Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Health department struggles as requests for vaccine swell
More than 100,000 people seeking COVID-19 vaccines have bombarded the state health department in Palm Beach County, and most are still waiting for appointments.
Inadequate technology has left thousands of people waiting for an email response, and some people have raised concerns that the email process could open people to fraud. In many cases, health officials don’t have answers to the problems or have provided conflicting information.
The long list of vaccine sign-up problems was thrust into the spotlight during a county meeting Tuesday, offering the most detailed account yet of everything the state health department still must to fix as it tries to meet the demand of senior
citizens to be protected.
Dr. Alina Alonso, the state health department director for Palm Beach County, on Tuesday attempted to quell concerns regarding the email system being used to accept people’s information for appointments. And county commissioners pledged to try to get answers to these still-unresolved issues.
Eager for the vaccine
With over 400,000 residents who are 65 or older, demand has far outweighed the limited vaccine supply in Palm Beach County. State figures show more than 46,000 have been vaccinated so far in the county.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Alonso said the department has received all the emailed requests from the public, even though many people have not received a confirmation email. The state department of health in Palm Beach County switched over to an emailbased booking system after its phone system crashed earlier this month.
Alonso said the system can only handle a certain number of emails at a time before it stops sending auto-confirmations. As a result, Alonso said many people have emailed multiple times to make sure their request went through, which has furthered strained the system.
Commissioner Melissa McKinlay expressed dismay that the “third-largest state in the country with over 21 million people” wasn’t able to devise a system to reliably send email auto-responses.
McKinlay, whose district has a half-million acres in agricultural production, added that “the farmers [in my district] can tell me exactly when a seed was planted, what kind of seed it was, and where it was planted at any [point] of the day.”
“And we can’t figure out how to do an auto-response?”
Seeking answers
During the vaccine roll-out, the state department of health in Palm Beach County has at times provided conflicting information, leading to confusion. Alonso said the state system — “whether it’s old or lack of updating due to budgets and whatever reasons or excuses” — can’t function once it hits a certain email threshold.
Following up on that, McKinlay pointed out the health department has given three different numbers for what that email threshold is — 10,000, 30,000 and 30 — over the past week. Alonso said she didn’t have the actual number in front of her and that she would have to look it up.
In another exchange, McKinlay brought up security concerns over the health department’s vaccine-request email, chd50feedback@flhealth.gov.
Given the complicated email name and that people have to provide personal information — their name, phone number and date of birth — McKinlay worried fraudsters could strike: They could potentially register similar email addresses and hope the public accidentally emails them instead, trying to steal personal data.
When McKinlay asked if the department’s technology team was instituting any safeguards to prevent against that issue, Alonso said she didn’t have the technical information to answer, adding those decisions were made at the state level.
Facing long wait times
It may be a while before appointments can be set up, as more vaccine doses are made available. It likely will take “weeks and months — not days” before they can fill all of the requests.
Adding to the confusion, the state department of health in Palm Beach County initially said it would only be accepting vaccination appointment requests via email after its phone system crashed. However, McKinlay asked if the state health department in Palm Beach County also had a phone number for appointments, which Alonso said they did, seemingly contradicting the department’s early statement they were only accepting appointment requests via email.
“I’m getting more confused as I ask questions,” McKinlay said.
Alonso clarified that the state health department prefers that people use email, so they can keep better track of their results.
To help alleviate concerns of those worried their appointment request didn’t go through, Alonso added the health department plans on sending a mass email to everyone who requested vaccine appointments, confirming receipt of the requests.