Written By Joseph Perez
Volunteers who have placed their lives on the line in order to help their fellow Californians are being hung out to dry by the Newsom Administration. Thousands of people signed up to volunteer at Covid-19 vaccination sites through Newsoms’ $50 million MyTurn program. However, the website tasked with organizing them into groups, assigning shifts, and keeping track of them has not been working. The website, launched early as a political tool to make it seem like the Governor’s Office was on top of things, has been a complete flop.
Volunteers were persuaded to join with the promise of receiving a vaccine for Covid-19. However, out of the over 251,000 Californians who have volunteered, only 379 have been able to book vaccine appointments. Due to the mismanagement of the Governor’s website, the state missed the opportunity to have hundreds of thousands of people volunteer and be vaccinated all around California. When the website is up and running, it is barely doing its job. According to CalMatters, the MyTurn website only accounted for about 27% of all Covid-19 vaccine doses given each day across the state.
One of the biggest critiques of the Governors’ website has been that he and his administration failed to properly coordinate with local organizations and clinics. The majority of people who wanted to volunteer were not able to do so due to his inattentive leadership. However, many organizations are hesitant to criticize the Governor due to their political affiliations. Clinics and vaccination sites have had to take their own measures when it comes to hiring volunteers. According to the President and CEO of VolunteerMatch, “the biggest problem with MyTurn Volunteer as a system is that (state officials) massively underestimated peoples willingness to help.”
This rhetoric is clearly missing the quarter-million Californians eager to help at vaccine clinics, it seems like the biggest problem with MyTurn has been its inability to produce results. Thanks to a flawed and rushed roll-out California has had a hard time getting vaccines out to the population until very recently.
Photo via Craig Kohlruss
