I alas am not old enough to get the vaccine yet, but my mother-in-law is 64. Florida started vaccinated over age 60 this week and Publix opened up booking for later this week early this morning. The process kind of took forever, and it's clear why. They open booking at 7 AM. I entered at 6:59, nothing. Entered as the clock struck 7 and was told that I was "waiting." A countdown clock showed when the page would refresh and that eventually, maybe, if I was lucky, a "Book Now" button would appear. The page refreshed once every minute. 45 minutes later, I finally was blessed with the button. I was able to book an appointment at the local Publix at 1 PM on Wednesday. So why did I have to wait 45 minutes?

You cannot select your appointment or even give any preferences other than what Publix you want to go to. It gives you an appointment day and time and tells you you can click continue to keep that appointment or decide not to keep it and run the risk that there won't be any more options. If you click continue, you get 20 whole minutes to finish the booking process. That is a long freaking time to enter your name, date of birth, address, and answer some really simple health related questions that are all Yes or No answers. It took me about 2-3 minutes to book the appointment once I was offered the date and time.

Now, I will say this: I am impressed that the website didn't crash and that I was able to get an appointment. However, not everyone has 45 minutes or more to sit and wait on a website. I was really close to having to call it quits and leave my car and head into the office (I had my phone refreshing the page while I drove in to work). The percentage of appointments available went down super slow on the wait page (after 30 minutes, there was still over 90% available in all counties give or take), which means it isn't so much a ton of people slowing down the process. It's that the process is really slow. Not a disaster by any means. If you are looking to get vaccinated at Publix, get on the site early and be prepared to wait. If you can do that, the process didn't have all the many hiccups.