TodayQuote:
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 woes. Cash-strapped 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
Mass immunization programs are always more of a goat rope than most rational people would predict...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 woes. Cash-strapped 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
