HOUSTON — COVID-19 vaccinations at area Walmart and CVS pharmacies set to begin on Friday. But securing an appointment is proving extremely difficult.
"You can only imagine the number of people signing in to try and get those appointments," Walmart spokeswoman Amanda Trempert said.
There's just too much demand and still not enough supply. There was a surge Walmart's scheduling site crashed.
"Overwhelming demand from our customers," Trempert said. "The amount of phone calls going into our stores of people looking for the vaccine and wondering what location they'll be at."
CVS saw similar surges. Within hours, Houston area appointments on its own scheduling site completely booked. Slots only left in smaller towns like Paris or Midland, Texas.
"Our team is ready for the volume that Houston has," said Akash Patel, CVS District Leader.
If you weren't lucky enough to secure an appointment today, CVS and Walmart both recommend folks keep checking back for new appointments daily.
"I urge everyone to be patient," Patel said. "As more allocations come we'll be able to serve the whole community."
Walgreens is scheduled to administer COVID-19 vaccines soon, too. But it's unclear when exactly they'll be ready to start. Their website was a dead end too and showed no availability.
HEB sent us a statement about its vaccination plans:
"H-E-B Houston recently received a very limited amount of vaccines from the federal government. These stores have started to administer them by appointment only to 1A or 1B. Customers can check the scheduler tool on heb.com/vaccine for appointment availability."
We checked the H-E-B website and there are no spots available in the Houston area right now.
The bottom line is that even with pharmacies now part of the vaccine rollout, it will take time for everyone who wants a vaccine to get one.
Remember, you cannot walk into any pharmacy and get vaccinated. It is by appointment only.
Because of the threat of next week's arctic blast, there is a chance if you have an appointment for next week it could be canceled, but they'll notify you to reschedule if necessary.
If you're in groups 1A or 1B below are links to try and set up appointments at area pharmacies:
CVS - If you don't have online access you can call CVS Customer Service at (800) 746-7287.