photo by: Ashley Golledge

A sign points to LMH Health's drive-thru COVID-19 vaccination center on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020.

Lawrence resident Deb Umberger received a text alert Wednesday night at 6:23 p.m. informing her that residents over the age of 65 could register for a drive-thru vaccination clinic.

It was the first opportunity for Douglas County residents who qualified for Phase 2 of the state’s vaccination plan to sign up to receive a COVID-19 dose. Just over an hour earlier, Gov. Laura Kelly had announced that the state would move to Phase 2 on Thursday.

Umberger had been eager to get the shot for weeks. She hasn’t seen her 91-year-old mother in over a year. When she heard the clinic would be on Jan. 29, she was already thinking about how it would be a gift to receive her first vaccine dose that day — her birthday.

So the 68-year-old immediately followed the link in the alert, filled out her personal information and tried to select a time. But as she scrolled, she said, all the time slots had already been taken. Umberger was shocked and frustrated — only about one minute had passed since she received the notification, she said. She assumed others had been notified before her.

“If it is not true that some people got the info ahead of other people, the way it was rolled out yesterday gave that appearance. It gave people in the community less confidence that it would be handled fairly and equitably,” she said of the local vaccine distribution process.

George Diepenbrock, spokesperson for Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, said Thursday that there was about a five-minute delay from when the link to sign up was disseminated via certain news sources and when the alerts came in on residents’ phones. The link to sign up for a vaccine time slot went out between 6:15 and 6:18 p.m. via the county’s daily COVID-19 update, a health alert on its website and a news release. The alerts arrived to residents’ phones about five minutes later.

“We sought to manage putting out the information we had on our various channels, and because it was the first time, we learned some lessons in the process,” Diepenbrock said.

In the future, Diepenbrock said the health department plans to ensure that the phone alerts will go out first before sending the link out to other channels. The health department is still encouraging residents to sign up for the alerts via text, email and phone at dgcoks.org/emalerts.

“We are hoping to get more doses to add appointments for Jan. 29, and we would announce any additional times for that date or future clinics through those alerts,” he said. “Due to limited vaccine availability at this time these initial clinics will fill up very quickly. As we get more vaccine we will establish and publish dates and times as quickly as possible.”

Diepenbrock said that the available slots filled quickly because of the large number of people interested in signing up for appointments. The last appointment was booked around 6:39 p.m., meaning all 500 slots were filled in less than 25 minutes.

On Thursday afternoon, at 4:45 p.m., Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health added an additional 460 appointments to the Jan. 29 clinic. Those appointments were filled 13 minutes after the alert was published through the Douglas County Notification System, according to Diepenbrock.

Umberger said she called the health department Thursday and was told there were some appointments made a few minutes before she tried to schedule hers, as well as more appointments made after she received the alert.

Umberger called the process “a competition.” That could have been avoided, she said, had there been a process in place that resembled a line. The information Umberger had to fill out before choosing a time slot could have been collected months in advance, she said. The health department could have had a database in place of residents who were wishing to receive a vaccine, when one became available.

Umberger stressed that she isn’t “trying to jump the line at all, but I want there to be a line and there isn’t.”

She also noted that the competitive nature of the sign-up process disadvantages older members of the 65-plus population or those with disabilities.

When asked if the health department considered rolling out the process in a way that didn’t feel like a competition, Diepenbrock said it was “an unfortunate reality” stemming from “the current imbalance of supply and demand.” An estimated 40,000 people are qualified for Phase 2 in Douglas County, he said, and the health department has only received 500 doses thus far.

“We’re working to have an approach that tries to balance everyone inside Phase 2, and until we get more vaccine, it’s going to feel like there’s not enough,” he said.

The health department is working with Douglas County to develop a form that would allow citizens to indicate their interest in the vaccine and identify in which phase they believe they would qualify so that the health department can effectively communicate to schedule them as doses become available.

“We believe this will help with the notification process going forward, and we will announce that when it’s ready,” Diepenbrock said.

Diepenbrock also shared the concern that certain members of the 65 plus population might have difficulty signing up for the vaccine online. He said the health department first recommends that anyone in the population group who does not have internet access seek help from a family member or friends to register them. If that is not possible, Diepenbrock said, the health department is keeping a contact list of individuals without that access. The health department is partnering with Douglas County’s Senior Resource Center to assist seniors who don’t have internet access.