Hi, folks. Here we are in 2021 and the hottest stocks are GameStop, Blackberry, and AMC. Does anyone want to buy a slightly used Amiga?
I am old. At least, old enough to be eligible for an inoculation that will lessen the chance that Covid will kill me. Naturally, I sought to get one. My hospital provider had already sent me a series of don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you messages. So I web-surfed to the vaccine finder site provided by my city of residence, known as the richest, most sophisticated metropolis in the world—and found a disaster of epidemic proportions.
In order to make an appointment, I had to affirm my eligibility, answer almost 60 questions, upload the front and back images of my health insurance card, and then choose one of a few vaccination sites offering the shots. Some of these required an additional sign-up, which asked for even more personal health data. Only then was I presented with a calendar of potential dates over the next few months. I clicked on a date and got a message saying there were no appointments that day. Or the next. Or the next. There were three months of dates to click on, and none with slots available. So I tried another site—and found I had to repeat the entire process again. Only to find out that there were no appointments at that one, either.
The New York State website wasn’t as bad, but I still had to check out all the places within a couple hundred miles—again no luck, kicked back to square one. I couldn’t help but wonder whether the feuding governor or mayor of my home state and city had ever heard of the words waiting list.
(For the record, NYC Department of Health spokesperson Victoria Merlino says that since there are different providers offering vaccines, the multiple entries of information “ensures that the vaccinating provider has the patient information they need.” But can’t they tell me first if they have any vaccines?)
This experience is not unique to New York. In many states, people are struggling with similar issues. Somehow, in 2021, when people can get almost anything from internet companies with just a few swipes and clicks, millions of Americans can’t get connected to literally save their lives.
How did this happen? After speaking with some sources, I was able piece together a narrative of why those online vaccine finders wound up creating so much unnecessary stress. Apparently, many of the states and localities figured that the federal government would give them guidance on vaccine administration. But the federal government went AWOL on this issue, and the states had to figure it out for themselves. (Gee, who would have guessed that the Trump administration wouldn’t ace this test?) But those already battered governments didn’t have the time, nor resources, to execute the best web design. Also, the sites they built were constructed to conform with lists of regulations instead of optimizing user experience. And of course when the number of people eligible for a vaccine exceeded the unexpectedly sparse supply, everything got worse.
“In practice, you could have these big forms” to fill out, says Ryan Panchadsaram, cofounder of US Digital Response. “But when reality hits, plans are thrown out the window. There were never any large-scale drills on usability or distribution until now.”
The situation is reminiscent of the Obama administration’s botched registration site for the Affordable Care Act, which Panchadsaram helped rescue. Only this time, instead of one digital dumpster fire to extinguish, there are thousands, down to the county level.
In California, a rescue is underway. Last year, after it became clear that the federal government had no plans for a centralized site, our most populated state also punted on a statewide version, leaving the 58 counties and three cities to figure out their own solutions. When eligibility expanded this month, chaos ensued: “Californians … have spent hours on screens and on the phone, fruitlessly searching for appointments,” wrote the Times of San Diego. “Some online platforms have buckled under the strain, going dark for hours at a time.” The best information wound up coming not from the state but from a former Stripe engineer who created a crowdsourced vaccination finder using information acquired by phoning hundreds of pharmacies, hospitals, and other providers.
At that point, Governor Gavin Newsom suddenly awakened to the concept of a simplified, centralized solution. The state’s CIO, Amy Tong, working with her department’s chief strategist, Justin Cohan-Shapiro, helped put together a team very much in the spirit of the original Healthcare.gov rescue squad—a core of 15 engineers and designers, with support from other state personnel and workers from Salesforce and Skedulo. The result, a site called MyTurn, gives quick vaccine information to any California resident. Though still in its pilot stage, MyTurn can also schedule appointments in San Diego and LA and will eventually service the whole state.
The secret, Cohan-Shapiro says, was common sense. “We asked what are the logical questions that people might have and gave them what they need using the least information possible.”
How long did it take to build MyTurn? Nine days. Nine days. It’s damning evidence that the pain caused by the online chaos—and the online abominations throughout the country—has been totally unnecessary. Yes, states, counties, and local governments have been under tremendous stress for the past year. Still, we have known for months that vaccines were coming and that there would be a period where demand would far exceed supply. Why did we have to produce something awful before we started to build something adequate?
Meanwhile, here in New York, neither the state nor city has unveiled a slick replacement for their miserable websites. But to their credit, the sites now no longer condemn users to filling out long forms before telling them that they have no appointments. When you go to the New York City Vaccine Finder now, you are told right away that there are no vaccines available, and they even take your email address to notify you when new slots are available—if you can grab one before everybody else. Which is why I check my inbox every few minutes to see if my hospital is finally ready for me.
In August 2018, I recounted the Healthcare.gov rescue as part of the origin story of the United States Digital Service. Here’s what happened when the small crew of Silicon Valley engineers assessed the damage of the original site:
They got a firsthand look at why government IT is so expensive—and dismal. Even as the site collapsed, the dozens of contracted developers toiling on the site seemed weirdly detached, methodically producing code for arcane new features. Only later did the members of the tech surge realize that this behavior had been preordained by the way the federal government wrote its contracts. Perhaps to satisfy as many of the handful of big contractors as possible, contractors were hired to work only on discrete pieces of the puzzle—the features of the website, the security protocols, the accessibility requirements, and hundreds of other details. But none of the contracts dealt with overall performance issues, like the speed at which the website should respond to a user’s input. No contractor was responsible for even making sure the site was operational.
Gaps like this were standard practice, an artifact of a procurement system routinely manipulated by contractors and protected by their political allies. “As soon as you do one of these projects you break it up into pieces and hire five contractors to work on it,” Dickerson said soon after completing his work on the rescue. “They aren’t helping each other at all, nobody cares about the delivery of the project, everybody only cares about who’s going to get awarded the next contract. So everything they do is meant to make the other contractors look bad.” That means, when a setback arises, more energy is spent avoiding blame than accepting responsibility and fixing the problem.
Joel asks, “In your opinion, what is the biggest tech game changer right now for 2021? I'm not seeing much out there. I've been a tech hobbyist since TRS-80 and Commodore PET days. It used to be that every five years technology would be vastly changed and by 10 years reinvent itself with the old being completely obsolete. I don't see that today.”
Joel, you answered your own question. Those days are gone. What changes our lives in this stage of technology isn’t flashy new gadgets but the apps that live on those devices. One possible exception might be the long-promised augmented reality glasses that will layer omniscient dashboards onto our fields of vision. But if they do arrive this year, I’m pretty sure they won’t provide the Minority Report technology we’ve been waiting for (and dreading, because of privacy issues). Anyway, for me, 2021’s biggest game changer would be the ability to leave my house without risking death. At this point, having that would be bigger than the iPhone.
You can submit questions to mail@wired.com. Write ASK LEVY in the subject line.
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