Arizona vaccine appointment system needs a makeover

They are the last of America’s Greatest Generation, our mothers and fathers and grandparents and great-grandparents. Men and women who went to war and saved the world.

Now they and the slightly younger members of the Silent Generation cannot save themselves.

While Arizonans — people who are much younger than they are, much more computer savvy than they are and far, far less at risk than they are — cruise in to State Farm Stadium to get vaccinated against COVID-19, they sit at home and wait and worry and hope that someone remembers they exist.

“We are feeling absolutely left out and shunted to the point we think the only time we will get any attention is when we get the virus,” 85-year-old Don Reville told The Arizona Republic, his voice breaking. “I need someone to know how bad and how left out we feel. I need to know someone out there knows we are here at all.” 

Scheduling is like 'Lord of the Flies'

Reville has a medical condition that affects his breathing. His 84-year-old partner has diabetes. For them, COVID-19 is a likely death sentence yet they cannot get vaccinated. Even if they could, by some miracle, get an appointment, they have no way to get there.

And they are not alone.

Gov. Doug Ducey touts the state’s mass vaccination site as a major success in bringing us one step closer to ending the pandemic. But the state’s approach is more survival of the fittest (or the most affluent) than it is equal opportunity.

In our understandable zeal to elbow out the competition and get this nightmare behind us, truly vulnerable people are being left smack in the crosshairs of COVID-19.

The old, the poor, the average Joe who doesn’t have the luxury of sitting at his computer at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday when appointments open up. They don’t have the computer skills to figure out how to score one of the precious timeslots before 9:39 a.m., when all 21,000 are gone, filled for the entire month.

“The whole system advantages the wealthy and the educated and the young,” Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, told me. “It’s like Lord of the Flies. Whoever is Johnny on the spot (gets the appointments) – who’s got the fastest computer, who’s got the most flexible job so you can hit the internet between 9 a.m. and 9:39 a.m. Try to do that if you work at a grocery store and you’re trying to get an appointment for your mom. By the time of your break, all appointments for the month are gone.”

Minnesota does it a lot better

The state won’t tell us who is getting vaccinated at its mass vaccination sites. I’m guessing it’s because the hotspots of the already inoculated are smack in the middle of the state’s nicer neighborhoods.

“When I talk to vaccinators, they say they see a Tesla, then a BMW, then a Tahoe,” Humble said, of the drive-in site. “They all say that these are wealthy people going through the State Farm POD (point of dispensing).”

There must be a better, fairer way to distribute the vaccine other than doling it out like coveted tickets the year’s hottest rock concert – where it’s first come, first served and most are left out in the cold.

In fact, there is a better way, one that offers the promise of more equity and whole lot less frustration.

Humble points to Minnesota’s lottery system, though that system, too, has had its own problems in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

The concept, though, is worth considering: You go online or call a number to register once, then you’re put on a list. No muss, no fuss, no sitting for hours on hold or in front of a computer, only to be told better luck next month.

As vaccines become available, the state then randomly selects qualified people from the list and schedules appointments the following week.

Use CARES Act cash to call an Uber

In Arizona, the state could weight the appointments to ensure that people from all over town were being vaccinated, not just the ones who cruise up in Teslas and BMWs.

To ensure that those most at risk got priority over those with the fastest computers or the strongest Wi-Fi.

And for people like Mr. Reville, who have no way to get there?

That’s easily handled. In its registration form, the state could ask whether there is a need for transportation.

Surely, Ducey could use some of that CARES Act funding he’s been hoarding – perhaps the $396 million he diverted to state agencies to create a state budget surplus – to contract with Uber or a cab company to pick up the poor and the infirm and bring them to State Farm Stadium.

President Joe Biden, after a virtual tour of State Farm Stadium on Monday, hailed the state for doing a “great job” and predicted that other NFL cities will be looking to emulate Arizona’s 24/7 mass vaccination site.

“I think they’re going to be coming to you to look at how you did it because you’re doing such a great job,” Biden told Dr. Cara Christ, the state’s health services director.

What a 'great job' would look like

Actually, the state isn't doing a great job.  But it could be, with an overhaul of its clunky, complicated appointments system.

A great job would mean that people like Mr. Reville wouldn’t have to wonder if he’s been forgotten. He thousands like him would be vaccinated before others who are far younger and blessedly healthier cruise through to get their cure.

A great job would mean the clerk at the grocery store has an equal chance with the lawyer in his corner office to score an appointment.

A great job means those who live in south Phoenix are inoculated at the same rate as those in north Scottsdale.

A great job will happen when Ducey and Christ not only talk about equal access but create an appointments system that assures it.

What a shot in the arm it would be for the entire state, to know that we are taking care of those who most need it before those best situated to get it.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.