Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day two d since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today's main story as states struggle to piece together vaccine strategies without a coordinating national plan, some have resorted to web based technology for logistical support. The result they're lining up appointments using software that's better suited for arranging volleyball meetups than a historic public health campaign. But first, here's what happened in
virus News today. But Durnas COVID nineteen vaccine won the backing of the drug regulator in the European Union. That clears the way for a second weapon to stem the viruses winter resurgence in Europe. EU leaders are facing growing pressure to speed up clearance and deployment of vaccines as cases surge across the continent. The Nation Block began immunizations last week with the Fiser vaccine, but the pace of the rollout has been uneven. In England, more than one
million people now have coronavirus. That's according to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who unveiled official statistics from a government report on Wednesday. Rocketing case rates from the new virus strain mean one person in every fifty in England now has the illness. In London the number is one in thirty. Johnson vowed to speed up the government's vaccination program in
order to eventually lift the latest lockdown. Finally, experts advising the world Help the Organization on Vaccine Policies recommended against spreading the interval between two doses beyond twenty eight days. That followed a move by the UK to extend the period between shots to as much as twelve weeks in
an effort to maximize coverage. Alejandro Craviotto, chairman of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, said in a statement that countries facing quote exceptional circumstances of vaccine supply constraints end quote can delay the second dose for a few weeks, but data on safety and efficacy after only one dose is lacking. And now for today's main story.
It's the most massive vaccine rollout in US history, but many local governments are lining up patient appointments using web based services better known for handling birthday party r s, vps and online yoga sessions. The patchwork of approaches to coordinating vaccines means that several Florida counties have deployed event Right, Some Oklahoma governments dabbled with sign Up Genius, and in some areas, vaccine seekers are kept on hold for hours
on appointment hotlines, only to be disconnected. I spoke with a Lease Young who reported on the technological solutions states are turning to when coordinating through vaccine plans. Given the shaky rollout of the COVID nineteen vaccines in the US, some areas have taken to let's call them unconventional means of allocating appointments for receiving the vaccine. I was wondering if you could just tell us a bit about some
of these methods. It's been interesting across the country. Some local governments have chosen to run their own portal UH,
usually in conjunction with their COVID information page. Some states have left it up to counties to take care of themselves, and counties have then turned to such services as event Bright or sign Up Genius, which people more typically use for things such as pot luck dinners, car pools, these sort of things that you know a community would use, and you know what what has led really to to you know, say, either health systems, local governments adopting these
these shall we say, as you said, more social platforms for signing up for vaccines. Well, it's odd because state governments largely haven't given too much information to people on which service to use. For instance, New Jersey has a vaccination sign up page of its own uh and then uh, and that went live yesterday and then it started to crash, um and then UH. Counties have their own sign up
systems and their own vaccination sites. But we were really not sure if you're a person who's seeking a vaccine, even if you're in that first group. Well, do I use the state service? Do I use event right, do I use that the county service? Or do I call a hotline. I spoke to one woman who's eighty four year old father lives in Chattanooga, in Tennessee, and he learned that there was no sign up required, just show up. And he did and he waited in line for I
believe she said six hours. His car was twelve from the front when they were told they had run out of vaccine. Uh. This is a gentleman who has a heart and lung condition and who was relying on supplemental oxygen, and he was so fed up he told his daughter, I'm not going back. I'm not doing this. I'm just going to wait until my doctor has the vaccine and
that's where I'm going. And is this perhaps a result that there is just so much demand an interest for these vaccines that they are causing these, say more established
or more state run systems to crash. I must say it's puzzling because governments, state and local governments have had many, many months heads up that a vaccine was on the way, and it was easy for them to say and understandable for them to say early on with the testing effort that was falling apart, we've never had anything like this. Agents are scarce, there's uh, there's only so many laboratories that can process this stuff. And I think people understood that.
They weren't happy with it, but they understood it. In this case, six months ago we knew about Operation Warp Speed and here comes a vaccine. And just the other day in New Jersey, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy was saying, while the rollout has been on the slower side because we don't have the personnel to do the inoculations, so we're asking retirees to medical retirees to come in and do these inoculations. Well, did you or did you not
know that vaccines were on the way? Why are we waiting now while we have this stuff in stock and ready to go, Why are we waiting now to ask folks to come forward and help out? In your opinion, do you think that this perhaps is a result of the rollout being pushed more to the state level rather than a a larger federal oversight of this rollout program. In the state's defense, they've never done anything like this before, UM, and also they there's been a clear leadership vacuum at
the federal level. At the same time, some people are asking, well, where is the Federal Emergency Management Agency on this? It's helped in hurricanes, natural disasters of all kinds, and there's been no sign of a FEMA presence for at least that I'm aware of, for vaccinations. Earlier this year, they were in hard hit states like New York and New Jersey setting up mobile hospitals UM that were used by by folks who were, you know, coming out of hospital
care and not quite ready to go home. And it seems that FEMA has the expertise for something like this, even the military, but state governments are kind of throwing up their hands and saying there's no playbook for this. And you you mentioned some of the some of the platforms that the states are turning to like event right. Has there been any mention of potential security concerns in using platforms like this that weren't necessarily meant for, say,
distributions of vaccines. Well, this is another question that we reporters have and have asked event right and sign Up Genius and similar services, and they haven't gotten back to us. Uh. My colleague tried multiple times. So we really don't know what kinds of information they're collecting, who has access to it, whether folks are being asked to say, disclose um medical conditions. And the same goes for the state based electronic sites.
How much information do I have to give exactly? And can any state employee take a look at at my file and learn what medications I'm using? Uh, there is a hippo component here, and we're not certain whether these sites comply about these sites as far as you know, the companies behind them, what is their perspective or what has their reaction been to their sites being used in this fairly unconventional way that they may not have foreseen a year ago. Some of the sites are actively courting
the vaccination effort. They're putting out posts that say, if you have vaccinations to give, here's how we can be of service to you. Are others kind of pushing back and and are not perhaps welcoming this, this use of their platform. Not that I'm aware of, the state of Oklahoma, though early on was a an adopter of one of these online UH sites, and and then a few days later they announced without explanation that they were not going to use one of these sites, that they had their
own portal set up. And I don't know why that is. I don't know why they have abandoned that, if it's statewide, if it's just county by county. Governments haven't really been forthcoming with information on this. I mean, looking ahead, you know, we're in the very early days of vaccine distribution in
the US. I mean, can we perhaps hopefully see these as essentially early growing pains as governments confront this immense logistical challenge UM going forward, do we think that there will be an increased reliance on these types of sites, or do you think that the overwhelmed um, say state runs systems, websites, etcetera, are going to be able to kind of meet this surge. And and this really is a small hiccup in the road of vaccine distribution. I'm
not sure whether this is a hiccup. Certainly part of the problem is that one of the vaccines must be kept super cold, so you do have an issue of you have to direct people to a site where that sort of vaccine can be accommodated. But I wonder if maybe these sign ups are really a solution in search
of a problem. If you tell folks if their last names start with A, B and C, to show up at this site on such and such a date, and everybody line up, it could be as simple as that, we've all gotten a flu shot, right, We've all gone to our national chain pharmacy or a doctor's office, and you're in and out, and if it's too crowded, you go back at a different time. I'm not really sure
how this appointment system is going to work. What happens if a whole bunch of people don't show up for whatever reason, whether or they just skip the appointment, and now we have a lot of this sensitive vaccine that must be put into in an arm very soon after thought, what do we have a lot of that lying around? I don't know what becomes of it. That was a
lease Young, and that's it for our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one bureaus around the world, visit bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Topher foreheads Magnus Hendrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Elise Young.
Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesca Levi. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening, Tol