The excitement was real. On Sunday, March 7th news broke that a COVID-19 vaccine clinic was set to run from Tuesday, March 9th to Thursday March 11th at Hanover Area High School.  It was announced that a special phone number would open up on Monday, March 8th for local residents to call and schedule an appointment for the much coveted vaccine.  

Walmart, who has been setting up vaccine clinics around the country, first approached Hanover Area School District on March 2nd. As part of the agreement, Walmart would also be responsible for manning the phones and scheduling the appointments.  

On Monday morning, local residents called and called and called, but only a "lucky" group of people had a chance to speak with the people who filled the schedule. That's FILLED the schedule. Past tense.  

Local residents who called on Monday morning learned that the vaccine clinic appointments had already been filled on Friday, March 5th. 

Here's the timeline:

March 2nd: Walmart contacts Hanover Area School District

March 5th: All appointments are filled for the upcoming Hanover Area COVID-19 vaccine clinic.

March 7th: A Walmart press release contains information for local residents about how they can schedule an appointment to get a vaccine.

March 8th: Phone line opens, but the Hanover Area vaccine clinic is already full.  (See March 5th)

You are reading this correctly. All the vaccine clinic appointments were filled before local residents even had a chance to try and get an appointment.  

How could this happen?  How did this happen?

Hanover Area School District Superintendent Nathan Barrett called into the WILK Morning News to answer questions and share his thoughts on what exactly happened to, what he hoped would be, a great event for the local community.  

For more details on this story, check out an article from the Citizen's Voice from Tuesday, March 9th.