It took UMC an hour to fill online registrations for 4,000 vaccinations after site crashed

UPDATE: All of University Medical Center's latest vaccination appointments were booked within about an hour of online registration going live at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Usually it only takes minutes to fill up. The reason it took until 7:03 p.m. this time is because over 87,000 people went to the website at once, causing it to crash.

No more spots are currently available until Thursday morning's "super-senior" registration. See original report below for further details.

ORIGINAL REPORT: EL PASO, Texas -- University Medical Center of El Paso said it would hold appointment registration Tuesday at 6 p.m. for 4,000 first doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccination that were just received.

Registration will open at 6 p.m. at UMCelpaso.org for those in state vaccination categories 1A and 1B, which includes healthcare workers, first-responders, anyone 65 and older or others with certain underlying health conditions.

A UMC spokesman said it's anticipated, similarly to past registration events, that all 4,000 vaccination appointments will be filled within minutes.

The UMC website will only accept registrations until all open appointments are scheduled. After that point, the site will close access.

In addition, UMC will be holding a special appointment registration Thursday at 9 a.m. "super seniors" - those 70 years of age and older.

At that time, "super seniors" can register online at UMCelpaso.org or by calling 915-200-2700. Both the telephone number and website will close after available appointments are taken on Thursday.

There will be 1,000 appointments available online for "super seniors" online and 1,000 available by phone, officials indicated.

UMC noted that these two occasions will be some of their last online registration events as they work toward a consolidated registration process along with the City of El Paso in the next couple of weeks.