Santa Clara County warns of misinformation about vaccine registration sent by SMS



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Residents of Santa Clara County may have received a text message on Tuesday that local medical providers have “extra” COVID-19 vaccines and need to sign up for an appointment.

According to the county, these texts come from “unofficial sources” and health providers still only vaccinate residents during the state’s phase 1A vaccination, which includes health workers and residents of health facilities. long term.

The county is still investigating the source of these text messages and does not know how many people have received the communication regarding the “additional” vaccines.

Supervisor Joe Simitian said he received several communications on Tuesday about the text asking individuals to register for a vaccine.

“I’m afraid this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Simitian said. “If anyone is able to fundamentally undermine trust in our registration system, it has potentially catastrophic consequences.”

County Director Jeff Smith said flawed texts were bypassing the state’s platform (CalVax) to sign up for a vaccination appointment. This website is outside the jurisdiction of the county.

“We will be contacting the state to determine how to improve the safety of the program,” Smith said. “At the same time, we’re going to be expanding our service population so that we don’t want the left hand to say ‘No, don’t show up’, while the right hand say ‘Yeah, show yourself’. “

It is likely that health care providers in South Bay will soon expand to vaccinate in Phase 1B level 1, which includes people aged 75 and over, as well as other essential workers.

The county reminds all residents that the best way to check if they are currently eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, is to visit the county’s website at sccfreevax.org.

This is the official source of vaccine information in Santa Clara County and includes information on scheduling immunization appointments if a resident is eligible.

To ensure that they meet the vaccination eligibility criteria, each person will be asked to provide a verification of their status when they arrive at a vaccination site for their appointment.

Contact Madelyn Reese at [email protected] and follow her @MadelynGReese.



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