Some Marin County residents are misusing access codes for people living in black and Latino communities to schedule vaccine appointments at the Oakland Coliseum through the My Turn state vaccine scheduling system, SFGATE learns.
A source, who obtained anonymity under Hearst’s ethics policy, said the codes are circulating widely among people in Marin, who are scheduling appointments at the Oakland Coliseum, although they are not eligible. He said he made a vaccine appointment at the Colosseum using a code sent to several people via text message. The text message said there were extra vaccines in Oakland, where consultations are opening for anyone to receive these doses. The message advised recipients to access myturn.ca.gov now and enter a code.
The source said he later canceled the appointment when the Los Angeles Times ran a story on Monday, stating that wealthy southern California residents were inadvertently cheating the My Turn system, using the same tactics with access codes circulating through messages. text to get vaccine nominations at California State University Los Angeles. He said he realized the information in the text about extra vaccines available was false.
The codes are part of a California program to remedy inequalities in vaccine distribution and provided to community organizations to distribute them in vulnerable communities for vaccine consultations in Cal State, Los Angeles, and mass vaccination sites. at the Oakland Coliseum. Both sites are part of a state-federal partnership to distribute the vaccine and are designed to reach vulnerable communities.
Liz Kreutz, ABC News reporter shared the LA Times story on Twitter and said it can also confirm that codes are being shared in the bay area. “A woman in Mill Valley showed me the appointment she was able to make at the Oakland Coliseum after friends gave her the code,” Kreutz wrote.
Residents of other counties in the bay area may also be misusing these codes, but the cases that SFGATE learned of were specifically in Marin.
“We reserve a series of vaccines a day for local community organizations that can serve people who do not speak English, the elderly … any number of people who may need a vaccine but may not be able to access it through a system online, “said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, who is managing the distribution of vaccines in Cal State LA and the Coliseum. “Each group receives a group of commitments. These individual community organizations can have 50 or 100 seats and there is an access code to access these commitments on the My Turn website. We saw that some of these groups forwarded these codes to their members and then those members are forwarding to the general public. “
Ferguson said the state is aware that the codes are being misused and that daily audits are underway to track the problem and prevent it from occurring.
“When we identify that this is happening, we go ahead and cancel those commitments,” said Ferguson. “It happened in several cases.”
He said that people with a vaccination indication are not required to verify their eligibility with the documentation on the Colosseum website.
“One of the reasons why we are doing this is because the communities we serve, we understand that there may be people with different immigration status and we want to be careful not to scare or intimidate people,” said Ferguson, adding that those who apply for a My Turn commitment are filling out a government form and it is illegal to falsify information. “If you fill it out in a false way, it can have repercussions for that.”
Although Marin County Health Director Dr. Matt Willis could not comment on any specific examples of residents in his county using inappropriate access codes, he is not surprised that this is happening.
“This will be an ongoing challenge, access to the vaccine for our most marginalized residents,” said Willis. “The same factors that put people at greater risk of COVID-19 infections also put them at a disadvantage in access to vaccines. They tend to have a lower income and at the other end of the digital divide. The vaccine registration process is a technical one, and corresponds to actual consultations at a vaccine clinic. It is difficult to find ways to protect access with this mechanism. This is just the most recent version of a series of similar episodes. “
Willis said that in December the county was vaccinating health workers and distributed a link for people to schedule their appointments.
“This link found its way to a social media site and ended up separating itself from the whole other context,” said Willis. “Suddenly, the public saw this link and a few lucky ones, before it was filled out almost instantly, were able to register for visits. Fortunately, when they registered for an appointment, we received their contact information. We were able to get in. contact and say, ‘Hey, this was meant for a different group. Please cancel your appointment.’ “
Willis said that 1,200 appointments were canceled in this situation and health professionals received the vacancies.
“It all stems from scarcity,” he said. “You wouldn’t have to do surveillance if everyone gets vaccinated in a short time.”