Amid a chaotic COVID-19 vaccine rollout, states find ways to connect shots with arms - msnNOW

Under a decentralized national health care system and a chaotic COVID-19 vaccine rollout, states find their own ways to reach and vaccinate residents.

States and counties are getting better at the nitty-gritty of what's required to get COVID-19 vaccine into arms, but distribution still varies because of the nation's fractured and underfunded health system?

“This is really a function of the total chaos of 50 state health systems in an uncoordinated, unresponsive, underreported system to the federal government,” said Barry Bloom, an immunologist and former dean of the Harvard T.H.

Vaccine tracker: Tracking COVID-19 vaccine distribution by state: How many people have been vaccinated in the USA.

“We had people who wanted to talk to a real person, so we got them.

Contrast that with Massachusetts, where the release of COVID-19 vaccine appointments resulted in initialwait times ofmorethan 40 hours and people reporting 95,000 people ahead of them in line.

“Obviously, that wasn’t sustainable,” Parker said, so she picked up the phone herself and found 20 collegestudents at the state’s two schools of public health to do field study placements answering calls.

"They're going to come out of this as vaccine champions, and they're doing a fantastic job," Parker said.

A courier drives them to providers who may need as few as 20 doses, said Molly Howell, immunization director for the state’s Department of Health.

But if you’re not getting the most vulnerable populations – over 65, over 75, people with comorbidities, African Americans and Latinx – you’re not going to save that many lives,” said Bloom, the former Harvard dean

There’s no standard public health infrastructure to identify who’s at risk, said Dr

health care system is really finely tuned to delivering health care services to people with means,” he said

To make sure vaccine reaches everyone, contact tracers are retrained as vaccine navigators to help people through the process of signing up to be immunized

The navigators call people who in the past year had a possible exposure to COVID-19 to tell them when they’re eligible to get vaccinated

Sarah Rudman, public health director for the Santa Clara County Public Health Department

That effort is ramping up this week as the county broadens its vaccine eligibility group to include essential workers in child care and education, agriculture and food service and emergency services workers, Rudman said

To ensure people in the hardest-hit communities get appointments, “we make those calls first,” she said

Calling to tell people they may have been exposed to COVID-19 and need to quarantine for two weeks was never easy

“We’ve had folks who are in tears, she said, "people who never thought this day would come.”