Letter to Honorable Gavin Newsom, Governor of the State of California - Issa Challenges Newsom to Remake State's Flawed Vaccine Scheduling

Letter

Dear Governor Newsom,

I write to request your urgent attention and corrective action to ease the excessive burden faced by far too many Californians when attempting to schedule COVID-19 vaccination appointments. The current COVID-19 patchwork scheduling process has proven excessively cumbersome, complex tiring and inefficient.

There are right now daily news reports of individuals logging on day after day, scavenging for available appointments and being repeatedly denied. In other cases, entire extended families are forced to operate as a team to make one single appointment for an eligible relative. Further, individuals must visit multiple websites for reviewing all potential options - essentially toggling between country-run scheduling, state-website appointments, distribution sites at private pharmacies or other onerous options. Confusion is rampant and the process is convoluted, even for those adept at online forms.

We all agree it should not be this challenging to schedule an appointment. As you announced recently, Blue Shield will begin managing a centralized system to distribute the vaccine. However, only select counties are scheduled to immediately participate in the new system, meaning that uncertainty and confusion abounds for both the initial counties (like Riverside County) and those not included (like San Diego County).

I urge you to work with local, federal, and private entities to create a streamlines appointment process that residents of all counties as soon as possible. At a minimum, individuals should be able to see all public vaccination appointment options, complete all necessary health information in advance, and be added to orderly queues to reduce the stress on individual scheduling an appointment.

Thank you for your urgent attention to ease the burden of scheduling for all Californians who seek to be vaccinated.

Sincerely,

Source