The huge turnout on Thursday, June 10, of economic frontline workers in Quezon City eager to book a slot for their first COVID-19 vaccine shot all but overwhelmed eZConsult, the website which handles the city’s online appointments for the jabs.

The website got crippled around 4 pm when expectant users only received a prompt that said: “Error fetching data!!”

The error made it impossible to access the list of slots for vaccinations.

What triggered the sudden influx that choked the website was an announcement by the Quezon City government at 2 pm Thursday that individuals under the A4 priority group could book a vaccine slot scheduled from June 11 to 16 in various vaccination sites in the city.

In a statement, eZConsult apologized for the inconvenience.

“Please be advised that we are experiencing heavy traffic on our platform as more users and priority groups use eZConsult to book COVID-19 vaccinations. You may experience intermittent slowness,” it said.

The website was fixed past midnight on Friday, June 11, with users finally able to book a vaccine schedule.

The city government said there were no more available online slots as of 7 am Friday.

Quezon City is the most populous city in the Philippines, with 2.9 million inhabitants.

Some 98,000 individuals were fully vaccinated in Quezon City as of June 8, out of the over 334,000 individuals who have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose.

Other cities in Metro Manila began vaccinating economic frontliners earlier in the week, such as Pasay, Parañaque, Navotas, and Mandaluyong on June 7; and Manila and San Juan on June 8.

Before Monday, only select sectors were allowed to receive the COVID-19 vaccine since the country began its immunization drive in March, such as health workers, mayors and governors, senior citizens, and persons with comorbidities. — Rappler.com