Covid-19 vaccine is in short supply in New York 2:04
(CNN) -
For Caroline Brant, try to
get a vaccination appointment for her in-
laws in Pennsylvania was like trying to
"get a seat on a great show."
"Except in Pennsylvania, there's no show yet," Brant told CNN.
Just a few random places.
The 48-year-old, who lives in Collegeville, refers to the confusion over the websites where people who are eligible for the vaccine can sign up and receive the much-coveted injection.
At the moment, in most states, people who are eligible include health care workers and seniors.
But many of the nation's 50 million older adults, including Brant's in-laws, have been struggling to figure out how to navigate the various websites that provide vaccine information or allow people to register.
"My in-laws didn't ask me for help, but I realized right away that it was a logistical nightmare," Brant said.
None of them even knew where to start.
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That's why Brant, who owns a toy store, offered his help.
He said he is also helping some of his employees who are older adults and his own parents, who live in Arizona.
60% of Americans do not know where or when to get the covid-19 vaccine, according to a survey
Caroline Brant is helping family members and colleagues sign up for immunization appointments.
And she's not the only one: As the rollout of vaccination continues in states across the country, confusion over how to sign up for it grows.
Vaccine distribution plans may differ from state to state and, in some cases, from county to county.
As a result, many are stepping up to try to help their loved ones who are eligible for the vaccine, but are confused about how to get their appointments.
Some wait on their computers, pressing update
Communicating to the public about what stage a state is in, how to find a vaccine, and where to go to get vaccinated is left to the state, usually the state Department of Health, which can then let the counties organize and administer it.
However, regardless of location, people across the country have experienced the same frustration when trying to get an appointment for a loved one - the booking process has proven more difficult than it should be.
I'm in the waiting room.
My 81-year-old dad would never have been able to figure this out on his own, ”wrote one person in Minnesota in a tweet.
"Our seniors need family to do this for them, and many seniors don't have a family to help them."
"Sitting at a computer, constantly clicking update in hopes of being the first to access Eventbrite when an event is published," another person tweeted.
"What event?
A possible vaccine against covid for my parents.
So is.
Florida is running its vaccine program through Eventbrite. "
In the absence of a national or state distribution plan, several Florida counties used Eventbrite, an event scheduling and ticketing site, to distribute their limited number of vaccine doses on a first-come, first-served basis to eligible groups of people.
This includes residents over the age of 65.
At least three of the counties that use Eventbrite for vaccine distribution - Pasco, Collier, and Sarasota - have recently recognized scams on the platform.
Nancy Morrow-Howell, director of the Harvey A. Friedman Center on Aging at Washington University in St. Louis, told CNN Business earlier this month that platforms like Eventbrite are inaccessible to "the most disadvantaged people."
Will Howell, who lives in Oakland, California, said he has been helping his 75-year-old mother, who has diabetes, sign up for a vaccine in Evanston, Illinois.
There, he said, the city is using a different website to help coordinate vaccine appointments.
"The city is getting people to fill out SurveyMonkey forms to gauge their priority level," Howell told CNN.
The City of Evanston said in a Facebook post on January 7 that the SurveyMonkey form "is not a vaccination registration form" but a "vaccination interest form."
Howell, 41, said he filled out the form for his mother after spending hours searching various websites, including the Chicago Tribune, Twitter and the city of Evanston website, to try to find instructions.
"I hope he doesn't go to the ether alone," he said of the form, which he sent on Wednesday.
Others manage to book appointments, but ...
Even before the pandemic, Amanda Rykoff, 50, said she was "technical support" for her parents, helping them with their computers, cable box and Internet connection.
Amanda Rykoff and her parents during a physical distancing walk.
So when her parents, 84 and 78, became eligible for the vaccine in Los Angeles, where they live, Rykoff said she volunteered to help them sign up.
"I honestly didn't know much about the process," he told CNN.
"I heard from friends on social media that the website was confusing… I knew it would be difficult to follow the website."
When he first tried to make an appointment for his father, a cancer survivor, the Los Angeles County Health Department website said he was not yet eligible for the vaccine and would likely have to wait until May.
On Tuesday, however, word came out that all Los Angeles County residents over the age of 65 were eligible for the vaccine even if they weren't healthcare workers, so Rykoff quickly called his parents and went to the site. county vaccination website.
"I must have accessed the site before it collapsed in the afternoon," he said.
He clicked on a few pages before he got to the one designated to make appointments.
She successfully booked one for Thursday noon, on the Forum's drive-thru site.
"I was lucky to have no technical problems with the booking website," he said.
"I am technologically competent and can work on websites, even if they are not intuitive."
Others were also successful, or as they describe it, they were lucky, but only after several attempts.
"It took several tries because the space would run out before the process was complete," said Ryan Newell, a Phoenix resident, who booked appointments for his parents in Arizona.
"It took about four attempts and I had to register my parents separately."
"We were also unable to edit the citations, so if we had entered something wrong in the registration process we had to start over," he added.
He said it took his parents, 68 and 70, to be convinced before they would allow him to make an appointment for them.
He and his sister, Jennifer Newell Davies, who is in San Diego, finally made it.
"They seemed to have little faith that it would be a viable process and that the state could even execute it, so they seemed to give up before starting," Newell told CNN.
“However, I convinced them to sign up to at least try.
I did most of the registration process for them online during my lunch break.
Some public officials have expressed concern about the process
The problems stem from local health departments shrinking after 10 months of the pandemic, plus decades of underinvestment in infrastructure to cope with a mass vaccination effort.
Public officials have expressed concern about the technology and communication problems many cities face with their vaccine distribution plans.
"I am concerned that this indicates equal gaps in outreach and technology by the city," New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer wrote in a tweet Sunday, noting that there were 200 uncovered vaccine appointments for the next week.
Matt Haney, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, asked his Twitter followers to voice their complaints about the registration process so he can help address them.
"The San Francisco Department of Health has begun scheduling people over the age of 65 for the vaccine who are on the SF Health Network," he wrote in a January 18 tweet.
Kaiser and other networks also schedule appointments.
Not enough clarity and answers yet.
Please share your experiences and questions with me, it will help me to defend and improve things.
As expected, he received a large number of responses;
some suggested that the city create a vaccine dashboard that aggregates vaccine distribution, and others simply shared their complaints.
“Seriously, the comments I'm getting are raising my blood pressure;
everyone struggles to get an appointment for their loved ones, and most fail, "wrote Dr. Arghavan Salles, Palo Alto Covid-19 Disaster Relief Physician.
In Pennsylvania, Brant echoed a similar frustration.
He said he feels "the knowledge flow has been a complete disaster because everyone is wasting tons of time trying to find information and there is no clear direction on how to make sure you are signed up."
"It is causing a lot of unnecessary stress," he said.
"And if we knew that we can sign up, get on a list and get notified when it's our turn, that would be great."
- CNN's Sandee LaMotte and Sara Ashley O'Brien contributed to this report.
Coronavirus Vaccine