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Rekha Murthy knows a thing or two about browsing a website.
But even Murthy, who has extensive experience designing online user experience, was puzzled when she and her mother started clicking websites Wednesday morning to register her father for a COVID-19 vaccine as the The state was opening windows for vaccines to residents 75 years of age and up.
“I have literally worked in user experience design for years,” Murthy told The Herald. “It’s an area I know and I was puzzled.
Three hours, a myriad of third-party websites, and a few unsuccessful registration attempts later, Murthy finally secured his father a spot at the mass vaccination site at Springfield’s Eastfield Mall, about a dozen miles from his family’s home in Longmeadow.
“We were a year old, we knew there would be a vaccine. I want to forgive the fact that states have come under enormous pressure to care for people with COVID, ”said Murthy. “But it’s appalling and so unfair.”
Murthy’s frustrations echoed across the Commonwealth on Wednesday after Massachusetts opened vaccine registration for residents aged 75 and older ahead of its Phase 2 vaccine rollout on Monday.
“There is a tremendous amount of confusion, frustration, anger and chaos,” said Senator Rebecca Rausch, D-Needham, after responding to calls from voters throughout the day. “This is not only a significant disappointment and poor service, but also lethal service.”
The problems started shortly after some registration portals went live at midnight. Residents and their loved ones quickly found themselves faced with outdated information, problems navigating third-party websites that the state relies on to book appointments and waiting in long virtual queues. to find that no appointment was available.
“I have no idea why they say it’s ready to use. It just isn’t. It does not work. It’s opaque, it’s confusing, it’s infuriating, ”said Senator Patricia Jehlen, D-Somerville, 77, after trying to get a date for herself. “Why not a central register from the start? Why not use the hospitals? They have the capacity. But instead we have 25 different small organizations.
Gov. Charlie Baker urged patience at an afternoon press conference, noting that the more than one million Massachusetts residents over the age of 75 who will have access to vaccines on Monday is more than the number total doses received to date by the State. Additionally, he said, not all people eligible for Phase 1 have completed their two-dose regimen yet.
“If you can’t get an appointment right away, you have to be patient about it,” he said. “We understand the difficulty associated with it, but keep checking the website.”
Baker said the state was “working to create additional resources” for appointment scheduling and “more time slots would be added on an ongoing basis as we secure additional supply.”
But he said “Unless there is a big change in federal distribution on this, we would expect that we would end up with more capacity than we have vaccine to serve.”
Baker encouraged family and friends to help older residents book their appointments. Among them was Beth Kontos, president of the American Federation of Teachers in Massachusetts, who spent four hours trying to make an appointment for her 92-year-old mother. In the end, she had to use multiple computers and her cell phone to get the job done.
“She has a flip phone, she doesn’t have internet, she doesn’t have a computer. She keeps saying, “I’m so lucky to have kids who can help me,” Kontos said. “Sometimes I’m almost in tears of worry because we can help my mom, but I can only imagine the person who has no one to help.”
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