How Not to Schedule Vaccinations Update

In previous posts I commented on the roll-your-own system being used to schedule vaccinations in Arizona. Now that vaccinations are accelerating, states everywhere are experiencing problems scheduling them, according to an article last week in the New York Times.  

In an earlier post, I explained that states have had to fend for themselves on vaccine scheduling because Trump's CDC used a no-bid contract to hire an unqualified firm (Deloitte, which specializes in accounting) to develop a system that could be used by states. It was terrible and few states wanted to use it, so they developed their own or use one one called PrepMod, developed by a Maryland nonprofit.  

Well it seems that there are problems everywhere.  States are using "more than half a dozen appointment scheduling systems, from tools used by federal, state and local agencies to the software employed by private hospitals and pharmacies to rudimentary solutions like SignUpGenius," according to NYT.  

It has gotten so bad that some jurisdictions, like Johnson County North Carolina, are not doing scheduling at all. Doing so would put too much strain on staff, so all vaccinations are first come, first served. That makes vaccine hunting even more of a hunger games situation.

The NYT story says the federal government is sending out teams to help states fix their reservation systems. Meanwhile the predicted coming vaccine abundance may remove the need to schedule vaccines at all.


 

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