United Way opens call center for COVID-19 wait list assistance

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - The United Way of the Brazos Valley is seeing a growing number of people call a new hotline created to assist people with getting on the COVID-19 vaccine wait list.

On Monday 211 began transferring people to a local hotline. They are targeting people who have limited email and computer access and need assistance signing up for the wait list. Those vaccinations are happening weekly at the Brazos Center but registrations are required.

As of Tuesday afternoon more than 60 people had been put on the wait list through the call center. You must be in the phase 1A or 1B categories to get on the list. That includes healthcare works, first responders, as well as people 65 and older or with chronic medical conditions.

”We can help register them for the wait list so in some cases we’re able to troubleshoot if people are having problems with the registration systems themselves, we’re able to kind of help people through that,” said Peggi Goss, United Way of the Brazos Valley Vice President of Community Impact.

Goss was taking some of those calls herself Tuesday. She said people who have already registered online shouldn’t call this number to try to jump ahead in line.

”We want to make sure that you’re in the 1B or 1A groups so we are definitely working to vaccinate those groups first,” she said.

”Be patient with us, it is kind of busy, there’s not that many of us doing it,” said Josiah Outerbridge, a United Way Call Center Employee. This was his second day working the wait list call line. He’s said he’s happy to help.

“They’re asking how long will it take for them to get some kind of confirmation and we’re telling them that we have no control over that at the moment,” he said.

Goss said there are challenges as they roll out the new service.

”The process has been a little challenging for all of us and part of it is because we don’t get a lot of advance notice on how much vaccine we’re going to get from the state so it’s difficult for us to determine how many appointments we really will have available,” said Goss.

You an call 211 and ask to be transferred to the hotline. The hotline is not meant for general questions about the hub, vaccines, or other types of related inquiries.

We have our previous story on vaccine distribution here.

Vaccine information can be found here.

Our previous story on the hotline can be found here.

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