Editor:
Ten months.
That’s how long our government (Federal, State and County) has known that a COVID-19 vaccine was in the works.
Among the known facts were:
Once one or more vaccines were FDA approved, production ramp up would be slow relative to demand, and the demand would be astronomically high and urgent.
Was it unreasonable then to assume that, just once, government would step up to the plate and come up with a workable plan to distribute the vaccine? Sadly, the answer is yes.
In Washington State, one is first directed to the “findyourphase” website. Here one registers, and answers questions relating to age, profession (health care worker, etc.), living circumstances, and so forth.
Once all questions have been answered, and the applicant has met the criteria of the group currently approved to receive the vaccine, one does not receive a confirmation number or any other reference. One is simply asked to take a screen shot or print the current screen. I did.
With this in hand, I went to my health care provider of more than 40 years. I filled out their questionnaire and the screen displays a message telling me that, while I am approved to receive the vaccine, they have no idea when this can be administered. No waiting list, no further communication, now or in the foreseeable future. Just silence.
No problem, I thought to myself, rather naively. The Washington State Department of Health has a website (www.doh.wa.gov) that has a link to all the vaccine locations, per county.
For Snohomish County it lists a few QFC stores, two Visiting Nurses Association locations, several Providence Health locations, and so on. About a dozen sites.
Not one of the sites has any appointments available.
Not one of the sites indicates when they will have appointments available.
Not one of the sites allows you to register and get in line for a future appointment.
Some of the sites have appointment links that are currently inoperable.
A few sites even stated that due to “unexpectedly high demand” they were unable to provide appointments. Unexpectedly high? Are they serious?
Some sites reset at 1:00 or 2:00 AM, and this lead friends of mine to sit in front of their computer all night, constantly refreshing their screens, in a desperate game of “Vaccine Whack-a-mole”.
Thanks to their incredible manual dexterity and the speed of their internet connection, they now have appointments for Tuesday. Bingo!
Another friend (age 91) was able to get an appointment, but his wife was not quite fast enough on the trigger and is now in limbo once again. “Good luck,” say the state and the county.
I fully understand that the demand is much greater than the supply during the ramp up phase of vaccine production, and I am certainly willing to patiently wait in line for my turn. The problem is: There is no line.
It is very difficult for me to understand why the state and the county have been unable to set up a system that allows those eligible to register, get a number, and then be contacted with a date and location to get a shot, whenever that is available.
There is no excuse for the current chaos and utter lack of any organizational system to vaccinate people.
Not sure how to set up such a system? A system that efficiently allocates available vaccine to locations and to eligible people?
No problem. All you had to do is ask any couple of 19-year-old Amazon interns to take a day or two and set that up for you.
Shame on you, Governor Inslee. Shame on you, County Executive Somers.
My fellow citizens and I deserve leadership and governance in this matter of life and death.
Jacob van de Rhoer
Edmonds
I agree with you. I did exactly what you did with the exact response. Shame on Inslee is right..You need an organized person running this ship and they do t have one.
I entirely agree with the letter to the editor. For months we anticipated the arrival of a vaccine. What have our state officials been doing other than pointing their finger and accusing Trump of dropping the ball in our war against Covid. Are our State legislatures and representatives no better than this!!
Totally agree. With our vaccination rate in the bottom 20% the blame is our state, not the federal government. The fact that it was going to be up to the states should not have been the surprise that it seems to be.
There certainly are good points made. Like anything else one need to be proactive and do some research on where to get a Covid-19 vaccine. If you do not do much you may find an appointment in March for your first shot. I was able to find a place last Thursday, made an appointment for Saturday. It took a 40 minute drive, half an hour to receive the vaccine, and made an appointment for the second shot 28 days later. I must say the vaccine timetable was a miracle that the previous Federal administration should take credit for.
Was no one paying attention to Operation Warp Speed? There is only so much that President Trump could do… he did his job – now “The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight” can’t seem to administer the vaccines in an organized efficient manner. The Dems that made sure we got rid of that “terrible” President and have now totally dropped the ball on getting vaccines to us. And we just keep giving these rocket scientists more power! So the same people who have never missed a paycheck during this pandemic – keep that in mind! – are the same bureaucrats who got their vaccines and tell the rest of us to be patient. Congressional folks in their 30-40’s are vaccinated and our seniors are sitting up all night in hopes of getting a spot. Get used to this my friends – remember these folks are here to build unity… they are vaccinated and ready to go and unified in their power to control us while we chase our tails trying to get a “jab”. And most of you voted for these fine politicians. By the way- why is a healthy younger political person more deserving of a vaccine? Just remember every politician telling you to be patient is vaccinated and receiving a nice paycheck.
Fact Check: early on the Trump Administration dismantled the Pandemic Response Team (ignored the scientist) that had been established and funded by the Bush and Obama administrations. That Agency would have provided resources to States such as IT software and Distribution Supply Chain, in my opinion as a Retired Medical Microbiologist. Then the Trump Administration made the CDC adhere to their political approach to the Covid-19 pandemic (downplayed). The CDC needs to step it up- and new Leadership there has already been transparent and recognized the Pandemic need in the 50 States. Trust the Science. Operation Warp Speed only funded the Moderna effort; but did agree to “purchase” vaccine from other producers in part (like Pfizer). The Trump Administration also left the (WHO) which is involved with coordination of distribution of the prominent vector vaccines (Oxford Astra Zeneca). The Us needs the interaction with the WHO. Luckily, change of federal leadership has recognized the need and hopefully leadership will come in a bi-partisan way. Poor vaccine distribution is a result of the lack of communication between the Federal Government and also within Washington State, in my opinion. Hopefully it improves rapidly now and includes the County Health Departments to better coordinate vaccine distribution. All political parties need to work in unity. We shall see.
“He did his job”? The party that has been in power for less than a week is to fault for the chaotic distribution and has “totally dropped the ball”?!! When the duly elected were finally able to have the access they were denied for weeks, though they won a free and fair election, they discovered that there was no plan. You certainly have a lot to gripe about in your letter, but sitting back and letting you blame this mess on the current administration, who have come up with a comprehensive plan in a very short time, in the total absence of any leadership over the last 4 years, is not gonna fly. A president who cares more about holding on to power through any means far more than protecting American citizens is indeed, very terrible.
so agree Maggie ! and well said – this new week old administration has done more on dealing with Covid than the last one did in 10 months!
Sandy – thank you. You couldn’t have said it better.
Good points, Sandy! Operation Warp Speed was completed to prepare the incoming Administration to organize vaccination distribution.
President Biden’s campaign considered Covid-19 epidemic solution as their primary goal. Our Governor Inslee announced State plan to widespread vaccine distribution and administration, and he said that both vaccines are currently available for anyone age 65 and older. My husband and I are 80 years old and we are trying to get appointments for vaccination, but all our efforts are in vain. We spend a lot of time using on-line scheduling service trying to find a place for vaccination and the only message we got was “sorry, there are no available time slots”. Don’t we deserve better service from our local health officials? We voted for you and we pay taxes. Is it lack of communication between the County Health Department and distributing facilities?
I’d think the vast majority of us that are eager to get vaccinated feel the same frustration. However, what you describe is the norm in most States, not the exception. The blame you (almost) solely lay at the feet Inslee and Somers, neglects the obvious need for a National COVID strategy.
By all indications, there was none. The system the Biden administration inherited, does not allow them to tell the states how much vaccine is available, because they don’t know!
It should be obvious with whom the ultimate blame lies.
Amen to all you say. My experience parallels that of the writer. You would think that we could do so much better.
From NBC news this morning: “The newly appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Sunday that the federal government remains in the dark about just how much vaccine is currently available and warned that states like New York won’t be able to quickly replenish its limited supply.
“One of the biggest problems right now is I can’t tell you how much vaccine we have, and if I can’t tell it to you then I can’t tell it to the governors and I can’t tell it to the state health officials,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky told “Fox News Sunday.”
Spot on. Some agencies have figured this out on their own. Island Drug on Whidbey has you join their email list. When vacc is available, they email you to make an appt using their online scheduling tool. Once scheduled, your place in line is preserved even as they have to adjust appt dates based on vacc availability. Easy! Automated! Took me 10 min to choose my initial date and time. Their process, communication, and status updates are great. Hey, other agencies, contact them to find out how they did it!
If you look on the vaccine distribution site it shows how many vaccines were sent to each state. Then it shows how many actual vaccines have been given out to people. We are once again at the bottom of the chart. We have the vaccines but they are not being given out, WHY?
I agree with everything said here. I also have called the state number. I, of course, was on hold and “the next available operator will take calls in the order received.” There is no indication if a person is # 50 in line or #5000.
after a half hour, left a call back number. The lady who eventually called me back was absolutely no help. She referred me to the websites I had been using and refreshing all week. What was the point?
Joy. That is not true. As of 1/25/2021 the WA St ranks 28th. That vast majority of states are in the same range of distribution and fall into 45-65% range.
It’s irrelevant though. Once you get past the first 3 or 4 states, you see that ALL states have not given out large numbers of vaccines. It would seem obvious they are being held for the 2nd dose since they don’t know when more are coming!
It’s a local problem of getting someone to give a vaccine. I don’t see that the State of WASHINGTON has done much to ‘guide’ giving the vaccine or how it determined what facilities to distribute to initially. 10 months knowing this was going to happen and not much planning or transparency of the system that was to coordinate to everyone. Typical government bureaucracy not helping us. Federal government got the job done and now at least our state seems to be sorely failing to do it’s job.
Immediately after the Gov announced 65+ group was approved, I went on to the Phase Finder site. Got approved.
Printed the approval. Went to the E-Care site and made an appointment with UW Medicine and 4 days later received my first Moderna vaccine. 30 minutes in and out. Easy.
Next vaccine set for March 2nd.
PS. The previous administration’s response to this pandemic was a disaster (operation warp-speed not withstanding)
The Federal government didn’t do jack-squat because it was controlled by the party that doesn’t believe in government or science. We were told to investigate injecting bleach into our veins by an ego maniac who only cares about himself and not going to jail anytime soon. The vaccine was developed in record time in spite of these jokers; not because of them.
It’s a supply and demand issue. When you give 100 shots, you have to keep 100 shots in reserve for the second shot in 21 or 28 days depending on brand. Any agency that gives out any shots has to keep that fact in mind in deciding the scheduling. How do you do this when you have no idea how much supply you will be getting because there is no central accountability for how much will be produced and when?
The next goal of the party that doesn’t believe in government will be to prevent the party that does believe in government from accomplishing anything in any area – Covid defeat just being one of them. If you get a vaccine shot by May this will be a miracle of modern science in spite of politics, not because of politics of any stripe.
I had the same experience as Gary Sjoblom. We get most of our healthcare through UW Medicine. ECare allowed us to choose from several dates the date and time for our vaccinations. For those of you who get their healthcare through UW Medicine, this is a great solution.
Patrick seemed to doubt my statement.. follow this yourself and see.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations
When I submitted my letter to the Editor, I was hoping that this would not provoke a discussion on the merits of the Federal Government and its leaders past and present, although I agree with Roger Brideau that it was a lousy idea to get rid of the Pandemic Response Team.
And I am happy to hear that an occasional person had a better experience, such as with Island Drug on Whidbey and with UW. But those exceptions are, unfortunately, not at all representative of the experience the vast majority of currently eligible people have.
My point was simple, and it is this: Given the fact that vaccine supplies would be predictably tight during production ramp up, a responsible State and County government would have had more than ample time to set up a mechanism for people to register, and get in line.
Their failure to do so has created the current chaos, as THERE IS NO LINE to get into.
I’ll patiently (no pun intended) wait for my turn, be it in February, March or April. It would be nice to wait in a line.
The problem with your theory, Jacob, that the state should have set up one official line to get into is that this is not how we administer health care in any state in the U.S. All our health care is administered through dozens of state agencies, health care insurance companies and private clinics like Kaiser Permanente and Primera Blue Cross. Kaiser and U.W. were highly active in the making and testing of the vaccines to begin with and probably have some reasonable claim on getting reasonable amounts of it to distribute.
How are Jay Inslee or Democrats in general to blame for this situation of who gets what, how much and when? It’s a simple supply and demand problem in virtually every state in the Union. Politicians on the right scream about government control of health care and then blame Democrat Governors for their preferred system of health care not working. On top of that, they extol the virtues of a President that did away with the very Federal plan that would have possibly addressed a distribution problem at the Federal and State levels, because it was Obama’s idea and program. Talk about hypocrisy and the blame game gone wild.
Joy, there is a lot of information in your link. I do not see rankings that show WA at the bottom. Perhaps you could point us to where you see WA at the “bottom of the chart”. It is in alphabetical order. I do see us grouped with about 28 other states in the 6000-9000 administered out of 100,000.
This link shows actual rankings by state. It was updated today.
I look forward to your response.
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/states-ranked-by-percentage-of-covid-19-vaccines-administered.html
The problem with your post, Clinton J. Wright, is that you obviously either did not read and/or did not comprehend both my letter and my subsequent clarification under this thread.
I have repeatedly stated that I do not blame State and County government for “who gets what, how much and when” (your words). But I do blame these governments for not having set up a comprehensive way for people to get in line to get their shots, whenever supply allows.
Nobody, and especially not the elderly and physically disabled, should have to sit in front of a computer or other electronic device for 10 hours on end, only to be told that they cannot register for a spot, even one in the distant future.
The virtual infrastructure for such a system should have been set up by our local and regional government, and the fact that there is a plethora of health care organizations each doing their own thing does not prevent such a system from being effective and user friendly.
The second paragraph of your post apparently addresses comments made by others, not me, as I don’t care about the political affiliation of the government officials. I just noted their failure to act.
In the immortal words of the late Mayor Koch of New York City:
“I can explain it to you, but I can’t comprehend it for you.”