Arizona dealing with sign-up issues for 2nd doses of COVID-19 vaccine

PHOENIX – Arizona Health Director Dr. Cara Christ said Wednesday that authorities are actively working to help people struggling to schedule their second COVID-19 vaccine shot.

“We are getting inquiries from people who are trying to get second-dose appointments both at our State Farm Stadium site as well as some of the some of the county POD [point of dispensing] sites,” Christ told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show.

“We’ve identified that there are a couple of technical issues that we’re trying to work through for those individuals, and the county has set up a second dose invitation-only that will go out in the order people got their vaccines.”

A Maricopa County spokeswoman told KTAR News 92.3 FM in an email on Tuesday that people who got their first shot at the Chandler or Goodyear PODs will get an email invitation for a second dose from the Arizona Department of Health Services registration system when appointments become available.

Christ said people who got their first dose at the Glendale stadium who didn’t get an email invitation for second shot can call 844-542-8201 for assistance.

“The other thing, though, there is a group of individuals, I think about 3,000, that we know that there’s a very specific technical issue,” Christ said. “We are actually calling every single person on that list to … schedule their appointments.”

Appointments for second shots won’t show up through the public registration websites and can only be accessed via email invitations, she said.

State Farm Stadium is now making second appointments onsite at the time of first shots, Christ said, and that will be the process when the Phoenix Municipal Stadium site debuts next week.

Christ said people won’t have to start over if they are unable to get their second dose at the recommended interval of three weeks for the Pfizer vaccine or four weeks for the Moderna vaccine. She also said Arizona has enough vaccines to cover all scheduled appointments at state-run sites.

“You do not need that vaccine on that 21st or that 28th day,” she said. “In order to get the boost and the full protection during this time when the world is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases, they would recommend getting it within the 40 to 42 days.

“However, if you go past that, there is no maximum interval. You will not have to restart the series over.”

The state health department has a vaccine-finder page with a map of active and pending locations and information about registration.

As of Wednesday, 518,125 doses had been administered in Arizona, with 79,026 getting both doses, according to ADHS.

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