'Pissed Off' Baker Says Fixes Coming After Latest Vaccine Failure

Patience is wearing thin after the latest pothole in a vaccination rollout full of them.

The state vaccination appointment website buckled under the pressure of scores of newly eligible people looking to book a slot, crashing Thursday morning and leaving already frustrated residents — many of them older — searching for answers.

Vaxfinder.mass.gov has since been partially restored, but only after hours of confusion for those trying to book one of the 70,000 appointments for next week.

"My hair's on fire about the whole thing," Gov. Charlie Baker told GBH's Boston Public Radio. "I can't even begin to tell you how pissed off I am."

He's got company.

State lawmakers want to know how this happened the same morning eligibility expanded to nearly 1 million more residents. This was the first opportunity for people over 65 and those with two or more qualifying medical conditions to book appointments.

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"I am deeply disappointed that today so many Massachusetts residents are feeling frustration and anger on a day when we should be experiencing hope," Senate President Karen Spilka said in a statement. "I hear it and I feel it too."

Spilka said an oversight hearing will be live-streamed on Feb. 25, and "we expect answers from those responsible for this failure."

Sen. Jo Comerford, who is co-chairing the Joint Committee on COVID-19 and Emergency Preparedness and Management, said the befuddled cartoon octopus that greeted residents on the overwhelmed state website was right on the money.

"The four-armed octopus is an apt metaphor for an incomplete @MassGovernor creature without enough limbs to do its work," Comerford tweeted.

The problems started shortly before 8 a.m., when those seeking open appointments were met with an error message. The state said later in the morning the rush caused the crash.

"People did a lot of work preparing for this, but clearly they didn't do enough," Baker said.

Baker promised things would change moving forward.

"It's going to get fixed and I'm going to work very hard to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.

Baker said the state is looking at a centralized sign-up mechanism and that he may have more information in the coming weeks before eligibility is expanded to larger population groups.

Meanwhile, older residents continue to struggle booking appointments.

Jan Leavitt, a 73-year-old cancer survivor recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes, had previously written twice to Baker on her concerns about getting an appointment. She's long lived on Cape Cod, where she says many seniors have trouble getting to mass vaccination sites.

Her worries were validated Thursday when she logged on at 8 a.m.. Leavitt tried contacting vaccination sites like local pharmacies on the Cape and the Melody Tent on Hyannis, but had no luck.

Her family in South Carolina received their second vaccinations this morning.

"What happened to our state?" she asked.

Thursday is not the first time the site has crashed due to a spike in visitors.

It is, however, the first time the site crashed only a day after the governor publicly assured people the site would not crash.

"I think the website will be in good shape for this," Baker told reporters Wednesday.

Appointments at the mass vaccination sites in Springfield, Danvers, Natick and Dartmouth have been booked for next week. Some 50,000 appointments, mostly at Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park, are being held until everyone has access to the site.