People in Kamloops waited a long time in line to get a COVID-19 vaccine yesterday.

Multiple concerned residents reached out to NL News after waiting more than an hour in every case. Some were standing outside the McArthur Island Events Centre and others outside the Tournament Capital Centre.

Gordon Harris called it a “mess” at Mac Island when he was waiting for a vaccine appointment with his wife. He says their appointment was scheduled for 12:35 p.m. but they were there until 2:15 p.m.

“When we left the line was still very long. The story we were told there was a mix up on the web site which allowed people to double book,” Harris says.

“When we finally got in there was only five stations giving vaccinations. The person giving my wife her shot told her the day before there were ten stations. My wife is a retired nurse and her friend gave their names to be a volunteers and never heard back from Interior Health.”

“My question is when they saw the amount of people showing up why weren’t people called to help with giving the vaccinations?”

Sandra Banfield says she brought her husband a half-hour early to his 3:15 p.m. vaccine appointment at Mac Island, which was booked over the phone three weeks ago.

“We arrived and found the line up, supposedly all appointment people, lined up from front of building around the sidewalk to around the back of building,” Banfield says, adding some people who had appointments scheduled an hour before them were “not even close” to the front of the line.

“There was no way we would make it into the building in even three hours.”

Banfield says they left, and called and re-booked a vaccine appointment for Friday instead.

“So, so, so upset,” she added.

Others reached out to NL News as well about the delays. “Is this how it’s going to be going forward?” one Kamloops woman asked over email.

While some people voluntarily left the lines and rebooked appointments, reports, so far, to NL News are that everyone who waited was still able to receive a vaccine dose yesterday.

Tuesday was the first day that COVID-19 vaccine appointments could be booked online across the province.

Interior Health says 1,240 vaccine doses were administered at the two Kamloops vaccine clinics yesterday, which was a one-day high so far. It says the delays yesterday were a one-off caused by the volume of appointments, but did not offer any further details when asked today by NL News.

When clinics first opened, Interior Health staff said the entire process would take about 30 minutes on average. That includes registering at the site, sitting down at a vaccination station, and then waiting at a monitoring station for 15 minutes before leaving.

Staff also said the two clinics in Kamloops would have capacity for up to 18 vaccine stations at once when up to full speed.