April 26, 2021 – California is home to 40 million people who speak 220 different languages. Our families live in some of the country’s largest urban areas and most remote outposts, with incomes that range from below poverty level to spectacular wealth. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, our challenge was to create an effective vaccine delivery system to serve every Californian where they are now.
Some recent media reports ignore the huge contribution MyTurn has made to California’s vaccine effort. To understand the scale of the MyTurn system that has existed for three short months, it’s useful to compare it with the US state ranking on Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. On average week of April 19, about 100,000 vaccines were delivered per day that were found through the MyTurn system. That volume puts the system in seventh place among states—just below Illinois and just above Ohio. There are 43 states in the union delivering less vaccine per day than MyTurn.
Before MyTurn, California was ranked dead last in vaccine distribution in America. The 61 different vaccine distribution systems each designed to serve a niche community left a void of data needed to optimize and accelerate vaccine delivery. We were able to pull together most of these jurisdictions to provide the largest view of vaccine appointments across California in a system that met individual needs of providers. The launch of MyTurn has helped California vaccinate nearly half of its most impacted residents by directing vaccine to communities in the lowest quartiles of the Healthy Places Index where most deaths have occurred.
There was a bump or two along the way as we ramped up quickly. But overall the system has performed optimally even with surges in traffic, and we have worked with our local health jurisdiction partners to add new features and make continuous improvements. Because we value innovation, we have also partnered with bot developers to get the word out on appointment availability without compromising security.
We want to vaccinate every eligible Californian and are encouraged that the public is eager to find appointments. We urge those unvaccinated to register on myturn.ca.gov to receive text updates or find an appointment. The good news is that as supply has increased so have appointments, which are now plentiful on the site. To date, more than 6 million appointments have been found through MyTurn’s search.
MyTurn is truly the front door to vaccination and serves Californians from all parts of the state, with multilingual support and easy scheduling to make sure we leave no communities behind. Individuals who aren’t online can ask questions and make appointments by calling 1-833-422-4255.