Orange County offers pre-registration for COVID-19 vaccine appointments

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Orange County allows Florida residents to pre-register online for coronavirus vaccine appointments so they can be notified faster when shots are available.

The appointment portal for the Orange County Convention Center site opened Friday (Jan. 29) at 8 a.m. with some new appointments for the admissions, but it closed less than an hour later.

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People must create a CDR Health account to be tested or to schedule a vaccination appointment. Once a person is registered, they still need to schedule their appointment, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said.

Meanwhile, staff from four community centers in Orange County are on hand to assist residents who do not have a computer and / or smart device and who may need assistance signing up for a recording.

The staff from the Holden Heights, Pine Hills, East Orange and Taft community centers will be available Friday to assist seniors in enrolling in the vaccine. There will also be Spanish speaking staff.

Dr. Raul Pino, a health officer for the Orange County-Florida Department of Health, said it is difficult to determine exactly how many appointments the county will offer per week based on vaccine availability, but he estimated about 8,000 for the next week.

“We have a different number of appointments every day, so we may add 200 to 300 appointments in a day,” said Pino. “So that’s why I can’t tell you how many per day, but the last time we opened it, which was similar to the next few weeks, we added about 8,000 appointments in that week. So the number should be very close to just over 8,000. “

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The county provides vaccine updates via text message when people text OCFLCOVID to 888777.