Recommendations for non-technologies for scoring Covid-19 vaccine recruitment

Access to Covid vaccines has highlighted the differences in our society more than anything recently. If you are educated, wealthy, and tech savvy, you are far more likely to have vaccination time than any other method.

Why is this? What can we do to help?

The first problem is the “digital divide,” as most jobs are done online. Many people in rural areas, like me, do not have access to a computer or the internet. Others are limited by poverty or age.

Even if you have access to the internet, the circles are intimidating. You may need to register on multiple sites, for example, and be knowledgeable about navigating the internet. For example, many hospitals have patient ports to access health information. Those with a household income of less than $ 60,000 per year were significantly more likely to access their own medical information in this way. Similarly, being over 65 was a barrier as was receiving less than high school education.

You need to have strong fingers and good eyesight to complete the online forms quickly, before someone else can take over.

What can people do?

Some turn to friends and neighbors to help book a meeting. Increasingly, there are collection options such as PA CoVID Vaccine Match Maker. One of the most innovative programs was the 24-hour vaccination clinic run by the COVID-19 Black Doctors Consortium^⁠ (BDCC).

Other souls wrote tech-savvy programs. Their bots find open vaccine slots by scraping the net more efficiently than a human can, a process known as “scraping”. ”

In other areas, cars of volunteers^⁠ arrange people who are incapable. Some learn when vaccination orders are likely to be available for a particular site, and are then ready to take action. Altruistic volunteers are trying to focus on people with special needs for help and on low-income areas, rather than enabling vaccines for wealthier suburbs.

Case study – struggling to get a vax for my aunt

I spent a full 12 days trying to get a Covid vaccine prescription for my 96-year-old aunt, who survived the Holocaust, in Iowa.

Criteria kept changing – before 2/1, Kitty did not qualify under state guidelines because she lived independently. Nearly all sites initially listed by the Iowa government were dead links or have not yet been vaccinated. It was difficult to get to the Walgreen site, the only semi-active one. Occasionally it would occasionally show a slot for the first dose, but the site would not allow you to register because a second dose prescription was not available.

By Feb. 10, I received a message again that she was no longer eligible under Iowa guidelines, above. This was not true.

Meanwhile, Des Moines’ record wrote that Iowa was sitting on 180,000 doses. Nevertheless, with state status close to the base of vaccine administration, Governor Kim Reynolds raised the command of the state mask.

I was so upset and angry that I printed a picture of Kitty in the gallery of the Holocaust Survivor and Liberator at IHENE, with the caption: High risk and age conditions no longer deserve Covid Vax in Iowa .

Auschwitz did not kill Kitty; now Iowa Gov Reynolds may receive unused 180k doses. She (Kitty) was an avid pre-Covid Holocaust educator.

Walgreen’s response left something to be desired. Initially, via email, they stated that the problem was related to a “temporary glitch” with registration. They did not explain the error message I received again saying that this senior was not eligible for BASED on STATE eligibility requirements.

You can see my growing anxiety, despair, and anger as I, an individual with a computer, tried to manage a schedule.

My research provided calls and messages to Walgreens, the office of the Governor, KETV^⁠, the local health department, several pharmacies, and even Holocaust centers in other states. The saving grace was that I met a number of kind, helpful people along the way.

One of the most troubling things I learned (from the Gov office) was that pharmacies are allowed to make their own criteria within a certain set (e.g., in 1B, for them to choose not to vaccinate the elderly, but to give priority to teachers). There is zero transparency.

This vaccine has a happy ending. With multiple people testing sites at every hour, we finally got an order for Kitty through the health department and Hyvee’s.

Walgreens was never responsive. Citing slow distribution, the “Federal Partnership has been a fiasco”, according to Kaiser Health News. They note that “CVS and Walgreens stand to make a lot of money: Medicare returns $ 16.94 for the first sight and $ 28.39 for the second.” One ongoing question for me is how did national pharmacies get government contracts and is there too much control? I haven’t found it yet.

Another Iowan shared a story similar to that of a senior man living enough to live independently with that man who deprived them of vaccination. In her hometown, a choice has been made as to who should prioritize a public health nurse, rather than a pharmacy. While a waiting list was available, no-one was told where they were on that list.

In my own county of Maryland, lack of access is also a major issue. Some people have tried to call meetings – one woman said she tried 200 times before she got through, just to find out there were no meetings available. After months, the health department and the hospital have made a waiting list. Nobody knows how to put people on the list or where they stand. Vaccines are now available at some local pharmacies, but there is no communication between the health department and the chains to prioritize vaccination. For the commercial pharmacies, each has its own site and once again comes down to enduring technical skills and staying on the company website, day after day, hitting for updates. . We need a public notice (posters, newspaper) heavily advertised for those who do not use computers.

Poor communication is the norm, both between local centers and with the community. Also, in this impoverished county, the lack of public transport is a major obstacle, as there is a main vaccine site about 12 miles outside the city. County health department Covid tests are also in a relatively accessible lawn.

Our local Women’s Action Consortium has raised these concerns with Governor Larry Hogan and the county health department, and has offered central call center staff to arrange meetings. We have been told that Main Centers help with registration and transport, but this information is not well publicized in the community.

Recommendations for scoring a vaccine prescription

Register on every site and waiting list in your community. Some have caught up on vaccination by being available at short notice to go to a site with an invisible dose.

Give a team a try at different times^⁠ of the day. Have all the information you need for the person you are trying to help with your finger tips. Some recommend not jumping to any necessary questions. Unfortunately, some pharmacy sites require you to upload Medicare information or some other information that you would not easily have. Someone wanted a picture of uploaded cards – how many old people can do that? Be prepared with this information before you start the site.

Some people set alerts to notify them if a website changes (e.g., Distill.io) or if the health department tweets^⁠.

Success usually requires a team of people who are willing to help and amazing resilience. My aunt was lucky to have such a team of friends and family across the country. It still took 12 days. What about the millions of other people who don’t have such support? There is no excuse for such an unstable system in a country with so many other technological achievements. The way we have treated the elderly, poor and vulnerable, will be a lasting shame.