Vaccine Rollout - State starts out with an 'F' but much improved, Big Island gets B+

[TomK]

PS. I should add - the day before my 13th March appointment I logged into VAMS to fill out my pre-vaccination form. I was dreading the next day not because of the vaccination but if I could actually make it to the area where vaccinations were being done. There was no option then to reschedule before canceling so didn't cancel as I had no idea what might happen next. I logged back in on the morning of 13th March just to double-check my appointment time and the system had changed and allowed rescheduling and confirmations before canceling appointments.

I'm in full-agreement with Carey even if some minor details we experienced are different - encouraging people to just turn up whenever they want on the day of their appointment is selfish and just screws everyone else up - the volunteers, the health professionals, and more than anyone else, those who want to get vaccinated and found their experience much worse than it could have been or may have even been put off getting vaccinated because they couldn't cope with such an influx of people.

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Chunkster - I agree with much of what you just posted (sorry our posts crossed). I think people should have been sent away if they turned up ridiculously early although, given the number of people, you have to have some leeway. If you expect to have to walk a mile and then line up for 30 minutes, turning up an hour early would be just fine IMO. It's those turning up early morning for appointments they had in the afternoon that would annoy me if that actually happened, and then seeing someone here encourage that behavior just makes me realize how thoughtless and selfish some people can be (not you or Carey, obviously).

[leilanidude]

1. The total mess at last Tuesday's event was the DOH's rodeo, and they screwed it up by letting the cows out of the pen. All they had to do was put one person on the line checking appointments and sending early comers away until it was their turn. They had plenty of security available to enforce that, but they didn't do it. One of my elderly friends went on time at 10:30, and they were in line for an hour and a half. Totally unnecessary and DOH's fault for not enforcing the rules.
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I arrived 20 minutes before my appointment and was shocked (and dismayed) that there were so many people in line ahead of me considering how many "appointment slots" were supposedly available. I asked different people in the line when their appointment time was and found numerous folks with afternoon slots who were already in line at 10:15am! No one asked for or checked, the appointment times.
Some other stupid things are the PAPER FORMS required when the same info had already been input into the VAMS system. Many of the people had used their smartphone via the app, to schedule the appointment, only to discover the day before their appointment that they needed to PRINT out the form. How are most people who do not have a computer and printer, to print out a form from their smartphone? This is completely stupid. There is ZERO need for the state or county to be requiring hard copy of any of this information.

[TomK]

1. The total mess at last Tuesday's event was the DOH's rodeo, and they screwed it up by letting the cows out of the pen. All they had to do was put one person on the line checking appointments and sending early comers away until it was their turn. They had plenty of security available to enforce that, but they didn't do it. One of my elderly friends went on time at 10:30, and they were in line for an hour and a half. Totally unnecessary and DOH's fault for not enforcing the rules.
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I arrived 20 minutes before my appointment and was shocked (and dismayed) that there were so many people in line ahead of me considering how many "appointment slots" were supposedly available. I asked different people in the line when their appointment time was and found numerous folks with afternoon slots who were already in line at 10:15am! No one asked for or checked, the appointment times.
Some other stupid things are the PAPER FORMS required when the same info had already been input into the VAMS system. Many of the people had used their smartphone via the app, to schedule the appointment, only to discover the day before their appointment that they needed to PRINT out the form. How are most people who do not have a computer and printer, to print out a form from their smartphone? This is completely stupid. There is ZERO need for the state or county to be requiring hard copy of any of this information.

Well,

1) that's a good example of you suggesting people just turn up whenever they want is not a good idea;

2) I have a hard time believing you about talking to so many people - it would have meant you walking up and down a very long line asking many people questions they may not be comfortable answering while keeping your place in line. Sorry, but I don't buy it.

On the other hand, I agree about the forms. I filled mine in the day before my first injection and had to fill in the very same form all over again while having nowhere to sit At this point I was in considerable pain. The VAMS online system had (and maybe still has) no way of printing the form and it's obvious it was a pointless exercise -  I thought I was prepared (I actually had a printer nearby) but no option to print out the form despite explaining to the people on that small bench I'd filled the form online and it had been accepted. I filled the form in again just before my appointment on 13th March and again there was no option to print it. That's when I decided to reschedule to a place where I can actually sit down.

[ChunksterK]

Before this discussion goes any farther, I just want to say that I respect Carey as an intelligent and generous person who gives a lot to the community. My disagreement is with the DOH's handling of the event in question and what I feel was their choice to put some politically connected groups ahead of the most vulnerable when they opened up vaccination. I apologize for any personal slight Carey may have felt.

[Carey]

As to the forms, that is a part of the national system. The 2-sided CDC form is a legal document between you & the vaccine company, that you MUST sign. Some states have full saturation connectivity that would allow full state use of QRI forms with electronic verified signature, our state does not. If they had gone the QRI way, all of the folks without computers & smartphones would be complaining... No matter, the reason WHY you need to do the form each time you receive the vaccine is because 1. you can get injections from different providers 2. it is a part of the EUA that our state has with the vaccine MFG as a part of the experimental protocol.
I have been active with the county since COVID hit here, I have worked the vaccine clinics, contact tracing, & call centers. Many of us have been working together for months. We saw the change a little over 2 weeks ago & yah, we do a actually communicate with each other & officials on problems we are encountering.... when multiple people start changing appointments, there is a broader discussion on why. Various other appointment conflicts, wanting a different vaccine (more than one person has changed scheduling for each of the 3 available...) transportation, weather... the list goes on... again... these are things that are happening on a scale we did not see prior to the 70--75 age group..... the 1b group we dealt with was the older generation... they made their appointments & kept them. they came on time. Perhaps they lulled the county into thinking the next groups would be as considerate of the scheduling system....

ETA: I should add, also have worked some of the rural clinics that were off-line due to lack of connectivity (those of you that have gotten your vaccine may hav noticed that even the vaccinator must be on-line during an on-line clinic). In those clinics, with paper forms only, the vaccines flow into the arms much quicker... the down side is that someone (ie the vaccinator) must enter al of the information when they are back on-line... the on-line clinics are slower because of the computers ... our large scale county facilities do not have stellar download/upload capabilities... adding more demands on the system would not speed up the process...

[leilanidude]

2.) I have a hard time believing you about talking to so many people - it would have meant you walking up and down a very long line asking many people questions they may not be comfortable answering while keeping your place in line. Sorry, but I don't buy it.
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Sorry, but you are wrong. The line went the entire length of the stadium and then did a u-turn and came back. You get to see dozens and dozens of folks this way. I asked a number of people what times they had appts. for - and people were openly discussing this very thing as they waited in line.

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My disagreement is with the DOH's handling of the event in question and what I feel was their choice to put some politically connected groups ahead of the most vulnerable...
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Absolutely.

[TomK]

As to the forms, that is a part of the national system. The 2-sided CDC form is a legal document between you & the vaccine company, that you MUST sign. Some states have full saturation connectivity that would allow full state use of QRI forms with electronic verified signature, our state does not. If they had gone the QRI way, all of the folks without computers & smartphones would be complaining... No matter, the reason WHY you need to do the form each time you receive the vaccine is because 1. you can get injections from different providers 2. it is a part of the EUA that our state has with the vaccine MFG as a part of the experimental protocol.

Then why does our state, or whoever it is that makes these decisions, tell people to fill in the online form the day before? Surely, a lot of money would be saved if someone in charge just said sod it, what's the point of the online form? Let's just save a lot of time and effort and just tell people they will have to fill in and sign the form when they arrive?

I understand that it might be a legal form and understand why it's necessary, but why the waste of time for everyone to have to fill in a form you have to do again the very next day? What is the point of that?

[Carey]

Actually, the online form does a lot for PLANNING the clinics.... however not EVERYONE HAS A COMPUTER, so to REQUIRE the online form would exclude those folks! I ALSO EXPLAINED, the large scale clinic areas have poor upload/download abilities for clinics that have hundreds to thousands of participants.... Imagine if we required the online form & then there was a computer outage....
My question to all who have had to fill out the form & then copy it... did it take you that long that you are suffering?
By doing the form online, you help in the clinic planning
By printing the form & bringing it you help save time in line, rather than filling it out at the clinic & having to have someone ELSE fill out the info online after the clinic...
Is this really so hard that you folks cannot do it???
Again, these are complaints we did not get with the 1b folks ... they complied, the folks added in the last 2 weeks complain... (this is not just older folks, thousands of folks have gone through the clinics & not called & not complained... the last 2 weeks, complaints!)

[leilanidude]

however not EVERYONE HAS A COMPUTER
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Proving my point. Whether they have only a smart phone and no way to print the form or they do not have a computer so cannot print the form...

[Obie]

My wife is scheduled for the vaccine on Thursday. I will fill out the form at home and print it tomorrow and then drive to Life Care in Hilo and give them the form so they have it when they transport her.

There are multiple ways to get things printed. OfficeMax, Fedex stores, Mailing services like the one in Malama Marketplace, the libraries if they are open.