It’s been nearly eight hours since Matt McGowan first tried to schedule a COVID-19 vaccine on Kroger’s company website.
After signing up online at 8:45 a.m. on Sunday, McGowan, a finance teacher at Bishop Watterson High School, said he couldn’t get to the website at all half the time. The other half, he said, is the step of making an appointment for his vaccination before running into an error message and being told to try again.
It looks like McGowan is nowhere near the only teacher in central Ohio who has had trouble using Kroger’s website to plan a vaccine. On social media, teachers express frustrations about website crashes, error messages, and general slowness when trying to register for an appointment on Kroger’s website.
In a written statement in response to a query from The Dispatch, Amy McCormick, spokeswoman for Kroger in Columbus, admitted there were problems with the slow website and asked for patience. She also noticed that many could still register through the portal.
“The Kroger health portal works,” said McCormick’s statement. “We ask customers to be patient as thousands are working to plan their appointments for the coming week. As of lunchtime today, we have successfully registered over 50% of the vaccines available for the next.” Franklin County Educational Clinics in Hilliard and Reynoldsburg. “
>> Read more: Franklin County schools involved in introducing COVID-19 vaccine to teachers next week
When a spokesman for the Educational Service Center in central Ohio responsible for introducing the vaccines was asked for additional information, he referred The Dispatch to Kroger’s media relations team.
As a teacher will be eligible next week To get the first dose of the vaccine, Kroger Health – the health department of the food chain – uses Hilliard Davidson High School and Reynoldsburg High School to give vaccine doses. Kroger Health will receive 15,000 doses this week to distribute between the two locations and manage over 150 public, private, and charter schools and other educational organizations in Franklin County.
The Reynoldsburg High School Field House on Livingston Campus is open Tuesday through Friday from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. and on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hilliard Davidson High School’s Vaccination Clinic is located in Davidson Field House between Tuesday and Friday.
A total of 91,000 of Ohio’s 300,000 school teachers and staff will be eligible to receive the vaccine this week, including about a third of teachers in Franklin County’s counties. Governor Mike DeWine said last week he hoped every teacher and staff member who wants a vaccine will get their first dose of the two-dose regimen in February.
In McGowan’s case, he is hoping the website issues he experienced will be fixed soon. The 64-year-old has had health issues in the past and with Watterson still running personal classes he is keen to protect himself from the virus.
“I’d like to get this sooner rather than later,” said McGowan. “It’s almost like Russian roulette: how many times can you spin and not get?”
@ EricLagatta
