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Pinellas and Hillsborough counties stop accepting new coronavirus vaccination appointments

On Tuesday morning, Pinellas County callers were reporting issues with getting through on the new phone numbers the county put out to make appointments.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — The departments of health in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties are no longer accepting new appointment bookings for coronavirus vaccinations.

Health leaders say they have scheduled all of their existing stocks of the vaccine.

"Once additional doses of vaccine are received, we will open the reservations system to the public again," the Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County wrote in a statement.

Tuesday's announcement that all appointments had filled up came after a chaotic day Monday of offline servers and phone problems. In response, Pinellas County's health department on Tuesday created a temporary registration method for seniors trying to make an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccination. 

For the morning, people who were 65 years old or older could call 727-824-6900 and select Option 4 or call 727-824-6931 to schedule an appointment in Pinellas. But, that has now stopped.

Similarly, Hillsborough County has stopped taking any vaccine appointments for the time being. Hillsborough expects to be able to start offering appointments again next week.

The Tampa Bay area was flooded with calls Tuesday, with many people saying they couldn't get through to book appointments by phone or other methods.

Pinellas County's health department was temporarily allowing in-person scheduling of appointments. But, that has now been stopped, too. 10 Tampa Bay's Jennifer Titus posted the below video from moments after people in line learned the news.

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