Dear Neighbors,
On Monday, Gov. Charlie Baker announced that people over 75 years old would be eligible for COVID vaccinations beginning February 1.
On Tuesday, Baker announced, in his State of the Commonwealth address, a website where they could sign up, beginning Wednesday.
On Wednesday at 12:01 a.m., within hours of the announcement, seniors tried to sign up on the website. Others tried after reading their morning news.
Within hours of the launch, legislators and reporters heard from angry people that the site simply didn't work.
The Herald ran this photo of me looking at my computer in distress after hours of frustration, with the caption "INFURIATING." They quoted a woman from Longmeadow: "I literally worked in user experience design for years... This is an area I know and I was stumped."
WCVB interviewed Sen. Anne Gobi, who got over 30 legislators to sign a letter asking for a centralized signup system and a 1-800 phone number: "We are failing people miserably." I described my attempts to sign up: "They were just not ready...People write to me and say 'we're the home of Harvard and MIT: can't you get someone to design a website?'"
WGBH quoted me: "If it was centralized, then I wouldn't have to every Thursday go and look and see if there was something at 12:01 and compete with other people on searching...This should not be 'The Hunger Games.'
Other headlines: MetroWest Daily News: “‘Mind boggling’ process.” Cape Cod Times: “Vaccine Chaos.” Worcester Telegram: “a Titanic shipwreck.” Boston Globe: "Seniors frustrated". NBC News: "As frustration grows Baker urges patience." WGBH: AG Maura "Healey: 'Baker's Vaccine Website Is 'Way More Complicated Than It Needs To Be''"
The website was clearly not tested. The map doesn't have the same information as the lists of sites. The search function doesn't work. (I get nothing within 100 miles.). There are more than 25 different signup forms, all different, plus phone numbers to call for appointments. Some don't work at all, some have no appointments available, some are limited to one or a few communities or patients of a health center or hospital.
One requires uploading your primary and secondary insurance cards before telling you there's no availability for that date; it doesn't save your information, so you have to do it again for another date. Another requires uploading your drivers license as well. There are sites that are not listed that are taking appointments, while most of those listed aren't doing so yet.
On Thursday, Sen. Eric Lesser filed emergency legislation requiring the governor to establish a centralized booking system and a 24 hour hotline. Within hours, over 50 legislators including me had cosponsored the bill.
On Friday, Secretary Marylou Sudders briefed the Senate on the vaccine rollout. (I'll write more next week on possible reasons for the problems.) The governor announced that next week he would set up a phone signup system.
The buck stops short...
The governor has not taken responsibility or apologized for the chaotic rollout and non-functional website.
He blamed the federal government for lack of supply. WCVB reported, "The governor placed the blame squarely on the federal government." There isn't enough supply to meet the demand or the promise, but that doesn't explain the terrible website.
He denied there was anything wrong with the website. WBUR reported that "A reporter...asked if there were plans to streamline the process, and Baker responded: 'How much more streamlined would you like it to be than that?'
He suggested seniors just couldn't use computers and needed help: "he encouraged relatives and friends to assist seniors who might need help with the online process."
He asked people to have patience and "keep checking for openings." Since by his own calculation, they might not find one for weeks, it's not clear how often people might have to try.
As for the future phone system, Baker said, "We've been staffing call centers since this pandemic began and we've been staffing them in a pretty big hurry, in many cases, on some fairly complicated topics," he said. "We're pretty good at it. We're late, but we're pretty good at it. I don't worry about whether or not the call center will be able to serve people appropriately. It will." (Vermont and New Hampshire already have live call centers established,)
Actually the phone centers for unemployment insurance and eviction diversion have been terrible. Legislators get several calls a day from people who have tried for weeks or months to resolve unemployment problems through the phone center.
I challenged the governor on Twitter to try navigating the site himself......
My main complaint today is that the administration was absolutely not ready when they told tens of thousands of seniors to sign up. They weren’t ready to deliver the shots. They weren’t ready to make appointments. The website was broken.
There's a lot more to say about the rollout, and I'll do that soon. Some of the major decisions have been very good, some have been truly questionable.
Stay safe and stay in touch!