According to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker, California only administered 37.3% of its vaccine supply.
Locally, the residents of Riverside County are among those expressing their frustration at not being able to sign up for vaccine appointments on the county’s website.
“It doesn’t sleep me out, but let’s put it this way, I’m tired of being locked up,” said Menifee’s Cynthia Edwards, who says she’s not only in the 65+ category, but also a substitute teacher.
She said every time she’s tried to sign up for vaccine appointments on the Riverside County website, none are available.
“I know people 20 years younger than us who seem to get it,” Edwards said. “I don’t know what’s going on here.”
“I called my own healthcare provider and they said they had received 2,000 vaccines. They are running an algorithm raffle so they can determine which of their 10,000 patients is most at risk of getting it.”
Riverside County officials acknowledged a glitch on their website that caused it to crash shortly after the appointments were announced at noon on Thursday. They say that although the outage has been fixed, it is not entirely in their control.
“The website is a partnership in that part of it through the county, and part of it is through a state platform,” says Dr. Geoffrey Leung from Riverside University Health System. The state platform is currently being updated.
Leung said a pilot program is being tested by two other counties to see if improvements to the platform will be beneficial and increase the stability of the county’s COVID-19 vaccine websites. But the biggest problem is not the website itself, but rather the limited supply of the vaccine.
“The main challenge we have with the vaccine right now is delivery,” said Leung. “If you look at the state of California, the total allocation so far is only enough to administer vaccine to 5% of the population.”
Riverside County has announced another 10,000 vaccination appointments that will be available online next Saturday at noon. These agreements can be made here on the province’s website.
Residents of San Bernardino County can request a vaccination appointment at the county site here.
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