The Knox County Health Department asking for patience with their public information line.

They received over 70 thousand inbound calls last Friday, a majority of those calls came in between 10:30 and 11:30 a.m., which was 30 minutes before and after KCHD opened registration for 1,000 additional first dose COVID-19 vaccination appointments last Saturday.

For perspective, the Knoxville Chamber reached out to two of the county’s largest call centers, which reported receiving an average of 12,000 and 25,000 calls a day.

The KCHD Hotline was created to answer questions from the public about COVID-19. As vaccines become available, the handful of employees staffing that line have also begun helping schedule vaccination appointments and call volume goes up exponentially when those are open.

Knox County continues to look at ways to provide online registration for vaccine notification and expand phone access.