Thousands of people use website loophole to avoid queues



[ad_1]

Thousands of Michiganders were able to cut the line for the Covid vaccine after a flaw was discovered in the planning system. More than 2,700 people were able to make appointments before they were made after a user managed to find a way to exceed criteria for the vaccine priority group, Michigan’s largest health system said, Beaumont Health.

“The Beaumont team determined that a user took advantage of a vulnerability in the Epic scheduling tool and publicly shared an unauthorized scheduling path. This allowed 2,700 people to “skip the line” and register for an unauthorized vaccine appointment. Beaumont is canceling all appointments that used the unauthorized route, ”the organization said in a statement Monday.

According to state guidelines on Covid vaccinations, the goal is to vaccinate 70% of people over 16 by the end of this year, or a total of around 5.6 million people.

Computer company Epic said in a statement that “it will not interfere with those who are currently eligible to make an appointment and receive a vaccine.”

“We regret that 2,700 people in our community were victims of this unfortunate incident,” said Hans Keil, chief information officer at Beaumont Health.

Beaumont said that “the incident did not compromise anybody’s personal medical records, or allow strangers to access hospital records. The route simply allowed users to make unauthorized appointments that bypassed current Michigan mandates “.

Michigan isn’t the only state where people have tried to skip the Covid vaccine lines. The Boston Globe reported in early January that line skippers were caught red-handed after a link given to employers to have their workers vaccinated was shared more widely than expected. Health officials canceled hundreds of appointments and removed links to registration forms after it was revealed that people not eligible for this phase of vaccinations had signed up for appointments .

Young and healthy individuals received invitations to a mass vaccination event in St. Louis on Friday, according to The dispatch from St Louis.

“I was surprised, but I filled out the form and got the vaccine because we were told that when you are lucky enough to be vaccinated, you should. I didn’t know if I turned down this opportunity if I could be excluded from the city’s vaccination list, ”said Jessi Kniffen, 39, after being asked to be vaccinated by the city’s health department. Saint Louis. Missourians and some with medical conditions believed to put them at the front of the line said they had not received similar invitations.

According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control, just under 50 million doses have been dispensed and over 31 million doses have been administered. More than 5.5 million people have received two doses.

[ad_2]

Source link