Tech glitches, swamped websites impede US vaccine distribution
In Mississippi, an online vaccine registration system buckled in a sudden onslaught of traffic. Officials at a local health department in Georgia had to resort to counting every dose they receive before scheduling appointments. A $44 million national vaccine scheduling and tracking system is going largely unused by states.
And California, Idaho and North Dakota undercounted vaccinations because workers forgot to click on a “submit” button at the end of the day.
Across the U.S., a vaccination campaign that was meant to reverse the tide of the pandemic and spur the nation’s economic recovery is getting bogged down by technical glitches and software problems. Cashstrapped public health departments are trying to keep their websites from crashing while booking millions of appointments, tracking unpredictable inventory and logging how many shots they give.
The situation unfolding across the U.S., home to technology giants, is frustrating a public eager for the inoculations. Further, gaps in the data could be distorting the national picture of how efficiently vaccines are being used, if some number of doses that are administered don’t get counted.
“Our sense is that it’s a substantial amount,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “That will become more clear as the data systems get improved and we get a better sense about what we’re missing.”
It’s a situation some officials saw coming. Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield cited “years of underinvestment” in public health systems in his testimony before Congress in September. He said then that the Trump administration was planning to help states plug holes in IT capacity.
“Hopefully, there’ll be further resources to begin to fill those gaps because it is going to be very important that we do have the reporting for the monitoring and safety of these vaccines,” he said.
Redfield and groups representing state health officials told lawmakers that billions in investment would be needed to help states distribute shots. But Congress didn’t allocate that money until it passed a funding bill in late December, after states had already begun vaccinating people.
Private companies giving vaccines are experiencing their own problems. Jarred Phillips, his sister, mom and dad each took turns searching the website of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. to find a vaccine appointment for his mom. The process included creating an account, searching by ZIP code, then by store, by day and by three-hour time slot.
Nothing came up. Phillips, a 36-year-old technology worker in Wilmington, Delaware, even looked for rural ZIP codes where there might be light demand. Nothing. Hours later, he couldn’t figure out why the process was so complicated.
“At some point, these solutions have to meet people where they are,” he said.
Walgreens spokeswoman Kelli Teno said the company has “dedicated teams actively working through these issues to ensure an easy, secure and transparent experience for all eligible individuals” who are trying to schedule their vaccinations.
Like much of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, the vaccination effort has been deployed in a patchwork approach. And it has been layered on top of an already fragmented health care system. The result is a mishmash.