Hays County’s Friday Covid-19 vaccine registration was a blatant — one could easily argue criminally negligent — display of bureaucratic ineptitude. It was so badly botched that I had to wonder whether Hays County officials sat around in a room somewhere the week before and discussed ways to make it as incompetent as possible before settling on the plan they unleashed at noon Friday.
I know. I know. I’m supposed to concentrating here on Kyle’s municipal government, but the City is complicit in this negligence because it actually promoted it on its own Facebook site.
For those who are not aware, Hays County announced those eligible for a vaccine could sign up for one, either via computer or by calling a special telephone number, beginning at noon Friday. But instead of conducting an orderly registration process, which is what should have happened, they ran it like one of those old radio shows where the announcer says “And the fifth caller will receive the grand prize of …”
However, instead of the grand prize being a dinner for two at the local Italian restaurant, Hays County was dishing out vaccines that could save your life. And that’s not something to play around with.
So, what happened was, 30 minutes after the Hays-County sponsored game of Russian Roulette began, it ended. “So sorry,” the county said. “We have our winners. No more calls please.”
Look. Handling something like this should be oh so easy. You set up a system that’s always open, an on-line site and/or a telephone number to call, where residents can enter their names, physical and e-mail addresses, birth dates, methods to check off any medical conditions they may have, preferences for the weekday and/or time of day they would prefer to receive the vaccine, and other contact information. Once that’s entered, the resident should receive, either by return e-mail or telephone call, the acknowledgment that they are now registered in the county’s database and what their current position is on the wait-list (and also allow these registrants to periodically return to the same on-line database to get updated information on their wait-list positions). Then, as vaccines become available, these persons are scheduled and are notified of their appointment date, time and place. That’s not rocket-science. It’s efficient and it’s orderly.
But it’s more than just efficient and orderly. The pandemic has added an extra layer of stress on the lives of many residents. Additional layers of stress should be avoided, whenever possible. But Hays County’s Friday debacle was overly stressful in too many ways to count. It’s one thing to keep getting a busy signal when you’re trying to be the fifth caller to the radio station, but it’s quite another when your health is at stake. Imagine a group of terrorists trying to break into your house and you only get a busy signal when you call 9-1-1. Hays County’s handling of its vaccine registration was exactly like not being able to access the emergency call center when you need it the most. And that’s what county officials should be ashamed of. And that’s what City officials were complicit with.
And the worst part of it is it would have been so much easier to do it the right way.
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