California’s vaccination appointment system has been overwhelmed with people trying to book a slot.
Preschool teacher Camila Santos said she’s had nothing but trouble trying to nail down an appointment on the My Turn website.
“I went to the My Turn website and it always crashes,” Santos said.
With persistence, she finally was able to access the appointment page that only listed one date for Mar. 4 with 20 different timeslots. She picked one and was directed to another page for her to book her second dose appointment. That’s when she ran into another roadblock. “It crashes there and that has been happening since Feb. 28,” she said.
Miraculously, sheer persistence gave here another chance to make an appointment. But when it came to the second dose there were no available appointments she said.
Joe Smith complains that though immunocompromised people are prioritized, there seems to be a huge group excepted with no guidance for them.
“People with HIV and AIDS are very prominently not mentioned and as a long-time HIV activist in the city and the state, I smell a rat,” Smith said.
One My Turn user wrote on Twitter, “There is no direction, no update. I am a 45 year old with chronic asthma and can’t even sniff one.”
Teacher Erin McFerrin was able to book an appointment but it was not easy.
“It was really exciting to be prioritized as an educator, but it was really kind of frustrating and difficult,” McFerrin said.
She said users don’t have time to choose between the available appointments saying, “You can’t be like, ‘Do I want to go at 11:10 a.m. or 11:20.’ You just have to click it or it will disappear. ”
Another person tweeted, “Worked great three days in a row early last week. Booked an appointment for myself and family members in five minutes for last weekend no problem.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom said he is aware of the problems with the My Turn website and is working to make the site more robust and easier to use.
