Tens of thousands of appointments were erroneously scheduled through premature access to New York's COVID-19 vaccine scheduling website earlier this year because of multiple failures in its design, according to a report released Thursday the state inspector general's office. 

The report highlights the problems in the early days of vaccine access in January when doses and scheduling remained relatively rare. Appointments that were scheduled through the website through premature access were ultimately canceled. 

The report found the problems associated with the state's scheduling website were a series of unintentional factors that led to vaccine appointments being scheduled at sites in Binghamton, Buffalo, Plattsburgh, Potsdam and Utica. 

At the time, the state was limiting access to vaccinations to front-line workers in the health care field, people living in nursing homes and first responders. 

The report determined several issues in the design and implementation of the scheduling website led to early access. Those issues included websites that had been created only for training purposes were accessed and used by the public. Screening tool users were also able to view the address of a vaccine scheduling site in browsers, allowing people to access those websites by copying and pasting them. 

And what the report called a "misunderstanding" of a function of a program but its architects, programmers and administrators, unintentional access to the broader public was given once a vaccination event was created in the system. 

Social media also spread access to links through groups of people. Counties, school districts and union leaders as well as religious communities distributed active links prematurely through email distribution lists, the report found. 

The scheduling website had been created through the state Department of Health, Office of Informational Technology Services and Health Research, Inc.

“State employees worked tirelessly to get the vaccination registration program off the ground in record time and with outstanding results,” said acting Inspector General Robyn Adair. “However, several factors left open the possibility for members of the public to prematurely and unknowingly ‘jump the line.’ While DOH, ITS, HRI and others were able to curtail the vulnerabilities, our investigation identified ways to ensure that the State’s vaccination registration system is able to withstand ongoing efforts to fairly and efficiently get shots in the arms of all New Yorkers.”