additionally, Appleton city officials said people on the waitlist who do not have an appointment for next week will be given priority to get vaccinated as cancellations are made.
For more information or to schedule an appointment when more vaccine becomes available, visit the Fox Cities COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic website.
