The phone number 866-201-6909 is the State of Florida Covid 19 Scheduling Support Line. They asked for 5 digit zip code of your home address. This will allow the system to locate the nearest site for you. They will call when an appointment is available. Wonder how long that will be!

Good luck.
We will put it on the list along with
stop signs
speed limits
wearing a mask
:pray:

With 4.5 million over 65 in Florida, That's only one third, not over one half.

Last Friday I went online at 6 am and when it finally allowed me to choose a county, I chose Flagler. I figured far enough away that most Villagers wouldn't be interested in driving to. I was right, got in and signed up and also my wife. About 80 miles to Palm Coast. Easy drive, nice scenery. The Publix people were awesome and we go back in Feb to get 2nd.

we're driving all the way to 30A tomorrow..4-5 hour drive to get to a Publix...ugh!

As someone who has designed quick capture input programs, I will attest the design is terrible. If anyone from Publix is reading this, following is how the process should work once someone gets through the queue and is let in.

Pick a county that's available
Pick a location that's available
Pick a timeslot that's available

Assuming you clicked first, that timeslot is now yours and you have five minutes to input the required personal information. If you do not meet the requirements or you do not finish within five minutes, that timeslot is returned to be available for others.

This would be light-years faster than the input system they have designed.

Speaking of lotteries, did anyone ever think that a system of LUCK would eliminate all this confusion. This is a system mindless disorder.

I am amazed at post #13. It seems like people are doing enough WORK and utilizing math and computer science to the extent of researching for a cure for cancer - just to get an appointment for a vaccine shot. It seems to me that ALL that complexity is what we have paid taxes for all of our lives to have government DO for US! To me, the disappointment does not lie with Publix. It lies with government!

Jimjam,
I authored post #13! Thanks for elevating this to an ethereal 40,000 foot level! I could not agree more!!!

I chose to ignore the complaints and how wrong this all is and focused on helping those who were looking for help. I used what's available. Just another approach!

Thanks again for adding perspective to my day.

Gerry

I just received my shot at Gainesville Va it was an appointment for 1:-15 for over 75 but there is a sign that says no appointment needed they took me right away an hour before appointment , I guess they don’t have to many over 75 veterans who aren’t in nursing homes lol

Agreed. Similar to the "Eventbrite" system. Some counties are using that, but has its own flaws and would not be able to handle the county and store delineation.

Publix Vacine
 

45 minutes into the wait, I received request to register in Marion County. As with you, by the time I was ready to confirm, all available doses were gone. Missed out again. Will try tomorrow.

thanks for that number, not afraid enough of this thing to spend hours and hours trying to sign up. Called the number and am in the Q at least waiting for the call back and only took 5 minutes

We’ve been thinking the same thing!!

Well, that IS something positive to do, it helps society to stay healthy. My particular brain could NOT hold all the computer science and details to do that. But, having done that, it is great to have a willingness to teach others the same skill. More power to you. I am completely amazed and impressed.

What store in ocala did you select?

The problem with that is that The Villages is spread across three counties. Depending on where you live in The Villages and where the vaccine is being administered you might want to go to a different county. Also some people might be willing to travel to other counties. I'd prefer to be able to see all of my options at once.

My experience was that I looked around the different sites to try to select the one that was closest. When I decided on one, it was full. My second selection was also full so I ended up with my third pick which was an hour's drive. No big deal but if you look at only one county at a time and that county is full, by the time that you get back to it it may be full.

What would be helpful would be to have the full addresses of the sites instead of just the county and town.

By then many more people will be vaccinated so the demand will be a lot lower. As of now, almost half of all Florida residents over the age of 65 have been vaccinated. We should begin to the the wait time go down soon.

Another wasted hour. Two computers, no hits

I had three browsers open for the Publix site and watched as each vacancy filled up, never getting a link register for the shot. I started watching from 3:30am on but the only thing I got was refreshed sites every minute after 6am. Each time it refreshed, I scrolled down to the bottom to search for a link or box to open for registering our information.
Guess I will have to search other avenues to schedule an appointment for my wife. She's about ready to say "to heck with it" and leave the house, regardless of the threat. Can't really blame her.
Thanks for the information on the publix site. At least we know that some folks are getting their vaccinations. Guess every little bit helps in the long haul.

What the rectangle prompt to book vacination on Publix website looks like
 

For step 4 of the A Gambler’s Guide to Booking a Vaccination with Publix , the rectangle prompt to look for after the list of counties to book an appointment is shown here. Now you know what to look for when successfully booking an appointment.

Interesting. I scrolled down EVERY time it refreshed on all three browsers and I never had the box you show. Seems like being on there at 3:30am would have been early enough to put me pretty far up in line, considering they had thousands of spots. Even Marion county had over 1700 spots and they disappeared pretty fast. I was willing to take anything that was within a couple hours of driving, one way. Didn't even get the chance to choose one.
Like I said before, someone got the vaccination spots so at least we know that there will be less folks vulnerable to the virus. Hopefully, we can get ours before they open it for the younger age groups. We have family coming down in March that have all recently recovered from their virus infection. It only lasted a few days with them, but they are young.
Good luck to those that are wanting to get they chance at being vaccinated so that they can return to some semblance of normality. The hunt continues.........

And thanks to those that are passing on valuable information. :thumbup:

The site goes "live" at 6 am, so being on the site at 3:30 or anytime prior to 6 am doesn't help you. Also, the site doesn't seem to establish a first come first served "line". It seems to operate more like a lottery where you just need to be lucky enough to be selected from the site when a space opens up. Also, the "book an appointment" box doesn't show up until you win the lottery and are instructed to provide personal information. These are just my observations.

Would it make a difference if you clicked the refresh button at the top of the page, rather than wait the 60 seconds for it to do it automatically? Thanks

I had the idea also, and did that with one of the browsers, clicking and scrolling down the page until one of the others refreshed and then back again. I tried that with just one to see if that might make a difference. It didn't.
Maybe next time, I will try exiting and reopening the site and see if that makes a difference. I have also hedged my bet by registering at several country health Dept sites that allow you to register for the vaccination when they have it available.
Like I said before, this is to get my wife vaccinated as I am sure I will get mine at the VA when they have sufficient supplies. Right now they are giving the shots to those Vets over 75. Not there yet, but at this rate, by the time I reach the front of the line, I will qualify for "old" enough.....:)

I originally thought that doing manual refreshes may hurt you by moving you to the back of the line. But, now, I don't believe there is a first come first served line. It is just random luck. I agree with the previous poster that manual refreshes probably don't help.

Publix isn't your only option.....patientportalfl.com, myvaccine.fl.com, are two and you can pre-register your information on both. We used patientportalfl.com this morning and were successful for Orlando. Depends on how far you are willing to travel, my advice is to find alternative provider websites including County sites.

The Publix Covid Vaccination Website - Queuing Discussion and Suggestions
 

This post discusses the intricacies of getting from the queue to the sign-in process. A related post (“A Gambler’s Guide to Winning a Publix Vaccine Appointment") navigates you through the sign-up process to raise your odds of getting an appointment.

Once you’re in the queue, you can watch a counter while the page refreshes every minute. You can also see the number of appointments left available in each county.
The official Publix statement is to simply wait at this point: “We do not recommend refreshing the page manually. We are limiting the number of people in our reservation system to ensure our site remains stable. Our waiting page refreshes every minute while more people are let in to book their appointments.” The implication is that applicants are let in on a first come, first served basis.

However, analysis shows that the queuing system does not work as expected. The transfer from the queue to the sign-up system is often not based on timing (nor device type, carrier, or speed). The system is also opaque in that it does not display your place in line.

Here are 6 suggestions below for your consideration.

Caveat: This is pure speculation based on discussions with a number of tech-savvy people and other users, but none of the comments are based on information from any of the Publix web designers or other internal contacts. Ultimately, none of these things may make any difference. The current implementation of the Publix queuing system may just be broken and randomly transfers users to the reservation system.

1. Use multiple browsers if possible. Three or four are probably optimum. If one browser is granted entry into the reservations system, be prepared to abandon the remaining ones immediately, since the active one will require all your attention. Publix says it’s sufficient to have one browser.

2. Confirm each browser is the latest version. Publix also emphasizes this. Also try to use different browsers (Firefox, Edge, Chrome, etc)

3. Sign in early and wait. It looks like the system refreshes the open browsers automatically immediately after launching. There may not be a need to manually refresh at the beginning and try to time the launch. Suggestion: watch the screen to see if the counter started by itself. If it did, do nothing. If you see the screen change (implying that the sign up window has been opened) and the counter has not started, then refresh manually. On 1/29, the window was open at 5:58 AM, so theoretically, whatever browser was activated would have been toward the top of the queue.

4. Watch the counters and the remaining sign up slots for the counties of interest. As long as the counters are running, do not manually refresh. In theory, you would go to the end of the line. If the available slots start to dwindle, you may want to consider a “Hail Mary” pass on one of the browsers. See below.

5. The sign up window should last at least an hour, so there is ample time to make decisions while you’re watching the availability by county. Depending on your gambling instincts, you can “let the clock run out” by doing nothing (the official Publix recommendation) or you can choose to manually refresh anytime before the spots in your selected county are gone. Trying it both ways has proven to be inconclusive. Here is some data to keep in mind, based on observations from sampled counties on both the 1/27 and 1/29 enrollment windows.
o There are about 150 doses allotted per store
o The number of stores per resident over 65 varies by county
o The depletion curves for the two days are remarkably similar.
o It takes about 10 minutes before there are any decreases.
o About 50% of appointment slots are gone in about 30 minutes
o 75% are gone within 45 minutes
o Almost all are gone within about 70 minutes
o Stores in the panhandle get the least amount of bookings and linger to about 80 minutes, but they are still not accessible to those in the queue.

6. If you are admitted to the reservation system, the counter will stop and the text changes. If that happens, make sure you immediately drop down below the county list (you will not be able to select a county on that page) and select “BOOK AN APPOINTMENT.” You do not have to drop down to check for the appearance of that "BOOK AN APPOINTMENT " box. Once you’re “in,” you can book up to four appointments. Note that if a red circle should show up in the “SUBMIT” button (happens frequently after the second or third appointment), you can not fix it by going back to prior screens and changing a selection (store, date, time). Abandon or reboot that browser.

~~~~~

Yes. Also see post # 65 for alternatives.

If you've been Mayo patient, they are also vaccinating, but it's invitation only based on their own priory criteria.

In addition, check out the State's new "preregistration system" announced on 1/29 here: Just a moment...

Also, consider the Orange County system . Very labor intensive, but excellent odds if you're willing to spend the time. You preregister with personal information, then register for notifications, then sign on with password from the pre-registration and keep looping about 100 times until you get a hit. Works (almost) every time ! :)

Senior, Thanks for capturing this all too rare sight. Most people will fly by it rather than taking the valuable few seconds to take a screen shot! :)

"Today 08:05 AM
Ricky Dale
When the site go's active at 6AM there will be a 60 second count down indicator (in red) towards the top of the page. That indicator will refresh every 60 seconds. Don't worried about the rest of the page/pages while that counter is active. If you are chosen that counter will disappear. At that point scroll down the page until you see a box that says make appointment. Click on that box. Once you are asked to pick a county and store, do not choose the first store or time in the county you want, you and a few dozen others may have clicked on the same store and time. You are then in a race to see who finishes the information first. (human nature is to pick the first store and time you see). Go into the county a few stores down and an hour or so in, you will be less likely to get bounced out too choose another store.
I have made four appointments in the last three sessions. Good luck."


Quoting Ricky here from the "other" Publix site in an attempt to direct the interesting discussion to one place.


Ricky: You make a great point. You are NOT competing with 300,000 people (the number that according to Publix, use the site), but you are in a time race for only that one time slot, after having chosen the county and store and date. So the fundamental principle is that for each of those choices, you pick the one you think is LEAST LIKELY to be chosen by others.

All that is discussed in my note #13. Of course the problem now is that most can't even get into the reservation system. That's discussed in my note #68 above.

Copying another note from the other Publix thread to bring it together.

"The panhandle counties have already vaccinated 30% to almost 50% of their residents over age 65. Since there are a smaller percentage of locals needing their first shot those appointments probably are available longer on the app.

In Sumter, Lake County, Marion, and all those counties to the west we are at 20% or less of seniors already having their first shot. With close to 80% competing for appointments it is going tough.

South of us only Orange and Palm Beach counties are at 30%, and I’m not sure Publix is doing the vaccines there.[/QUOTE]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All the "shot in the arm" statistics are here by county. The site is updated daily.
http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_pa...ort_latest.pdf

You have to be careful to select the shots given to those over 65, since a lot of the total administered early have been given to health care workers, who tend to be much younger. You can then compare that to the total proportion of over 65's in that county. Here:
Florida Population 65 years and over, percent by County

Then multiply that proportion by the total population in that county here (estimated 2020 data):
Population of Counties in Florida (2021)

Not sure if the panhandle demand difference is due to saturation of shots, as you surmise, or inconvenient location or availability per population. I suspect it has to do with location, since surrounding states are not eligible to play the Florida lottery.

As I mentioned on the other thread, the panhandle has vaccinated 30% to almost 50% of their Seniors. Leon county is the winner with 49% having received their first shot. So there are less locals vying for slots up there. There are your “LEAST LIKELY to be chosen by others” counties.

Counties west and south of us are in the same boat we are, with close to 80% of the seniors still looking for their first vaccine. You might have a decent chance in those counties around Jacksonville.

Counties covered in the panhandle (stores in parens): Escambia (6), Okaloosa (7), Waldron (3), and Bay (5). There is a big void in Publix coverage from there to Marion (12). 2 counties south from Marion are Citrus (4) and Hernando (7). To the east you have St Johns (14), Flagler (4) and Volusia (25).

no disrespect, friend, but relying on the gov to get it right is a joke :icon_wink:

I'd like to thank everyone who tried to make Publix site understandable and useable.

However, what a stupid miss to make of something that could have been so simple. Surely all one needs is a list of counties, a phone number and website for each county and allow everyone to either leave their information on a phone or to leave their information on the website.

I am probably being too simplistic, but the website made for Publix must have been compiled by an evil genius bent on annoying as many people s they could.

I agree that the system they are using is very bad. But, I think the reason they use it is because it is totally automated and requires no work by Publix employees. If people left information on a phone message or a website, someone would need to spend time sorting through the information, and notify people of their appointments, which would probably result in a lot of no shows and people gaming the system. There are literally thousands of people trying to make appointments, but very few appointments available.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with you, but there has to be a better way. What becomes of the people who are literally not able to use a computer, who are sight-impaired ,and are handicapped in other ways.

All they needed to do about six months ago was to hire an IT guy that could create a useable site. Consider Amazon.....search for anything, buy it in seconds, have an email immediately, it is shipped and on your door step the next day or two. Go into their site and find everything you have purchased over time. How hard would it be to sign up by birthday and have your name (birthday) stored until the vaccine is available? If the state was to put all its efforts into Publix dispersing this vaccine, why didn't they hire the right people. Oh, I know, it's government.......(That is not a political statement). It is about public vs private.....Profit motive and competition. JMHO

Not a government site, it is a private site motivated by profit. The Governor's press conference today indicated that they will be expanding the doses available to Publix and Publix will hopefully be expanding the number of stores that will open. And remember, Publix is not the only site or place to get the vaccine.