Coronavirus vaccines in California are hard to come by. Here’s what some residents do.

On Wednesday, amid increasing criticism of the slow-moving vaccination of the state, Governor Gavin Newsom (D) announced that all Californians 65 and older are eligible for the shot.

But if you were a Californian who wanted more information about where you could get the shot for you or your loved one, you would not have been lucky. Although the state’s website has been updated to say that individuals 65 years of age or older are eligible, there are no tools to find a nearby location where vaccines are available. The state’s official questions answer the question: “How can I get the Covid-19 vaccine?” with: “Most California residents will be vaccinated at community vaccination centers, doctor’s offices, clinics or pharmacies” – no links, no instructions on how to find one near you.

So, throaty Californians take matters into their own hands: they are Crowdsourcing it. Over the past two days, an attempt has been made to report on where shots are available for the elderly. Volunteers have set up a spreadsheet with a simple premise: one person can call each place every day and ask if vaccinations are available, and then publish the information so everyone can see. (There is also a way to submit updates and corrections.) Once the team is there confidence in their two-day system, they will open Crowdsourcing and reporting, to gain more help and more publicity so it can reach more Californians.

The abundant list of where Covid-19 vaccines are available, and for whom, is a microcosm of all that is good and all that is completely disintegrated across the United States.‘ response to coronavirus.

Throughout the pandemic, national coordination was lacking, causing public health tasks to fall among countries and provinces that varied dramatically in their willingness to tackle it. Coordination tasks that the government must perform – from ensuring that there is enough personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospital workers to reporting data on Covid-19 cases to letting people know which clinics offer vaccines – have fallen to hospitals themselves , or even individuals.

Against the gloomy background, people acted over and over again to get things done where our institutions failed. In Washington State, University researchers studying influenza were among the first to detect the new coronavirus in the country, while the CDC stumbled. In Florida, a lone scientist kept state citizens informed of coronavirus numbers. Journalists and researchers like Zeynep Tufekci told the public to wear masks and worry about ventilation long before official organizations such as the CDC and WHO recommended it. A group of citizens developed and published a calculator to help people understand the risks of different daily activities.

And now in California, volunteers are trying to figure out which hospitals have enough vaccine supplies to vaccinate elderly Americans. Should such a task be assigned to them? No. But since it is so, I’m glad we have it.

How California Got an Unofficial Vaccine Availability Tool Overnight

Few U.S. states have done an impressive job of launching the much-needed Covid-19 vaccines in the month since the FDA approved it, but the most populous state, California, is among those that have a particularly poor performance. The state with the best vaccination program, West Virginia, used 78.6 percent of the doses sent there; California used 27 percent, making it 49th in the country. (Only Alabama, with 21 percent, performs worse.) Seven percent of West Virginiaers have been vaccinated; only 2.5 percent of Californians have.

On Wednesday, January 13, Newsom announced that people 65 and older in California could be vaccinated as part of an effort to improve the state’s overall vaccination performance. (Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment.) California does lacks the infrastructure for the availability of vaccines that many other states have, although some provinces have their own systems. West Virginia’s vaccination website, for example, lists every clinic that does vaccinations every day, with an address and specific details on how to get a vaccine. Texas has highlighted a large map of vaccination sites throughout the state, with those with availability.

The unofficial dashboard in California Patrick McKenzie, a well-known technology worker and author who is currently at Stripe, a payment company headquartered in San Francisco before the pandemic, met.

McKenzie further explained that he and others who would spend their own money out of pocket would be compensated for setting up a system. Californians immediately chatted with their stories of frustration trying to get a vaccine:

Getting every person in California who needs a vaccine to call every doctor’s office until they get one available is, of course, a terrible way to distribute vaccines; doctors’ offices will be flooded with calls, while at-risk Americans may become discouraged and give up on getting the chance.

So more than 70 volunteers jumped to work. Ideally, each clinic would receive just one call each day, asking about the availability of the day; then the information would be made public so that eligible residents could find out where they could get the vaccine without the call themselves. A Google Spreadsheet is linked and then migrated to an AirTable (a spreadsheet / database service with more flexibility than Google Sheets offers). A list of clinics and hospitals and contact information was compiled, and the team began work.

The reports flooded in, each a window to a chaotic vaccination system. ‘I’m only now 75 and older and asked me to call the Department of Public Health on 408 792 5040 to make an appointment. That number is currently being sent to 211 for Coronavirus-related problems and has otherwise received a full voicemail, ‘read the notes for one report for a hospital.

Another reads, ‘says that Yolo province has not yet had a direction [to start vaccinating elderly Californians], still on [Phase] Only 1A. ”

‘We’re not offering it in LA County yet. “I know Orange County offers it, but you have to be an Orange County resident,” said another caller.

There was also good news. From 14 January Kaiser, the health care system in Oakland, is available to Kaiser patients age 65 and older. Sutter Health, another healthcare system in California, is available to Sutter Health patients 75 years and older. Ralph’s, the grocery store in Southern California, has some slots.

And the site has already been used to get people vaccinated:

But overall, Newsom’s Wednesday statement that people 65 and older are eligible to be vaccinated did not translate into policy changes at the vast majority of California hospitals. Whatever California has so far lagged behind Western Virginia, it will require more than just an extension of suitability – or a major tool – to fix it.

State and local governments have been extraordinarily tested over the past year. Many health departments in California have been an example of how to handle the pandemic, from their early action declaring an emergency in March to the low mortality rate throughout the year.

However, the vaccination made it clear that good local government could not solve everything. Without good coordination and communication across the country and without funding, provinces simply cannot help everyone who qualifies for a vaccine get one. Good provincial governments and individual efforts can take over many important government functions, but without state and federal coordination, the distribution of vaccines will be as chaotic as it should be.

In light of that, liability is perhaps the biggest benefit of a tracking project like this. The call from clinics in California is systematically making it clear that many counties and many hospitals do not vaccinate people 65 and older, whatever Newsom says. In some areas, clinics are still vaccinating their own health workers, although many other states have already vaccinated all willing health workers earlier this month and moved on to other priority groups.

It makes it clear that many of the state’s most vulnerable citizens shuffle between websites and phone lines, often without a vaccine at the end of the journey – and it cuts through the confusion and mess to find the places that to get shots in the arms of older residents.

Eventually, Californians might get answers as to why the vaccine is so bad. In the meantime, however, the answer that can not wait – which clinics are open – is available online.