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Spencer Custodio |
Some of the most vulnerable residents are stranded to get coronavirus vaccines because the deployment was plagued by bugs and oversights, drawing criticism from CO supervisors.
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Since the launch of the vaccination registration program, called Othena, a few weeks ago, many people have complained problems and breakdowns, which prevents them from registering.
Some people mistakenly obtained their vaccine appointments through Othena, only to be refused when they went to vaccination sites.
“So I signed up as soon as OC Health said so. I had no expectations of anything and on Thursday I got the email that says congratulations we’ve got a dose for you. And I was really surprised so I double checked to make sure it was Othena, ”said Suzanne Haggerty, a 60-year-old resident of Rancho Santa Margarita.
Since current distribution plans are for people 65 and older, Haggerty said she was surprised to get vaccine confirmation from Othena and believed the service had extracted medical records, showing she had breathing problems.
She was turned down at the Disneyland supersite.
“I was there for 2.5 hours,” she said in a telephone interview on Monday. “So I sit down to the table and give them my ID card and the guy says you have to go home.” He said you weren’t 65.
She said another person was also fired and a supersite worker told her that they turn away people in similar situations on a daily basis.
“The level of incompetence absolutely blew me away,” Haggerty said. “I tried to connect to Othena and it won’t even let me in.”
Some CO supervisors publicly criticized Othena at Tuesday’s public meeting.
“There’s one thing we can all agree on – Othena sucks,” supervisor Don Wagner said. “It’s a mess. It’s gotten better. You know it’s a mess, CEO (Frank Kim) knows it’s a mess, everyone on this board knows it’s a mess.
OC health chief Dr Clayton Chau said problems were expected.
“I have already mentioned, that standing a system, there are always problems. And we hear people’s frustration. Even within a few days, he improved dramatically, ”Chau said.
Questions also revolve around how the vaccine is distributed to nursing homes, which is supposed to be done by pharmacies like Walgreens and Rite Aid in a partnership with the state.
Jill Swartz, an Orange resident, said the virus killed her mother as she waited for the vaccine to arrive at the Silverado Newport Mesa nursing home.
Her mother tested positive for the virus for the first time on January 13 and died on January 17, she said.
“The most vulnerable residents of these facilities are dying,” Swartz said in a telephone interview on Friday.
Swartz said the nursing home was expecting the vaccine in December, but Walgreens failed to deliver the vaccine by then.
She said the facility had experienced an epidemic.
Vaccinations at the Silverado Newport Mesa are scheduled to begin Friday, according to an email from nursing home administrators.
“If they had had it when they were supposed to, the outbreak shouldn’t have been this bad,” Swartz said. “It’s too late for my mother.”
At a press conference earlier this month, Chau said he or the Health Care Agency did not know what pharmacies were like. vaccinate people in nursing homes, or how many vaccinations have been given.
It is also unclear how state health officials track vaccinations made through pharmaceutical partnerships.
Chau also said the county only distributes about 20% of all vaccines shipped to Orange County. The rest, he says, goes to hospitals and other health care providers.
The issue of the vaccine in nursing homes was not raised at Tuesday’s supervisors meeting.
“How can they not have this information? I find it absolutely amazing, ”Swartz said.
When county officials unveiled the Soka University immunization supersite at a press conference on Saturday, Chau said OC had around 66,000 vaccines on hand and around 600,000 people are currently eligible.
“We have a limited supply,” Chau said. “Please know my staff and I have worked tirelessly with our state partners to bring more vaccines.”
Swartz said county officials should have focused on vaccinating the most vulnerable older people before increasing the number of people eligible for vaccination when OC public health officials lowered the required age to 65 years and over a few weeks ago.
“They keep talking about this limited offer, so why did you already open it at 65 and over? You have not vaccinated the most vulnerable population. And someone has to be held accountable for it – the wrong decisions, the negligence, they have to be taken into account, ”she said.
Meanwhile, some residents face a language barrier when trying to register for the vaccine.
Othena does not offer language options, although translations into Spanish, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Korean are required in the $ 1.2 million contract with developer Othena Composite Apps, Inc.
“The lack of ethnic languages… the hotline – I got feedback from voters. On the English line, the telephone rang, rang and rang. And on the ethnic side, either they have people who do not speak the language and it goes directly to the English line, and then it is not repeated. The frustration is therefore multiple, ”said Chairman and CEO Andrew Do.
Chau said they were working on the language barrier.
But Do said people expect all problems and oversights to be resolved in advance.
“For the average person, when you’re designing a system, these are issues you should have thought about right away. Not 30 days later. ”
Supervisor Doug Chaffee said the revised Othena app should be tested first.
“Are we going to test before we broadcast it?” I realize that maybe that was part of the problem with Othena in the first place, ”Chaffee said. “I am concerned about some of our seniors who may be a bit illiterate in technology.”
Chau said the County Health Care Agency is working with CalOptima to target vulnerable elderly people with the goal of getting them vaccinated through a mobile vaccination program.
“We still have issues with Othena, so we have to work on this,” Chaffee said.
Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom quietly launched a state-wide vaccine registration program in an effort to streamline the fractured deployment.
“I think we’re going to be able to move the Othena data directly into the state system,” supervisor Lisa Bartlett said.
She said the app was created to “literally take all the data fields and move them into a new system. We should therefore not lose any of the translation. ”
Wagner visibly disagreed with Bartlett’s assessment.
“I have to say I share Supervisor Wagner’s skepticism a bit,” Do said.
Wagner replied, “Call me skeptical. Keep an eye out for them. Good luck.”
As county officials try to iron out wrinkles in OC’s mass vaccination efforts, hospitalizations due to the virus are decreasing.
On Tuesday, 1,677 people were hospitalized, including 437 in intensive care units.
But the dead were constantly increasing.
Since the start of January, the Health Care Agency has reported 895 people killed by the virus.
Recently reported deaths can go back several weeks due to reporting delays.
The virus has now killed 2,768 people, including 64 new deaths reported on Tuesday, out of a quarter of a million confirmed cases, according to the county health agency.
The virus has already killed five times more people than the flu on an annual average.
For the background, Orange County has recorded an average of around 20,000 deaths per year since 2016, including 543 annual flu deaths, according to state of health data.
According to state mortality statistics, cancer kills more than 4,600 people, heart disease kills more than 2,800, more than 1,400 die of Alzheimer’s disease, and strokes kill more than 1,300 people.
Orange County has already surpassed its annual average of 20,000 deaths, with 21,110 people dying in November, according to the latest available status data.
It is a difficult virus for the medical community to fight off because some people have no symptoms, but can still spread it. Others have mild symptoms, such as fatigue and a slight fever.
Others end up in intensive care units for days and weeks before recovering, while others end up dying from the virus.
Swartz said she tried to make an appointment through Othena for her mother.
“I tried this and it was just a disaster,” she says.
She said the CO and statewide fractured vaccine approach was a disaster.
“I know we are in the middle of a pandemic. I know things are a little crazy, but we received a vaccine was no surprise we knew it was coming, ”said Swartz. “Their communication with the public has been lacking and is unclear. On all fronts, I feel like it was a disaster.
For more details on the COVID-19 vaccine in Orange County, see our Voice of OC information page: http://bit.ly/occovidvaccine.
Here are the latest figures on viruses in Orange County from county data:
Infections | Hospitalizations and Deaths | City by city data | Demography
Spencer Custodio is a Voice of OC reporter. You can reach him at [email protected] Follow him on twitter @SpencerCustodio
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