Collier County offers waitlist for COVID-19 vaccine while appointments are all booked

Vaccine rollout will continue for the first weekend of 2021 in Southwest Florida, but to get a vaccine in Collier County, you need an appointment, and the county is completely booked.

Florida Department of Health in Collier County says, if you do not have an appointment, do not jump in any of the lines for vaccinations.

DOH-Collier now has a feature to allow people eligible for the vaccine to join a waitlist. You can find the waitlist button by visiting the eventbrite registration page. When you click register, you will see a list of sold-out dates in addition to a red button that says Join Waitlist.

As much as Tony Cimorelli and his wife would like to get back on cruises and put the coronavirus behind them, they think the method of first-come, first-serve in Lee County was chaotic. Seeing the lines to get the COVID-19 vaccine there didn’t sit well with them.

“There are a lot of people out there,” Cimorelli said. “They are too close together.”

The couple waited and hoped an appointment option would come along.

“There’s no way that we are going to go down there and stand in line for 18 hours to get a shot,” Cimorelli said.

People 65 and older can make appointments in Collier County, but the county is booked for the near future, and the Cimorellis missed the boat.

“No we can wait in the lines if we wanted to, but like I say, why do that when there are other alternatives available,” Cimorelli said.

That doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Cimorelli now sits in the virtual line. He and his wife are on Collier County’s vaccination waitlist.

“Hey, we are in north Cape, and we are willing to travel down to Collier to get it,” Cimorelli said. “Because we travel a lot, we’ve done over 100 cruises, and we wanna get back on the ships.”

We reached out to DOH-Collier about the new waitlist option and are waiting to hear back. For more information in Collier County, visit the Florida Department of Health in Collier County website.

Cimorelli said he doesn’t know how far down he and his wife are on the wait list, but he says it’s safer than standing in line all night.

“We can hopefully get out a little bit more,” Cimorelli said. “We’ve been sequestered in our little community here for nine months, so we’re ready to get out.”