Marshall County Health Department Reports 8,000 Calls in One Minute for COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic Appointments

MOUNDSVILLE -- Phones in Marshall County were ringing off the hook so hard they briefly interrupted service at the county health department Wednesday morning, as tens of thousands of incoming calls were placed in an attempt to fill 400 slots for Friday's COVID-19 vaccine clinic.

At 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Ohio and Marshall County health departments began taking calls to make appointments for Friday's COVID-19 vaccination clinic, which will distribute 400 vaccines to residents in Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel and Tyler counties. Lines opened at 8:30 a.m.; in short order, the phone lines became so busy that the automated systems, and even the pre-recorded messages, were knocked offline. Appointments were filled by a little after 9 a.m.

"We were at the point where it actually wrecked the system. It had the 'busy' message on the system, and it overloaded the system that it went back to the (default) message," said Mark Ackermann,the Marshall County Health Department's threat preparedness director.

"We put another message on that all our appointments were full. It literally crashed it. They had it programmed the right way, we had it verified that it was working and then boom! Down."

The sudden barrage of calls clocked as many as 8,000 calls in one minute, according to the office's service provider, Ackermann said. The strain on the system was so extreme it also prevented outgoing calls from the health department, forcing employees to conduct business on their cell phones.

"No other people in the building were able to make a phone call during that time," he said. "They were disrupted almost 20 or so minutes. Those needed calls were done by cell phone, but it really restricted operations during that time. It is a good thing that we're going to go to the Everbridge system."

The Everbridge COVID-19 Vaccination Pre-Registration System was launched Monday and serves as an online registry for vaccinations, and can be accessed either by phone or on the web.

Ackermann said the county was prepared for a hectic day, and said the overall call volume was comparable to the previous week's clinic. Friday's is the second and final regional vaccination clinic for the four counties.

Ackermann added that he was enthusiastic that President Joe Biden's administration had started increasing purchases of the vaccine nationwide, aiming at 300 million people vaccinated by the end of the summer.

"We welcome any number of doses we can get in," he said. "If we can get additional doses, we'll find additional volunteers and staff to come in and do it, even if we have to do a little bit more."

The Marshall and Wheeling-Ohio County Health Departments reported one COVID-related death each in their Wednesday night reports. They were the 62nd death in Ohio County and 58th in Marshall County.

Ohio County also reported 18 new positive cases, bringing its total to 3,489. Marshall County also reported 12 new confirmed positive and nine new probable cases, bringing its totals to 2,140 confirmed cases, 558 probable cases and seven hospitalizations.

Hancock County fell to red, the highest-risk category, on the Department of Health and Human ResourcesWednesday COVID-19 alert map, joining Marshall County. Brooke County and Ohio County both were orange.