A Dozen Counties Criticized OptumServe for Vaccine Clinic Problems, Documents Show
California agreed to pay OptumServe up to $221 million during the pandemic to coordinate and operate dozens of vaccination sites.
But the health care company’s work in at least a dozen counties has been plagued by miscommunication and staffing shortages.
Officials from at least 12 counties complained to the state Department of Public Health about delays and other problems with OptumServe, saying that the problems hampered their ability to get shots into arms, according to state documents obtained through a Public Records Act request.
The company has fallen far short of the up to 100,000 daily vaccine doses it told the state in its contracts that it could deliver. It has helped administer about 370,000 doses since January just 1.1% of California’s nearly 34 million during that span. At several vaccine sites, OptumServe failed to deliver the minimum 420 doses it pledged to distribute each day
Credit Craig Camp / flickr http://j.mp/1SPGCl0
Each year, Michigan becomes a temporary home to tens of thousands of migrant and seasonal farmworkers, and Lupita Perales with the United Farmworkers Foundation says some of them have been arriving with unfounded fears about the COVID-19 vaccines.
It’s tough to know what kind of information those workers have gotten before their arrival in Michigan, so she’s working on distributing flyers and holding Facebook live sessions to disseminate the facts.
“I don’t know what information has been going on in Georgia, Texas or Florida,” she says. “But I’m just making accurate information available.”
A Path to Citizenship Is on the Horizon for Undocumented Farmworkers civileats.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from civileats.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The fight to end the coronavirus devastation throughout California s heartland extends to the Mexico border, where migrant farmworkers heading north to pick lettuce, broccoli, carrots and other crops are offered a vaccination as soon as they enter the United States.
2021/04/03 23:14 FILE - In this Jan. 21, 2021, file photo, Hispanic farm workers wait in line to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in Mecca, Calif. Volunteers in Ca. FILE - In this Jan. 21, 2021, file photo, Hispanic farm workers wait in line to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in Mecca, Calif. Volunteers in California are working to ensure that the thousands of farmworkers who toil in the fields every day are receiving coronavirus vaccinations. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File) FILE - In this March 3, 2021, file photo, farmworkers wait in line to receive the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a County of Santa Clara mobile vaccinati.