Technical problems, flooded sites prevent the launch of the vaccine in the US

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In Mississippi, an online vaccine registration system crashed in a sudden traffic attack. Officials at a local health department in Georgia had to count each dose they received before making appointments. A national vaccine planning and monitoring system is $ 44 million going largely unused by states.

And California, Idaho and North Dakota sub-count vaccinations because workers forgot to click the “submit” button at the end of the day.

Across the United States, a vaccination campaign designed to reverse the pandemic and stimulate the nation’s economic recovery is hampered by technical errors and software problems. Public health departments are trying to keep their websites from crashing while making reservations for millions of appointments, tracking unpredictable inventory, and recording how many photos they take.

The situation in the United States, which hosts technology giants, frustrates an audience eager for vaccinations. Moreover, data gaps could distort the national picture of vaccine efficacy if a certain number of doses are not taken into account.

“Our meaning is that it is a substantial amount,” said Marcus Plescia, chief physician at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “This will become clearer as data systems improve and we will have a better understanding of what we are missing.”

Connecting gaps

It is a situation that some officials have seen coming. Former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, cited “years of underinvestment” in public health systems in his testimony before Congress in September. He said then that the Trump administration intends to help states develop IT capabilities.

“We hope there will be additional resources to start filling these gaps, as it will be very important to have reports for monitoring and the safety of these vaccines,” he said.

Redfield and groups representing state health officials he told lawmakers that billions of investment would be needed to help states distribute photos. But Congress did not allocate that money until it passed a funding bill in late December, after states began vaccinating people.

Private vaccine companies face their own problems. Jarred Phillips, his sister, mother and father searched the website one by one Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., to find a vaccination meeting for his mother. The process included creating an account, searching by zip code, then by store, per day and for three hours.

Nothing came up. Phillips, a 36-year-old technology worker from Wilmington, Delaware, even looked for rural zip codes where there might be a slight demand. Nothing. A few hours later, he did not realize why the process was so complicated.

“At some point, these solutions need to meet people where they are,” he said.

Walgreens spokesman Kelli Teno said the company has “dedicated teams working actively on these issues to ensure an easy, safe and transparent experience for all eligible individuals” trying to schedule their vaccinations.

Patch systems

Like much of the US response to the coronavirus pandemic, the vaccination effort has been implemented in a patchwork approach. And it has been layered over an already fragmented health care system. The result is a mix of digital systems across the country that have exasperated many people trying to use them.

“The biggest mistake was that the government was a little too focused on the first issue: how to get vaccines and ship them to different locations,” said Eren Bali, co-founder and CEO of Carbon Health Technologies Inc. “It was definitely a surveillance that didn’t start earlier.”

So far, about 49 million doses have been distributed in the United States. About 23.5 million people have received the first of the two blows and 5 million have received both, according to Bloomberg. Vaccine tracking. Last month, Trump administration officials projected that 30 million people could be fully vaccinated by the end of January.

Advance registration of people is encouraged to prevent crowds from forming clinics, especially with the virus still growing in many communities. But registrations have sometimes been chaotic, especially for seniors who are among the first in line for vaccines, with dating sites looking like lotteries.

Prior to the opening of the appointments, the health departments of Gwinnett, Newton and Rockdale counties in Georgia first count their inventory. The advance offer may change each week, and the amount actually received may differ. The health department is based on Bookly, a web plugin it began using last year to test for coronavirus.

New meetings open once a week. They are filled in hours.

“It’s difficult to communicate with the public about when appointments are open,” said Audrey Arona, director. “I know there are a lot of frustrations that have to stay on the site constantly for when appointments open.”

The Georgia Department of Public Health is working on a centralized scheduling system. The tool is expected to be ready by mid-February, spokeswoman Nancy Nydam said in an email.