A California program designed to improve the availability of COVID-19 vaccines to people in severely affected communities of color is being abused by outsiders who are seizing appointments reserved for residents of underprivileged Black and Latino areas.
The program to address inequalities in vaccine distribution is based on special access codes that allow people to make appointments on the My Turn vaccine planning website. The codes are provided to community organizations to distribute to people in largely black and Latino communities.
But those codes are also circulating in group texts and messages among the wealthier homeworkers in Los Angeles, The Times has learned. Many of those people are not yet eligible for the vaccine under state rules.
Some of the people who were able to arrange appointments drove to Cal State Los Angeles to take the photos.
It’s unclear how the codes got into the hands of outsiders, but the situation has forced the state to rush to protect the integrity of an equality program that has hailed Governor Gavin Newsom and other officials. The state canceled appointments made with at least one of the access codes after The Times inquired about it last week.
Establishing fairness in the vaccine distribution process has played a major role in the introduction of vaccines in California. Newsom has often spoken about the importance of administering vaccines “through an equal lens.” But there are still wide inequalities in vaccine delivery across the state, with white and Asian residents in affluent areas being vaccinated far more often than black and Latino people in poorer areas.
Under the plan, the state is aiming to set aside a number of appointments every day at Cal State LA and the Oakland Coliseum, according to an email sent to community partners by the director of the Office of Access and Functional Needs at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
The appointment block is only accessible with a specific code, which according to the email changes periodically based on usage.
The codes are for use by people in communities of color who qualify for vaccines, including health professionals and those over the age of 65, but who would otherwise have trouble getting an appointment.
According to Cal OES spokesperson Brian Ferguson, government officials have been contacted by more than 2,000 community groups interested in participating in the program.
But problems with the program surfaced early last week, shortly after the codes became available.
Three separate access codes intended for vulnerable populations in Los Angeles strayed far from their intended recipients and made their way into more affluent professional and social networks, The Times found. In all cases, the origin of the access codes remained unclear. Those who distributed the codes did not seem to realize that they were intended for hard-hit communities. In several cases, people thought they had stumbled upon a pilot program that was open to everyone.
A person who shared an access code with The Times on Thursday said that several of the person’s friends who were otherwise ineligible were able to make vaccination arrangements on the Cal State LA site using the code. As of Sunday evening, several of those people had been vaccinated, the person who asked not to be identified because they didn’t want to offend friends who shared the code. The person, who is white, also described his friends as white and “in braces where they are very protected.”
Another person speaking to The Times said they received a screenshot of a message Tuesday morning with a seven-digit access code and a link to the My Turn website. A friend of a doctor sent the link for COVID-19 vaccine appointments, the original sender wrote. “Apparently it is a new test site that ‘tests their system’ for a few days before opening appointments to the elderly and the sick, etc. Anyone can sign up if there are appointments. Give it a try! “
The code worked when a Times reporter tried it Tuesday morning and opened a page where someone could book an appointment at the newly launched Cal State LA community vaccination center. Another person who spoke to The Times the same day said they got a friend’s access code and didn’t know how that friend got hold of it.
The stated purpose of the access codes is not stated anywhere on the My Turn website, nor does the site say that the codes are only intended for use by certain groups. Even with an access code, the actual appointment times are still limited and are not always available on the site.
The disruption of the program is the latest example of inequality in a pandemic characterized by its disproportionate impact on low-income colored communities. The same problems were reflected in the informal queues for vaccines in the county, where large groups of predominantly white people often camp for hours outside a South LA clinic hoping for an opportunity.
Ferguson acknowledged that there had been instances where a community group forwarded the code to its members “in a very well-intentioned way” and that the email had then been more widely shared with the general public.
“To fix that, we took steps to make sure we monitor and control how the codes are being used very carefully,” he said, explaining that the program was new and that the challenges were being addressed.
Monday night, the codes had spread so quickly through certain social networks that a woman in her 40s living near downtown Los Angeles told The Times that she had received three codes from different people in the past few days.
She had declined to make an appointment, but knew several people – whom she described as white and “non-essential workers” – who had been successfully vaccinated using the codes. “Nobody thinks they are doing anything wrong,” said the woman, who declined to give her name because she did not want to insult those who shared the code with her.
“They have sincerely convinced themselves to believe that these are scraps, that these are pilot tests, open to everyone.”
Times staff writer John Myers contributed to this report.