Riverside County is making 10,000 more consultations available as of noon on Saturday, January 23, for the next coronavirus vaccination clinics in Corona, Menifee, Beaumont and Indio, officials said on Friday, 22 January.
The announcement was made amid public anger over a flawed online application system. The county is switching sites in an attempt to make the process smoother. However, the new site, which is now live and looks like the old one, will still feature a state registration portal that made many residents furious after filling out online forms, only to find that there was no appointment.
The next clinics will be from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, from Monday, January 25, to Friday, January 29, at the following locations:
- Corona High School, 1150 W. 10th St.
- Heritage High School, 26001 Briggs Road, Menifee
- San Gorgonio Middle School, 1591 Cherry Ave., Beaumont
- Indio Fairgrounds (Fullenwider Auditorium), 46350 Arabia St., Indio
Clinics on Mondays and Fridays are open only to the elderly.
Scheduling registrations for clinics can be made at www.rivcoph.org/COVID-19-Vaccine starting at noon on Saturday. Residents aged 65 and over who need help registering can call 211.
Vaccines are free, but those who receive them must register before arrival, make an appointment and provide proof of eligibility. Health insurance information will be requested, but not mandatory.
Riverside County is offering vaccines to residents 65 and older; health professionals, law enforcement, first responders and food and agriculture workers. While about 700,000 county residents can be vaccinated, the county received just 157,775 doses, county spokeswoman Brooke Federico said on Friday.
In San Bernardino County, officials are working with operators from several locations that can serve as “super sites” for vaccinations, said spokesman David Wert. An announcement is planned next week.
Since launching online vaccine registrations last week, Riverside County has seen an overwhelming demand for very limited vaccine supplies. It took just 32 minutes on Thursday, January 21, before all 3,900 appointments available at six weekend clinics in Lake Elsinore, Perris and Indio were claimed.
After the consultation window was opened, county public health officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser tweeted that the county was “aware that some of our residents are having difficulty accessing vaccination appointments on our website … Keep updating your screen ”.
We are aware that some of our residents are having difficulty accessing vaccination appointments on our website. Our IT team is addressing the issue. Continue updating your screen. #RivCoNOW #RUHealth
– Dr. Cameron Kaiser (@RivCoDoc) January 21, 2021
On Thursday night, county officials said “a technical problem with the site’s code” appeared when the nomination window opened.
Although the county has promised a new website, officials said it will still connect to the state’s vaccine registration portal and that “if all appointments are scheduled when completing the state registration, users will not be able to guarantee a time.”
In an email on Friday, Federico said there were two main problems. First, the county’s website did not “work as required” on Thursday, she said, adding that the new website will address that.
Second, the county’s website has links to the state’s website, which “requires residents to enter personal information before guaranteeing a time.” This caused many to fill out online forms before they knew that “there were no more hours available,” said Federico.
“The state system was simply not designed like Ticketmaster,” she said, adding that county officials raised concerns about the state.
“If the county used a different registration system, it would create a duplicate and costly process that would slow down the county’s efforts to administer as much vaccine as quickly as possible.”
In an email to Riverside County supervisors and other leaders, Julie Edmunds, a Temecula resident, detailed her frustration in trying to get nominations for a colleague’s mother and her sister-in-law’s grandparents.
After using six computers, two phones and nine Internet browsers, Edmunds and his colleague managed three appointments, only to see them canceled without an opportunity to reschedule, Edmunds wrote. She was able to take the first dose of the vaccine with her husband, as they both work for a school district.
“These are vaccines (and) not concert tickets or camp reservations,” wrote Edmunds.
“… Although I am happy to help every eligible person I know to get appointments, what about the elderly who have no one to help them? … How are we, as a county, relying on a system that, by its very nature, excludes the people who need the vaccine most? “
The county number 211 helps the elderly and people without access to the Internet to get an appointment, although residents complained that they were unable to reach that number.
To add to the frustration, residents having vaccinations this week in two Riverside County Albertsons had their appointments canceled.
The limited number of employees forced the cancellation of appointments at Murrieta Albertsons, company spokeswoman Melissa Hill wrote in an email, while a scheduling error that led to the double booking forced cancellations at Albertsons in Corona.
In both cases, patients with canceled appointments will be accommodated at nearby Vons pharmacies next week, Hill said.
“These were isolated incidents, and we are working to accommodate as many of these patients as quickly as possible,” she said, adding that pharmacies in Albertsons and Vons will soon begin receiving new consultations.
Gracie Torres, a Riverside resident, spent Thursday trying to get vaccinations for her parents in Beaumont. After she and her brothers tried several times, the family made an appointment for the mother. But the site kept failing and the vacancies were filled so quickly that Torres couldn’t find one for his father.
Torres’ parents, Felipe and Graciela Rivera, 70 and 65, survived fighting with the coronavirus in the summer and the family didn’t want to take any chances.
“It’s frustrating because some of us haven’t seen our parents in almost a year,” said Torres. “I refuse to know that they will not have access and that it will close again. When they announced the vaccines, there was a flash of hope … but that was immediately taken away. I know (the county) is doing its best, but it is extremely frustrating. “
Torres is also chairman of the Board of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, a nonprofit group in the Jurupa Valley that, last week, helped schedule appointments for rural seniors and low-income families of color. None of your contacts have been able to make appointments in the county so far, but they will keep trying.
“They are front-line families that are exposed or older people without access to the Internet. They don’t know when the commitments start. How can they get through, when in a few minutes everything is breaking? “
Richard Gainer, a 65-year-old resident of Corona who called 211 on Thursday, was put on hold for an hour while seeking appointments for him and his wife – only to see vacancies being filled.
He compared his experience with getting tickets to a Paul McCartney concert decades ago.
“I picked up the phone and after 10 minutes, I got the tickets – but I found that his show had sold out in 14 minutes,” said Gainer. “If I hadn’t gotten the tickets, I would have survived. But this is a very different situation. People are doing this now because they want to live. “